Sometimes the war brings unexpected surprises. More often unpleasant, for example, in Syria we have almost lost the unique monuments of culture and architecture. However, there is some good news.
Recently in Syria, in the vicinity of Palmyra, unique rock paintings of ancient people were discovered. Petroglyphs cover the walls of a cave in Dar El Bayda Mountain, which is located in the El Abyad mountain range. The cave was surveyed by Oleg Valetsky during his business trip to carry out demining tasks in Syria in 2016. Oleg Valetsky told us about the find, and historian Elena Mironova analyzed the found images from the point of view of science. Photos in the material were taken by Oleg Valetsky while exploring the cave.
The El Abyad mountain range is located right below Palmyra, northeast of the city. Unfortunately, Islamic State militants are still operating in this area.
The road to the mountainous region, where the cave is hidden, runs along a narrow gorge-dry channel.
Driving directly to the very place where the cave was discovered is impossible, since the channel is blocked by a huge boulder.
The complex of caves, among which a cave with petroglyphs was discovered, is located on a steep cliff. A deep gorge stretches under it - the bed of a dry river that goes to the Palmyra region.
Promotional video:
A narrow road, carved by a human hand in the sheer rocks, leads to the cave.
The cave is hidden in sheer cliffs at coordinates (Gauss-Kruger) X45433 Y 22061 at an altitude of 1047 meters.
There are steps carved into the rock leading to the entrance.
The entrance has a characteristic figured opening directed to the southeast.
The total area of the cave is within 7 by 7 meters, there are only two floors in it.
On the first floor from the corridor there is one entrance to the right to the room.
Near the entrance to the room, a small niche is carved into the wall. The room itself has a semicircular vault. There is another opening in the room with a large niche, where we found a well.
From the corridor there is also a passage to the left, into the second room, located opposite the main entrance, but separated from the corridor by a wall.
A rectangular well, two meters long and one meter wide, leads from this room to the second floor, along which one can climb with the help of small recesses carved into the walls.
The second floor consists of one small room with a window pierced in the rock. Round indentations are carved into the floor of the room.
A rectangular sign was also found on the floor.
The walls of this room are literally dotted with numerous petroglyphs - signs of unknown origin.
Although the bulk of the drawings (or petroglyphs) are on the second floor, the same drawings are also available on the first floor at the ascent to the well leading to the second floor.
The drawings are applied quite densely and sometimes overlap one another. Quite often, a six-pointed star appears, characteristic of the Sumerian civilization.
Next to the first one is the entrance to another cave, obviously of artificial origin.
Inside, this cave resembles a man-made drainage basin or well and has a semicircular vault.
Without trying, of course, to pass off guesses as facts, one should nevertheless recall that the British archaeologist Leonard Woolley, who excavated the monuments of both the Sumerian civilization and the civilizations of El Obeida, Jemdet Nasr and Uruk, in his book, describing the system of drainage wells among the Sumerians, made an assumption about their religious character (Leonard Woolley. "Ur Chaldeans." Publishing house of Eastern literature. Moscow. 1961 (Leonard Woolley. "Excavation at Ur".)).
Up to 10-12 meters deep and about one and a half meters in diameter, these wells had many broken and whole clay vessels at their bottom. According to Leonard Woolley, these wells could have served as sacrifices to the water god Ea. The deity lived underground, where, according to ancient Sumerian texts, there was an area of underground waters - "apsu" (Leonard Woolley. "Ur of the Chaldeans". Eastern Literature Publishing House. Moscow, 1961 (Leonard Woolley. "Excavation at Ur".)).
There are signs by which one can judge that the cave was repeatedly visited by people in different historical epochs, since it contains not only drawings on the walls made in different techniques and styles, but also columns carved in the rock mass.
Due to the ongoing hostilities in Syria, archaeologists cannot get to this site to excavate the cave and date the images found. Nevertheless, based on the data accumulated to date by archeology, ethnography and cultural studies, we can carry out a comparative analysis of some of the drawings and offer their possible decoding.
It should be noted that in some places the walls are processed so that the traces of the tool remain in the form of uniform grooves. The drawing below is made on a smoothed surface. It is the most revealing and informative and depicts, presumably, a female mountain sheep / female mountain goat (nakhchira), accompanied by a cub (Fig. 1):
Petroglyph in the cave of the Dar El Baida mountain, Syria (Photo by O. V. Valetsky).
