|
Page 5
In one of the magnificent dynamic pictures of this group, the besoarian goats, moving from left to right, are figuring within the environment of dogs, stellar symbols and pictographic emblems. In the center of the composition is the image of an anthropomorphic creature in a bewitching position, on the left side of which is figured the sun. This picture probably represents a celestial shepherd, an animal-protecting deity or the worshipped image of a pastoral ancestor. In some of the similar compositions of a religious-cultural-magic nature are also pictured celestial mighty bulls, with jets of water thrusting from the mouth. Bull - headed similar bas-reliefs are found on the famous dragon stelae, that can be interpreted as monuments enshrining the concept of the natural elements and of fertility. In the popular mentality, the concept of the dragon is identified with that of the storm, the thunder and the lightning, together with transformations of the bull, the fish or a beast of burden, all this combined with the mighty forces of nature and the concept of fertility connected with them.
There are many pictures directly expressing the concept and the cult of fertility and in which are represented animals feeding their little ones, groups of animals with their youngs, magical procedures performed for the prolification of animals, the whole within an environment of men, women, solar and lightning divinities, all of which emphasize the importance of fertility.
In many religions, especially in prehistoric times, everything was inferred to the concept of fruitfulness, prolificiency, life reproduction, revival, perpetuation and flourishing of the animal and vegetable world. Namely for that reason the ceremonies and the rites dedicated to the cult of fertility were not confined to the mountainous sanctuaries of the animal-breeders, but were continued through the winter and the prevernal heavy season in the sacred assembly rooms or in the holy corners of ordinary habitations in the other localities of Armenia, where we find numerous fertility-dedicated statuettes of animals or of women. The custom of making statuettes continued in Armenia during the late bronze and early iron ages, the ancient times and Christianity. By cooking, on the New Year days, animal-resembling pancakes and feeding them to animals, people believed in the possibility of realizing general welfare.
Thus the above mentioned rock-carved pictures show, in spite of their religious-cultural nature and essence, not only the material possibilities, the means, the premises and the ways of edifying a productive economy, but also the development, as a result of the appropriation of the mountainous pastures in the post-glacial period, of early semi-nomadic animal husbandry, which served as a solid basis for the development of secondary trades, the accumulation and the exchange of surplus products and thereby for ethnical consolidation. The development, during the chalcolithic bronze age period, of a culture essentially united by its form, its nature and its geographic expansion results in the concentration and the shaping of ethnical large agglomerations in the Armenian highlands. The great and thorough development of prehistoric art, the extensive distribution of rock-carved pictures, their remarkable generalities and the wide scope of their chronologic relationship are conditioned by these same circumstances. From the Aragats to the Siounic mountains, i. e. within a territory extending 180 - 200 km in straight line, we can see remarkably alike, if not identical, rock-carved pictures connected with the early development of game-hunting-animal domestication and breeding, which have been the result of the All-Armenian economic thorough changes.
|
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11
