How to draw petroglyphs. Rock painting - the progenitor of art ▲

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Red discs, hand stencils and animal paintings in Spanish caves represent the oldest known examples of rock art in Europe.

The symbols on the walls at 11 sites in Spain, including the World Heritage Sites of Altamira, El Castillo and Tito Bustillo, have always been prized by scholars for their antiquity.

Recently, however, researchers have used improved dating methods to get more accurate information about the age of the images.

The main goal of scientists was to confirm that the most ancient drawing is a pale red dot (disk), which is supposedly more than 40,000 years old.

Hand stencils and images of animals dominate the El Castillo cave in Spain. One of the stencils has been dated to 37,300 years ago and the red disk to 40,800 years ago, making them the oldest rock art in Europe (image: Pedro Saura). Photo from msn.com

“In Cantabria, El Castillo, we find numerous hand stencils that are formed by spraying paint around hands pressed against a cave wall,” explained Dr Alistair Pike from the University of Bristol, UK, and lead author of an academic paper published in the journal Science.

“We believe one of these stencils is over 37,300 years old, and there is a red disk nearby made using a similar technique that is closer to 40,800 years old. We now know that these oldest pieces of ancient art in Europe are at least 4,000 years older than we thought,” Pike told reporters. This is possibly the oldest reliably dated rock carving in the world.

The two-metre-high depictions of horses at Tito Bustillo are superimposed on earlier red dots that are over 29,000 years old (image: Rodrigo De Balbin Behrmann). Photo from msn.com

The team determined the age of the samples by examining the calcium carbonate (calcite) of plaque that had formed over the years on the image.

This material builds up in the same way that stalagmites and stalactites form in caves.

In the process of formation, a small amount of natural radioactive uranium atoms is included in calcite. From the level of decay of these atoms into thorium and the ratio of two different elements in a sample of material, one can very accurately determine the moment when the calcite deposit formed.

Uranium/thorium dating has been used for decades, but the technique has improved so much over the years that scientists now only need a small sample of the material to get a very accurate result.

The Corredor de los Puntos is located in the El Castillo Cave of Spain. The red discs here date back to 34,000 - 36,000 years ago, and elsewhere in a cave 40,800 years ago, making them examples of the earliest rock art in Europe (image: Pedro Saura). Photo from msn.com

The team took thin sediment samples just above the paint pigments, and the images should be equal to or older than the calcite.

The earliest dates coincide with the first known immigration to Europe of modern humans (Homo sapiens). Previously, about 41,000 years ago, their evolutionary cousins, the Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis), dominated the continent.

The work of Dr. Pike and his colleagues raises some intriguing questions about who is the creator of the signs.

The antiquity of the paintings leads study co-author Joao Silhao, a lecturer at the University of Barcelona, ​​to suggest that some of the fragments were created by Neanderthals. If images could be found even older than the red dot at El Castillo, it might confirm that the professor's "gut feeling" is not deceiving.

“There is a chance that the authors of these images are Neanderthals,” said Professor Silao. - But I will not say that we have proved it, because it cannot even be proved now. Now all we can do is go back and look for older specimens until we are convinced that there are no drawings older than 42,000 to 44,000 years old. We will go through all the caves in Spain, Portugal and Western Europe, and in the end we will get the necessary information.

By tracing the origin and change in the level of thoughts and behavior of a person in relation to time, one can understand the process of development, which is undoubtedly important in relation to the understanding of human history.

The use of symbols - the ability of one thing to replace another in the mind - is one of the traits that distinguishes our animal species from all others. This is what supports our creativity and use of speech.

Cave or rock art - drawings that are found on the walls and ceilings of caves, rock surfaces. The images made in the prehistoric period date back to the Paleolithic era, approximately 40,000 years ago. Some scientists believe that the rock art of primitive people is a way of communicating with the outside world. According to another theory, the drawings were applied for a ceremonial or religious purpose.

Discovery history

In southwestern France and northern Spain, archaeologists have discovered more than 340 caves containing images from prehistoric times. Initially, the age of the paintings was a contentious issue, since the radiocarbon dating method could be inaccurate due to the dirty surfaces that were examined. But the further development of technology made it possible to establish the exact period for applying images to the walls.

The chronology can also be established by the subject of the drawings. So, the reindeer depicted in the Cueva de Las cave, which is located in Spain, dates from the end of the Ice Age. The earliest drawings in Europe are found in the Chauvet cave in France. They appeared 30,000 years before our era. The surprise for scientists was that the images had been changed repeatedly over thousands of years, which caused confusion in subsidizing the drawings.

Painting in three stages

There are monochrome and polychrome cave drawings. Polychrome rock art was created in three stages and was completely dependent on the experience and cultural maturity of the artist, lighting, type of surface and available raw materials. At the first stage, the contours of the depicted animal were outlined using charcoal, manganese or hematite. The second stage involved the completion of the drawing and the application of red ocher or another pigment to the image. At the third stage, contours were applied in black to visually enlarge the image.