The stylistics of the image of the animal in this cave can be compared with the stylistics of numerous images of mountain goats and rams found on the petroglyphs of Central Asia and Southern Siberia: Pamir-Alai, Western and Central Tien Shan, Sayano-Altai, Minusinsk depression. Description, methodology and research methodology, attempts to decipher the meaning of petroglyphs are set out in numerous works of Russian scientists. Thus, the petroglyphs of Central Asia were studied by M. E. Masson, A. N. Bernshtam, A. A. Formozov, Ya. A. Cher. Monographs about petroglyphs of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan were published, written by M. K. Kadyrbaev and A. N. Maryashev, as well as J. Kabirov. Petroglyphs of the Baikal region, Tuva, Yakutia, Transbaikalia, Amur are devoted to the monographs of E. B. Vadetskaya, A. D. Grach, M. P. Gryaznova, M. A. Devlet, A. P. Okladnikova, L. M. Pletneva and many others.
However, the element that we found in the image of a female mountain sheep (or female mountain goat) in El-Abyad cave, Syria, on any other petroglyphs in other regions of Central Asia and South Siberia, was not previously recorded by researchers. This element is the symbol W. It was first identified by E. A. Mironova (Mironova, 2013) as a cult symbol on the dishes of the archaeological culture Tripolye-Cucuteni (Romania, Moldova, Ukraine) in comparison with the same decorative element on the dishes of the Eneolithic archaeological culture of Ban Chang, Thailand. A piece of pottery with the same symbol was found during excavations at Koksharovsky Kholm, Trans-Urals, RF:
A vessel from Ban Chang (Thailand) with the symbol W.
A vessel from Cucuteni (Romania) with the symbol W.
Fragment of ceramics from Koksharovsky Kholm, Koksharovsko-Yurinskaya site, with the symbol W (Serikov, 2014: Fig. 63.6).
The geography of distribution and the chronology of the application of such a symbol, as can be seen from the above artifacts, are extremely wide, which speaks of its exceptional importance for ancient people. It is present on a fragment of ceramics from a cult place - Koksharovsky Kholm, Trans-Urals. An analysis of the archaeological data obtained during the excavation of this embankment allows us to consider the monument a high-rank sanctuary, which is substantiated in the works of researchers of this complex (Shorin, 2010). As a result of studying the distribution and genesis of the W symbol, we found that this symbol is a schematic representation (one of the many iconographic images) of the Great Goddess, whose cult has been widespread in Eurasia since the Stone Age. This is how the raised hands of the Goddess were depicted in the pose of childbirth (Mironova, 2014). This sign was always depicted separately, usually in a frame - inside an oval (as on a fragment from Koksharovsky Kholm - an intertribal sanctuary that functioned intermittently for at least 1.5 thousand years from the turn of the 6th-5th to the middle of the 4th millennium BC., first as a cult place of the Koshka and Koksharovsko-Yuryinsky groups of the population, and in the first half of the 4th millennium BC - Basianovsky and Poludensky, who lived in large territories of the forest and forest-steppe Trans-Urals (Shorin, Shorina, 2011: 77), or on a vessel from Cucuteni - the time of the culture existence - from 5200 to 3500 BC), or framed by triangles, which are also symbols of the Great Goddess - the giver of rain (as on the pot from Ban Chang, the culture dates back to 2100 BC). - 200 AD, although the early burials do not contain bronze tools and are attributed by some scholars to the Eneolithic),or on the side of the animal, as revealed on the petroglyph from El Abyad cave.
An animal with this symbol on its side can express the idea of fertility. The dating of this particular image still needs to be clarified by archaeologists, but some signs, namely: a female mountain ram and her cub are depicted in motion, the artist seemed to have stopped time by capturing the animal in a jump; the front legs are straight, the hind legs are depicted with anatomical precision, indicating that the image is made in a style close to the animal Saka style. In addition, animals depicted in this style have additional signs on their bodies, which cannot be said about other petroglyphs made in other eras (on such petroglyphs, animal figures are applied by continuous knockout).
