CAVE — SANCTUARY — MYTH: INTERPRETATION CRITERIA FOR THE UPPER PALEOLITHIC DECORATED CAVES IN THE URALS

Abstract

Caves with the Upper Paleolithic wall paintings are known in the Southern Urals — Kapova (Shulgan-Tash) and Ignatievskaya (Yamazy-Tash). They represent the largest karst cavities in their areas with lots of figurative and non-figurative motifs. In many respects, the Urals’ decorated caves are similar to those in Western Europe: in terms of the structural organization of space, pictorial assemblages and their context. The Western European caves are often referred to as “deep sanctuaries”. Within the framework of this article, the authors address to the works of foreign experts, who have been developing this subject for more than a dozen years, in order to identify the criteria for such an interpretation. Due to the kinship of the Ice Age cave art from the Atlantic to the Urals, the interpretations of Western European art are also applicable to the Ural cave sites. Archaeological, phenomenological and mythological criteria stand out as the most important ones. Archaeological criteria were formulated by C. Renfrew: focusing attention; the border zone between this and other worlds; the presence of a deity; participation and offering. Phenomenological criteria are relied on a person’s sensory experience which is based on the main sense organs — sight, hearing, smell, touch. It is they which provide the caves with indicators of hierophony, constructing, according to M. Eliade, a collective sacred space. Of all the characteristics of myth in relation to the Paleolithic art, M. Groenen considers the presence of composite anthropomorphic creatures, composite animals and surreal, fantastic animals. Comparing unreal and hybrid creatures from the regions of Franco-Cantabria and the Urals shows their close similarity. Together with the considered archaeological criteria and criteria of the sensory experience of an ancient man in relation to the underground cavity, we can assert that the Ural decorated caves of the Upper Paleolithic are sanctuaries of the Ice Age, preserving fragments of the mythology of that distant time.