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V.N. Shirokov, N.A. Shirokova (Yekaterinburg) – Image of a Creature with the Camel Body on the “Black Plafond” in the Ignatievka Cave (Southern Urals)

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Abstract

In the Southern Urals, there are three caves with Upper Paleolithic painting: Kapova (Shulgan-Tash), Ignatievka (Yamazy-Tash) and Serpievka 2 (Kolokolnaya). The Serpievka 2 bestiary contains images of a deer and head of a yearling fawn. The Kapova and Ignatievka caves depict mainly mammoths and horses. In addition to these, there is a rhinoceros and a bison (the Kapova Cave), rhinoceros and mammoth-like fantastic creatures, a composite creature in the form of a horse with a bull’s horn (Ignatievka Cave). In addition, a drawing with a camel’s body in profile and an elliptical figure adjoining it was discovered in the Ignatievka Cave. Some scholars were puzzled by this image and did not trust its dating to the late Pleistocene. However, in October 2017, a figure of a two-humped camel was cleared from under the calcite on the “panel with horses and signs” in the Kapova Cave. Even skeptics realized that the figure with a camel’s body from the Ignatievka Cave also dates from the late Pleistocene in the context of the entire pictorial ensemble, radiocarbon analysis of the layer of the visit to this karst cavity and the U-dating of the calcite covering the drawings. Since this image has not been described in detail before, and there have been various opinions about its interpretation, this article fills this gap and also provides a new description of the “Black Plafond” in the Far Chamber of the Ignatievka Cave. As a result of computer color filtering of the discussed image and the given analogies, it is concluded that the plafond of the Far Hall of the Ignatievka Cave most likely reproduces a composite creature with the body of a two-humped camel (Camelus bactrianus) and the head of a horse facing.

Keywords

Southern Urals, Ignatievka Cave, Upper Paleolithic, cave art, composite creature with the body of a Bactrian camel.

Vladimir N. Shirokov, Institute of History and Archaeology of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Yekaterinburg, Russia, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Natalia A. Shirokova, Secondary Comprehensive School No. 184 “New School”, Yekaterinburg, Russia, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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