Petroglyphs from the northern shore of Issyk-Kul, Tamchi - Cholpon-Ata (Maryashev, 1970).
On the bodies of animals depicted on the petroglyphs of the northern shore of Issyk-Kul, one can distinguish a spiral, a zigzag, a crescent. Petroglyphs were found at ten points between Tamchi and Cholpon-Ata. "Among the many hundreds of drawings, there are often images of animals represented by the best examples of the Saka" animal style ", especially goats and deer" (Vinnik, Pomaskina, 1975, p. 96).
As already mentioned above, the drawings in the El Abyad cave (Syria) are made in a different manner by different artists. Researchers have noted such a phenomenon - the reusable use of the site for drawings - in many places in Central Asia. So, in the Pamirs, all significant accumulations of rock paintings consist of several groups of different times (Vasiltsov, pp. 152-153).
The next drawing from El Abyad cave, which we will consider here, is made in a primitive manner, it schematically depicts a mountain goat or mountain ram. This drawing is on the floor of the cave, near its entrance and next to the wall. The body of the animal is made in a horizontal line, the legs are in the form of vertical straight lines. The horns are marked with an arc.
Image of a mountain goat on the floor in El Abyad cave, Syria; above it, on the wall - a schematic anthropomorphic image with thumbs and toes (Photo by O. V. Valetsky).
This image is similar to the image of a mountain goat found in the Caucasus, in Gobustan (Fig. 4 b), as well as in Karakulja, Fergana ridge (Fig. 5):
Rock carvings of a mountain goat: Central Asia, Afghanistan, the Caucasus, Tien Shan, Jordan, Mongolia, Tuva, Yenisei (Sher, 1980).
Karakuldzha, Kara-Dzhar, southwestern spurs of the Fergana ridge (Zadneprovsky, 1960).
Repetitive images of the mountain goat (nakhchira) found in different parts of Central Asia testify to the important role of this animal in the life and beliefs of the ancient inhabitants of these places. Modern archeology can only interpret artifacts with varying degrees of certainty: “The Pamir iconography of the Nakhchir gives little for the interpretation of the symbolic meaning that was attached to this animal in ancient art. Nevertheless, petroglyphs testify to the special attitude of people of the period of the formation of the producing economy to the objects of their hunting. In burials in the Bamiyan region (Afghanistan), the remains of the bones and horns of mountain goats were found (Sidky 1990: 279, cited in Vasiltsov, p. 153). Similar finds (horns on graves) were made in the Beida settlement, whose inhabitants were engaged in goat hunting. Here, in addition, horns and clay figurines of wild goats were found in a room that researchers define as a sanctuary”(Antonova 1984: 85, cited in Vasiltsov, p. 153).
The researcher of petroglyphs with images of a mountain goat (nakhchir), as the most frequent subject of rock paintings in the Pamirs, K. S. Vasiltsov believes that these drawings speak of the important role played by the mountain goat in the beliefs of the population of the Western Pamirs. He was considered a symbol of prosperity and well-being at home, was in a special way associated with various deities (perhaps in some cases he himself is such) or "inhabitants" of another world, in Muslim folklore texts - prophets, wali. In legends and traditions, the mountain goat was also perceived as an intermediary between the upper and lower worlds, hence, perhaps, the custom to place the horns or the head of the mountain goat near the Pamir ostons (places of worship). Images of goats with a beard in the form of zigzags,testified to the belief in his magical ability to get water (the goat took part in the processions to make rain) (Vasiltsov, pp. 154-155, 167).
Here we have shown only a small part of the petroglyphs found in the El Abyad cave. The different stylistics of the drawings depicting the mountain goat / ram testifies to the repeated visits of this cave by different tribes. Nevertheless, the importance of this animal for them is obvious, since on one of the images the artist applied the symbol W - the symbol of the female deity of fertility - the Great Goddess, whose cult can be traced from the Upper Paleolithic throughout the territory of Eurasia. Thus, this cave was visited by people who believed in this deity and, possibly, turned this place into a sanctuary. Further research will bring greater clarity to the issue of the dating of the drawings and, possibly, uncover new artifacts.
Authors: Oleg Valetsky, Elena Mironova. Photo by Oleg Valetsky.
Literature
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