Rock Art And Sacred Landscapes

Social and behavioral scientists study religion or spirituality in various ways and have defined and approached the subject from different perspectives. In cultural anthropology and archaeology the understanding of what constitutes religion involves beliefs, oral traditions, practices and rituals, as well as the related material culture including artifacts, landscapes, structural features and visual representations like rock art. Researchers work to understand religious thoughts and actions that prompted their creation distinct from those created for economic, political, or social purposes. Rock art landscapes convey knowledge about sacred and spiritual ecology from generation to generation. Contributors to this global view detail how rock art can be employed to address issues regarding past dynamic interplays of religions and spiritual elements. Studies from a number of different cultural areas and time periods explore how rock art engages the emotions, materializes thoughts and actions and reflects religious organization as it intersects with sociopolitical cultural systems.

A companion to The Archaeology of Rock-Art (Cambridge 1998), this new collection edited by Christopher Chippindale and George Nash addresses the most important component around the rock-art panel - its landscape. The Figured Landscapes of Rock-Art draws together the work of many well-known scholars from key regions of the world for rock-art and for rock-art research. It provides a unique, broad and varied insight into the arrangement, location, and structure of rock-art and its place within the landscapes of ancient worlds as ancient people experienced them. Packed with illustrations, as befits a book about images, The Figured Landscapes of Rock-Art offers a visual as well as a literary key to the understanding of this most lovely and alluring of archaeological traces.

Regional survey and excavation data of a large complex of rock art in the highland, central Andes are synthesised to produce a typology of the rock art of the region. These findings are paired with Colonial accounts and semiotic modeling to understand the role of rock art in socialising the land.

Rock-art - the ancient images which still scatter the rocky landscapes of Europe - is a singular kind of archaeological evidence. Fixed in place, it does not move about as artefacts as trade objects do. Enigmatic in its meaning, it uniquely offers a direct record of how prehistoric Europeans saw and envisioned their own worlds. European Landscapes of Rock-Art provides a number of case studies, covering arange of European locations including Ireland, Italy, Scandinavia, Scotland and Spain, which collectively address the chronology and geography of rock-art as well as providing an essential series of methodologies for future debate. Each author provides a synthesis that focuses on landscape as an essential part of rock-art construction. From the paintings and carved images of prehistoric Scandinavia to Second World War grafitti on the German Reichstag, this volume looks beyond the art to the society that made it. The papers in this volume also challenge the traditional views of how rock-art is recorded. Throughout, there is an emphasis on informal and informed methodologies. The authors skilfully discuss subjectivity and its relationship with landscape since personal experience, from prehistoric times to the present day, plays an essential role in the interpretation of art itself. The emphasis is on location, on the intentionality of the artist, and on the needs of the audience. This exciting volume is a crucial addition to rock-art literature and landscape archaeology. It will provide new material for a lively and greatly debated subject and as such will be essential for academics, non-academics and commentators of rock art in general.

