More than a hundred previously unknown petroglyphs were found while studying the Shalabolinskaya Pisanitsa - a monument of rock art in the south of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. Among the drawings found there are images of mythical monsters, drawn by the hand of an ancient man about 4 thousand years ago. This was reported to TASS on Tuesday by Alexander Zaika, head of the expedition of the Russian Geographical Society (RGO) to save the Shalabolinskaya scribble from destruction.
The expedition surveyed the entire mountain range of the Pisanitsa for about three kilometers. Scientists have discovered about 300 planes with cave paintings, which are made with ocher using the technique of knocking out, engraving and wiping. More than 30 of them are newly discovered planes, and on them there are more than 100 petroglyphs dating from the Stone Age.
“Among the images of animals, people in boats, on horses, on skis, scenes of hunting, battle, cult rites, there are drawings of mythical predators. This is a collective image of animals with features of wolves, bears, panthers, wild boars. These stories began to appear around the second millennium BC,”said Zaika.
According to him, the drawings presumably belong to the Okunev culture - this is how scientists call the culture of the inhabitants of southern Siberia during the Bronze Age. There are also anthropomorphic images of masks with horns, fangs and other features of animals. This may be due to the mythology of the people of that era, with their idea of the opposition of two principles - day and night, good and evil.
Shalabolinskaya Pisanitsa is located 35 km west of the village of Kuragino, it got its name from the nearby village of Shalabolino. The drawings are on the right side of the steep rocky coastal massif of the Tuba River. These are Neolithic and Eneolithic drawings of animals, images of boats, anthropomorphic horned figures with tails and unnaturally short upper limbs, as well as numerous battle and pastoral scenes dating back to the early Iron Age and the Middle Ages.