Abstract
The Kolokol’naya Cave is a corridor-type karst cavity with four chambers and the Metro passage. The images are found in nine locations: on the walls of the cavity and in one case on a large block of limestone. All of them were created with red paint, their preservation is unsatisfactory. Pictorial motifs are represented in groups of subparallel lines, oval spots, a hutshaped motif and the remains of the harpoon resembling fi gure. In addition to colourful images, engraved motifs were found on a natural limestone block of zoomorphic shape. Engravings are randomly drawn lines, including multi-row zigzags.
There are two animalistic drawings: a schematic fi gure of the reindeer in the mouth of the Metro passage and the beast head over a large niche in the Stalactite Chamber. Like many images of the Ignatievskaya cave, they are executed as if in “absolute” profi le view. The author shares the paleontologist V.A. Kosintsev’s opinion that the head of the beast also belongs to the reindeer, a juvenile individual. It is essential that this image is surrounded by colourful spots, similar to the design of the Red and Black panels in the Far Chamber of the Ignatievka Cave. The motifs also have close analogies with the Paleolithic art of Cantabria, thus, together with biostratigraphy, it makes possible to date them to the late Upper Paleolithic.
Keywords
Upper Paleolithic, cave art, animalistic motifs, the Urals, Cantabria.
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