I'm not sure if this one is shamanic, Min. What do you think?Minimalist wrote:It is also the mark of clumsy concrete workers, Ish.The hand print is the most ubiquitous symbol of shamanic ritualism worldwide


Moderators: MichelleH, Minimalist
I'd say that the above is a prime example of us trying to assess ancient man's behaviour on how our own teenagers behave on a Saturday night.kbs2244 wrote: I do recall that there was some argument, based on right hand vs. left hand images, that kind of dismissed the whole hand images in cave painting thing as a bunch of drunken adolescents phenomenon instead of a serious adult thing.
It had something to do with which hand was easier to hold up against the wall and blow the paint around.
Obviously, this is just our word for gaining a likeness ... it wouldn't have been theirs.kbs2244 wrote:Good point on the word “draw”
So it is based on the Old English 'drag', from Proto Germanic 'carry' which is based on the Proto Indo European word 'dhragh'.O.E. dragan "to drag, to draw" (class VI strong verb; past tense drog, pp. dragen), from P.Gmc. *draganan "carry," from PIE base *dhragh- (see drag).
Ishtar -Ishtar wrote:Another way of identifying whether a culture was shamanic is by its cosmology. The shaman crosses between three worlds - the upper, lower and middle world. So paintings, sculptures, design of megaliths and buildings, as well as mythological tales that are based on these three dimensions must have begun life in a shamanic setting, or at least in a society where the shamanic three worlds were still the accepted norm.
In terms of mythology, the Vedas is a prime contender here. The Vedic cosmology consists of the upper planets, this world and the lower planets, and all the stories are set against this backdrop with characters sometimes traversing all three in the space of one story.
Another example are the Norse legends recorded in the Edda - there are nine worlds, but these are divided into three above, three in the middle and three below.
One of the most famous Sumerian myths is about Ishtar's descent to the Underworld because of the death of the Bull of the Heaven. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh's friend kills the Bull of Heaven and is sent to the underworld as punishment. Obviously 'heaven' is just a recent translation - an is the Sumerian word for the upper worlds.
All the Celtic/Irish/Welsh myths have a fairy or sidhe underworld that is populated with not just the little people but also with animals that can talk, just like shamanic power animals. The Celtic underworld also has a timeless quality, just like the altered reality of the shaman that is beyond time.
I'm sure there are other cultures that have the three worlds, or three sets of planets - in fact, I think they pretty well all did until relatively recently - when the Christians turned the underworld into hell and the upper worlds into heaven. They also turned the three worlds into somewhere you went when you died, and no longer somewhere you could go to now.
So it's only since the rejection of Christianity, or at least the advent of materialism and agnosticism of the West, that our inner, mental cosmology has to change to a flatter, one dimensional space, whereas our ancestors, going back for millennia, had a multi -layered one. In evolutionary terms, I think that's quite a jump to have to make, mentally... but anyway, that's not the point of this post.
I don’t know if the ladder is a bit of a stretch for the 'ladder-like figures', but I’ve included it anyway. We know Siberian and Indian shamans of the turn of 19th century used them for reaching the upper world … but did they have ladders in Palaeolithic times? Well, of a sort, maybe?Inside this legendary cave a 16–17 millennia old cultural layer containing Palaeolithic stone tools, a primitive clay lamp, stone bowl, a stone with remnants of painting fallen from the wall, numerous pieces of charcoal and ochre have been discovered …
The southeastern wall of the Chaos Hall is tilted inward. Above a gap running downwards from the heap of stones between the slanting wall and the floor there is an extensive mural, where one can clearly distinguish an about 35 cm high bright red anthropomorphic figure with zoomorphic features.
This single anthropomorphic painting of the Shulgan Tash cave is depicted in profile, bending and its triangular head resembles a mammoth head. Some authors argue that the figure’s legs, as it were, remind those of horses and that it has a short tail (ŠFelinskij & Širokov 1999: 60).
Above the anthropomorph there lies an animal figure, which was damaged in the attempt to restore it in the 1970s and is no longer identifiable. Under the figure there are numerous red and brownish geometrical markings, including trapezoidal, triangular and ladder-like figures and various lines and streaks, partly covered by a calcite layer.
More than 50 prehistoric representations have been discovered in the Shulgan Tash cave so far….
A. Filippov and V. Kotov have attempted to clarify the mythological background behind the cave art of Shulgan Tash. According to Filippov these are ritual attributes, evidenced by the same orientation of all animal figures in the whole cave, from the Painting Hall through the shaft to the lower floor and the anthropomorphic representations of the Chaos Hall.
Similar orientation towards a zoo-anthropomorphic or some other exceptional creature has been noticed in the Palaeolithic art of Western Europe (Filippov 1990). Kotov has also attempted to associate the paintings with various ritual activities. He has traced the ancient beliefs in the ethnography and folklore of the aborigines of the Urals (Kotov 1997).
Ishtar wrote:Palaeolithic cave paintings thought to be of a shamanic/ritual nature were found in the Shulgan Tash caves of the Urals in Russia in the late Nineties. They include an anthropomorphic figure painted in red ochre and similar in type to the Sorceror of Lascaux.
http://www.folklore.ee/folklore/vol18/pa05.pdf
I don’t know if the ladder is a bit of a stretch for the 'ladder-like figures', but I’ve included it anyway. We know Siberian and Indian shamans of the turn of 19th century used them for reaching the upper world … but did they have ladders in Palaeolithic times? Well, of a sort, maybe?Inside this legendary cave a 16–17 millennia old cultural layer containing Palaeolithic stone tools, a primitive clay lamp, stone bowl, a stone with remnants of painting fallen from the wall, numerous pieces of charcoal and ochre have been discovered …
The southeastern wall of the Chaos Hall is tilted inward. Above a gap running downwards from the heap of stones between the slanting wall and the floor there is an extensive mural, where one can clearly distinguish an about 35 cm high bright red anthropomorphic figure with zoomorphic features.
This single anthropomorphic painting of the Shulgan Tash cave is depicted in profile, bending and its triangular head resembles a mammoth head. Some authors argue that the figure’s legs, as it were, remind those of horses and that it has a short tail (ŠFelinskij & Širokov 1999: 60).
Above the anthropomorph there lies an animal figure, which was damaged in the attempt to restore it in the 1970s and is no longer identifiable. Under the figure there are numerous red and brownish geometrical markings, including trapezoidal, triangular and ladder-like figures and various lines and streaks, partly covered by a calcite layer.
More than 50 prehistoric representations have been discovered in the Shulgan Tash cave so far….
A. Filippov and V. Kotov have attempted to clarify the mythological background behind the cave art of Shulgan Tash. According to Filippov these are ritual attributes, evidenced by the same orientation of all animal figures in the whole cave, from the Painting Hall through the shaft to the lower floor and the anthropomorphic representations of the Chaos Hall.
Similar orientation towards a zoo-anthropomorphic or some other exceptional creature has been noticed in the Palaeolithic art of Western Europe (Filippov 1990). Kotov has also attempted to associate the paintings with various ritual activities. He has traced the ancient beliefs in the ethnography and folklore of the aborigines of the Urals (Kotov 1997).