Abstract
The paper comprises rock art motifs from the Northern Eurasian sites which are related to mythological plots of the ancient people. Universal mythological plots are retained by rock art that gives the ground to compare iconographic peculiarities of ancient petroglyphs with folklore.
Cosmogonic myths make up the core group of myths for the various peoples of the world. The main content of these cosmogonic myths is dedicated to the transition from initial chaos to cosmos, the creation of an orderly, organized universe. Single images on rocks as well as groups of images may have a composite connection. Being compared with folk stories they can hypothetically be interpreted as a statement of the symbolic language of visual images of the cosmogonic myth, a story about the creation of the universe, which refl ects to a certain idea of the surrounding area – a model of the world.
For poetic myth consciousness the image of the world tree, embodying the universal concept of the world is characteristic as it is represented in rock art.
The zoomorphic images. Series of syncretic beings – fantastic beast-monster dragon- or bear-like or animals with luminous discs on their heads – in the rock art of Eurasia are interpreted as images associated with solar cults, including the story of the persecution, the pursuit of cosmic luminary.
Solar images. Symbols indicating the sun, the moon, rarely but existent – the constellations point to the existence of a developed system of solar cults of the ancient population of Eurasia. Traditional Solar symbolism in rock art becomes most widespread in the Bronze Age.
Vehicles. The images of boats, fantastic carts with wheels in the form of solar symbols and spirals become an allegory to the structure of the universe. Vehicles are correlated with the motif of crossing into another world, the heavenly pursuits and so on.
Anthropomorphic cosmogonical characters. The rock art of Eurasia, mainly on the Yenisei River in Kazakhstan portrayed huge anthropomorphic fi gures (giants) with hypertrophied elongated proportions. They present images of women that are interpreted as signifi cant for understanding ancestral links. A hunter-archer, acting as a cultural hero was depicted, his image can be associated with the motif of the sun of persecution.
Keywords
Rock art, petroglyphs, mythology, semantics, world view, Eurasia
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