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In this late period of rock-carving are reproduced images of solar and elemental divinities or of spirits, which correspond, by their stylistic peculiarities, to the samples of the white incrusted, lineally decorated earthenware of Khanear and Kilik-Dagh dating from the I millennium, as well as to the anthropomorphic pictures of the Bronze-made belt of Stepanavan dating from the same period, bronze statuettes resembling the divinities depicted in the rock-carved pictures of the late-Bronze, early-iron age and of the ancient periods are prepared in the inhabited sanctuaries, for worship. Similar pictures are also largely widespread in Spain, Portugal, the Scandinavian countries, Siberia and numerous other places.
By their neolithic-bronze age chronological scope and from a stadial, semantic and morphological stand-point the Andalusian engravings in southern Spain refer most of all to the Gueghamian rock-carved pictures; we can meet in them not only analogical figures of the solar and elemental divinities, but also compositions offered to the cult of the ancestors (table 253), which simply duplicate the picture groups of Vardenis, Aragats and the Gueghamian mountains (fig. 145, 291).
Henry Breuil, an authority on prehistoric art, connects these pictures with those found on the earthenware in the same areas, and by a number of arguments shows that they pertain to the metals epoch. In such an analogy we must have in mind that the Armenian rock-carved pictures precede the Andalusian from the stand-point of absolute chronology, since the European neolithic age begins, in the opinion of the specialists, only in the III mil., when Armenian had entered already into the highest stage of development of the early bronze-age.
The images of horse-riding hunters undoubtedly pertain to the ritual monuments of the late period of the Gueghamian mountains, which are commonly met with in the motives of Armenian and Caucasian Bronze-
made belts (Stepanavan, Treghk, Tly, etc). The riders figuring on the belt of Stepanavan closely resemble the Gueghamian rock-carved picture by the similarity of horses, the position of the men standing on them, the geometrical style of the figures and other details. This belt also pertains to the period of the widespread depiction of horses in Armenia, i. e. to the end of the II mil. and the beginning of the I mil. B. C. Such a chronological determination is confirmed by the chronology of the analogous pictures of the Caucasus, of Asia and of Europe, the majority of which does not go further than the beginning of the I millennium B. C. That concerns Kobstan, Temir-Kape and especially Daghestan. The European monuments of that type, which are found in Spain, Italy, the Carpathian and Scandinavian countries and elsewhere, do not pertain to an earlier period. It is interesting to note, for instance, that the rock-carved pictures of Camonica, in the Italian and Swiss Alps, are related to the Ig - III cent. B. C., the Daghestanian pictures - to the same or later period, while all of them resemble with all their details the above mentioned monument of the Gueghamian mountains. Here we must also take into consideration the pictures of the riding hunters found on the earthenware vessels of the prehistoric sanctuary of Dvin and encountered, as we saw above, together with the bas-relief figures of solar and elemental divinities, which bear the style of the rock-carved pictures. These ritual-ceremonial vessels have been discovered in a big sanctuary of a local sun-worshipping community, where have also been found the altars and other ritual objects. This remarkable prehistoric monument was lying in a quite deep layer between two levels pertaining to the early Bronze age and the Middle ages. Daggers, swords, objects of art, and other artifacts made for offerings; and sacrifices, and corresponding to the artifacts discovered in the Gharabaghian large burial mounds of the X - IX centuries B. C., have also been found in the same layer. The earthenware of the sanctuary of Dvin has also its parallels (as to its main types, technical peculiarities and morphological characteristics) in the layers of the pre-Urartian settlement of Karmir-bloor, which immediately precede the Urartian constructions.
We may add that certain pictures of the late group of the Gueghamian petroglyphs are remarkable for their compositional structure and their styles, similar to those of the late bronze-age belts.
Such are the Gueghamian images at first sight. Time and possibilities may afford to observe a great many aspects and details in them and to bring many factual and theoretical precisions.
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