It is generally accepted that shamans and sorcerers in ritual vestments are depicted on ancient rock paintings of hybrids of humans and animals. However, archaeological finds and cases of the birth of people with characteristic physical abnormalities raise doubts about the indisputability of such an interpretation.
They were portrayed all over the Earth …
A huge number of images of beastmen, made more than 10,000 years ago, have been found in Europe, South Africa and Australia. Often the heads of these creatures are decorated with horns. Prehistoric art specialist at the Australian Museum in Sydney, Dr. Paul Takoy, in November 2001 in New Scientist magazine suggested that the creatures mentioned are not humans, but "therianthropes, human-animal hybrids."
Together with another expert on primitive art, Christopher Chippendale, they conducted the first serious study of therianthrope images. In Europe, including in the famous French cave Trois-Frères, as well as in South Africa and Northern Australia, they studied more than five thousand rock paintings, the ancient origin of which was confirmed by the most modern dating methods.
… and did it "from nature"?
It is believed that primitive people painted what they saw in life: buffalo, horses, mammoths and, of course, their fellows. But then why did they draw so many therianthropes, most of whom are horned? The Polish researcher of historical mysteries Tadeusz Oshubsky is also studying this problem.
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Until now, it was believed that the strange characters of the cave art are not therianthropes at all, but the same primitive people, only “working” as shamans and depicted in their ritual “overalls”. As for the horns, from time immemorial they served as a symbol of belonging to other worlds: in different eras and among different peoples, they were either attributes of solar and lunar deities of fertility, or were identified with evil spirits, aggressiveness, death.
It's okay to be horned
However, the study of ancient legends and traditions, historical documents, as well as a number of details discovered by researchers, suggest that therianthrope hybrids are actually existing ancestors of modern humans.
In the ruins of the city of Ur, founded by the Sumerians on the territory of modern Iraq about 7000 years ago, archaeologists have unearthed royal tombs, on the walls of which horned and tailed humanoid creatures are depicted. Similar drawings are found on Chinese pottery dating from around 500 BC.
Outstanding representatives of ancient culture and science - the poet Ovid, historians Pliny the Elder and Herodotus - mentioned in their writings a tribe of fauns (people covered with wool, with goat's horns, hooves and a beard) that lived in the deep forest wilds. The Roman consul and writer Philostratus spoke in one of his books about the capture and taming of a wild faun in Ethiopia. And the ancient Greek historian Plutarch describes in detail how such a faun was lured into a trap on the Black Sea coast near the Greek city of Apollonia, on the territory of modern Bulgaria.
There is also more recent information about horned people. It is documented that in the 17th century in the English county of Leicestershire lived Mary Davis with two "ram" horns on her head, and the French historian Colline de Plancy at the beginning of the 19th century wrote about a horned monk from the monastery of Saint-Justine.
In the 1880s in the USA, in the Bradford County of Pennsylvania, an expedition led by Dr. J. P. Donahue and professors A. B. Skinner of the American Research Museum and W. K. Morehead of Phillips Academy discovered a grave inside an earthen mound dating back to 1200. it contained the remains of 68 people. Judging by the skeletons, the average height of the buried was more than two meters. But most of all the researchers were struck by the skulls: on some of them, bony outgrowths, that is, horns, protruded on the sides!
And in 1903, at one of the mines near the American city of Isola, Kansas, before dawn, a horned, long-haired humanoid creature with glowing red eyes suddenly appeared. causing panic among the night shift workers. This case is described in the book "More than …" by journalist and writer Richard Lazarus.
Thus, the existence of horned people can be considered indisputable, and as for the presence of hooves and tails, this question still remains open "for lack of material evidence."
Variety of beastman
A werewolf is a person who can transform into an animal. Since childhood, we have met with similar reincarnations on the pages of fairy tales. Brother Ivanushka, who disobeyed Sister Alyonushka and drank water from the hole made by a goat's hoof, turned into a goat.
In Pushkin's "The Tale of Tsar Saltan" a whole "constellation" of werewolves appears. This is a cunning sorcerer who turned into an evil kite and tyrannized a beautiful princess who was forced to become a swan for a while, and Prince Guidon, who, in the form of a mosquito, and then a fly and a bumblebee, penetrates a merchant ship. to see his own father, Tsar Saltan.
Legends about people capable of transforming into animals (especially wolves) have been known since time immemorial. In France, such monsters were called lugar, in Italy - lupomanaro, in Bulgaria they were half-eyed, in Germany and a number of Western European countries - werewolves. It was the latter name that later became generally accepted for the wolf-man. According to numerous stories about werewolves, during the day they look like ordinary people, and at night they turn into wolves and go on their terrible hunt.
How to recognize a werewolf
In the Middle Ages, it was widely believed that when changing his appearance, a werewolf man receives additional, supernatural power from the devil.
In the 15th and 16th centuries, anyone suspected of a werewolf was killed with the same brutality as witches. They, as a rule, were either tried and sentenced to be burned at the stake, or hounded by dogs. Moreover, it was considered useless to shoot at them with conventional weapons: such a creature can only be killed with a silver bullet. In France, in the period 1520-1630, more than 30 thousand cases of lycanthropy were recorded (a disease that causes changes in the body, as a result of which a person turns into a wolf). This phenomenon can be partially explained by the cannibalism of the poor, impoverished peasants. However, most of the "caught" really considered themselves wolves, killing and eating people under the influence of their delusion.
There were many ways to help identify a werewolf. It was believed that during his transformation into a wolf, he tore off his clothes and at the same time wounded his skin with regrown claws. Then, setting off to rob in animal form, the werewolf made his way through the forest, and the branches of the trees would certainly leave scratches on his body. Therefore, before executing a man suspected of being a werewolf, he was forced to strip naked. If fresh scratches were found on the body, everything was clear with him.
In Germany, France and the countries of Eastern Europe, it was believed that often a werewolf, changing his appearance, turns his skin inside out, since it is covered with fur from the inside. Turning into a man, he just turns the skin out again, only now with the fur inside. Therefore, sometimes, trying to expose a suspect, the crowd would cut a person to pieces in order to find wolf fur under his skin. Judging by the ancient manuscripts, the number of people affected by such verification methods is very large.
The origins of faith
In ancient times, savages constantly faced the world of animals, before the superiority of which people often bowed down. They saw what tremendous power the tiger, bear, wolf, bison, crocodile possess. Therefore, primitive peoples revered and deified them. The Itelmens, the indigenous inhabitants of Kamchatka, worshiped whales, wolves and bears. The American Indians, having killed the bear, brought him gifts, as if apologizing for the murder.
Many ancient peoples chose a patron from among predatory animals, and some even considered them to be their distant ancestors. Therefore, very often primitive religions were associated with the cult of animals. This, in particular, the researchers explain the images of the gods of Ancient Egypt with the heads of a hawk, cow, wolf, cat. Such religious beliefs could serve as the basis for belief in werewolves.
Magazine: Secrets of the 20th century №4. Author: Vadim Ilyin