This book expands on an initial paper that merited the comments: "I read it with interest . . . It is almost certain that, for the authors of its drawings, the Chauvet Cave was considered to be directly related to the Pont d'Arc." -Jean Clottes, author of What is Paleolithic Art?: Cave Paintings and the Dawn of Human Creativity. "It is very nicely written and offers a great deal of food for thought . . . the implicit depiction of landscape: it is a great idea." - Anne Solomon, author of Rock Arts, Shamans, and Grand Theories. In the book “The Sacred Landscape,” the author Johan S. Ellefsen tackles a controversial topic, the meaning of Prehistoric art. The author examines one of the main compositions in the Chauvet cave and how the rock shapes still visible in the face of Pont d’Arc –found right outside the cave– may have inspired the animals painted 36,000 years ago. This book challenges the preconceived notions about Paleolithic art, which commonly held that Ice Age artists did not paint landscapes, and the representations of animals on the walls could not be conceived as mythical narratives. The author proposes that the composition known as the Lion Panel of the Chauvet cave, painted around 36,000 years ago, is the oldest known landscape painting and it is the key to understand the meaning of Paleolithic art. The book sheds light on how the Ice Age artists created a landscape painting as a composite image, which aggregated figures of animals to imitate the contours of Pont d’Arc –analogous to the paintings of ‘therianthropes,’ which were composite figures that combined parts of animals and humans in a single figure. With illustrations and photographs the book engages the reader in finding the rock formations of Pont d’Arc and their astonishing resemblance to the head of a rhinoceros, the ‘ball-feet’ of the mammoths, and the head of a bison painted in the cave. This context gives the reader an insight into the paintings of the Chauvet cave and guides the reader to identify the symbolic value of the animals depicted, as well as the underlying narrative elements tied to the landscape. The author examines how a 36,000-year-old myth could have looked like and proposes that the Lion Panel was possibly conceived as a narrative describing the creation myth of the landscape. This research sheds light on how the Paleolithic artists represented the notions of safety, conflict and sacredness, and what are the teachings of these stories that allowed them to survive for millennia. The author also explores the precursors of the Lion Panel and its successors, showing that the arrangement of paintings had a preconceived structure and an underlying narrative that allowed its transmission. The book explains the peculiar weather conditions of the Ardèche region and how the occupants of the Chauvet cave noticed these peculiarities. In the subsections “The spring inside the Chauvet cave” and “A dripping mammoth on the ceiling” the author lays the foundation to understand the symbolism of springs and rain in the art of the Chauvet cave.

Known from the Old Testament as one of the tribes occupying the Promised Land, the Hittities were in reality a powerful neighbouring kingdom: highly advanced in political organization, administration of justice and military genius; with a literature inscribed in cuneiform writing on clay tablets; and with a rugged and individual figurative art ... Newly revised and updated, this classic account reconstructs a complete and balanced picture of Hittite civilization, using both established and more recent sources.

Rock art has long been considered an archaeological artifact reflecting activities from the past, yet it is also a phenomenon with present-day meaning and relevance to both indigenous and non-indigenous communities. Relating to Rock Art in the Contemporary World challenges traditional ways of thinking about this highly recognizable form of visual heritage and provides insight into its contemporary significance. One of the most visually striking forms of material culture embedded in landscapes, rock art is ascribed different meanings by diverse groups of people including indigenous peoples, governments, tourism offices, and the general public, all of whom relate to images and sites in unique ways. In this volume, leading scholars from around the globe shift the discourse from a primarily archaeological basis to one that examines the myriad ways that symbolism, meaning, and significance in rock art are being renegotiated in various geographical and cultural settings, from Australia to the British Isles. They also consider how people manage the complex meanings, emotions, and cultural and political practices tied to rock art sites and how these factors impact processes relating to identity construction and reaffirmation today. Richly illustrated and geographically diverse, Relating to Rock Art in the Contemporary World connects archaeology, anthropology, and heritage studies. The book will appeal to students and scholars of archaeology, anthropology, heritage, heritage management, identity studies, art history, indigenous studies, and visual theory, as well as professionals and amateurs who have vested or avocational interests in rock art. Contributors: Agustín Acevedo, Manuel Bea, Jutinach Bowonsachoti, Gemma Boyle, John J. Bradley, Noelene Cole, Inés Domingo, Kurt E. Dongoske, Davida Eisenberg-Degen, Dánae Fiore, Ursula K. Frederick, Kelley Hays-Gilpin, Catherine Namono, George H. Nash, John Norder, Marianna Ocampo, Joshua Schmidt, Duangpond Singhaseni, Benjamin W. Smith, Atthasit Sukkham, Noel Hidalgo Tan, Watinee Tanompolkrang, Luke Taylor, Dagmara Zawadzka

This unique full-color field guide is essential for anyone who seeks to understand why shamans in the Far West created rock art and what they sought to depict. Whitley is on the cutting edge of dating and interpreting the images as well as describing the