Plots and themes

The most common plot in the cave painting of primitive people is the image of large wild animals. At the beginning of the Stone Age, artists painted:

• lions;
• rhinos;
• saber-toothed tigers;
• bears.

Images of animals that people hunted appear in the late Paleolithic period. The image of a person is a very rare phenomenon and the pictures are less realistic than the painted figurines of animals. In primitive art, there are no images of landscapes and landscapes.

The work of ancient artists

The prehistoric inhabitants of the planet discovered that the paint made from animals and plants is not as stable as that extracted from the earth. Over time, people determined the property of iron oxides in the earth not to lose their original appearance. So they looked for deposits of hematite and could walk tens of kilometers a day to bring the dye home. Modern scientists have discovered paths laid to the deposits, along which the ancient masters cruised.

Using sea shells as a reservoir for paint, working by candlelight or weak daylight, prehistoric painters employed a variety of painting techniques and techniques. At first, they painted with their fingers, and then switched to crayons, moss pads, brushes made of animal hair, and plant fibers. They used a more advanced method of spraying paint using reeds or bones with special holes.

Holes were made in the bones of the bird and filled with red ocher. By studying the rock art of ancient people, scientists have determined that such devices were used by 16,000 BC. In the Stone Age, artists also used the techniques of chiaroscuro and foreshortening. In each era, new methods of painting appear and the caves are replenished with drawings made in new styles over many centuries. The ingenious works of prehistoric artists have inspired many modern masters to create beautiful works.

Paintings and engravings on the rocks began to be painted tens of thousands of years before the birth of such civilizations as Greece and Mesopotamia. While most of these writings remain a mystery, they scold modern scholars to understand the daily lives of prehistoric people, to understand their religious beliefs and culture. It is a real miracle that these ancient drawings have survived for such a long time in the face of natural erosion, wars and destructive human activities.

1. El Castillo

Spain
Some of the oldest known rock paintings in the world, depicting horses, bison and warriors, are located in the El Castillo Cave, in Cantabria in northern Spain. Inside the cave there is a hole so narrow that you need to crawl through it. In the cave itself, you can find many drawings that are at least 40,800 years old.

They were made shortly after humans began migrating from Africa to Europe, where they met the Neanderthals. In fact, the age of the rock paintings suggests the possibility that they were made by Neanderthals living in the region at the time, although the evidence for this is not at all conclusive.

2.Sulawesi

Indonesia
For a long time, El Castillo cave was believed to contain the oldest known rock art. But in 2014, archaeologists made a stunning discovery. In seven caves on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, handprints and primitive drawings of local pigs were found on the walls.

These images were already known to the locals, but no one even guessed how old they were. Scientists have estimated the age of the rock paintings at 40,000 years. Such a discovery called into question the long-standing belief that human art first appeared in Europe.

3. Arnhem Land Plateau

Australia
Recent studies have shown that some places in Australia may well compete in age with the world's oldest art. A 28,000-year-old rock painting has been found at the Navarla Gabarnmang rock shelter in the north of the country. However, scientists believe that some of the drawings may be much older, as one of them depicts a giant bird that became extinct about 40,000 years ago.

Therefore, either the rock art is older than expected, or the bird lived longer than modern science suggests. At Nawarla Gabarnmang, you can also find drawings of fish, crocodiles, wallabies, lizards, turtles and other animals made tens of thousands of years ago.

4. Apollo 11

Namibia
This cave got such an unusual name because it was discovered by a German archaeologist in 1969, when the first spacecraft (Apollo 11) landed on the moon. Drawings made with charcoal, ocher and white paint have been found on the stone slabs of a cave in southwestern Namibia.

The creatures, which resemble cats, zebras, ostriches and giraffes, are between 26,000 and 28,000 years old and are the oldest fine art found in Africa.

5. Pech-Merle cave

France
Scholars believed that the paintings of two spotted horses on the walls of the Peche Merle cave in south-central France, which were made 25,000 years ago, were the product of the ancient artist's imagination. But recent DNA studies have shown that a similar spotted horse did exist in the region at that time. Also in the cave you can find 5000-year-old images of bison, mammoths, horses and other animals, painted with black manganese oxide and red ocher.

6. Tadrart-Acacus

Libya
Deep in the Sahara desert in southwestern Libya, in the Tadrart Acacus mountain range, thousands of paintings and rock paintings have been found that show that once there was water and lush vegetation in these arid lands. Also on the territory of the present Sahara lived giraffes, rhinos, and crocodiles. The oldest drawing here was made 12,000 years ago. But, after Tadrart-Acacus began to be swallowed up by the desert, people finally left this place around 100 AD.

7. Bhimbetka

India
In the state of Madhya Pradesh, there are about 600 caves and rock dwellings in which rock paintings have been found, made between 1,000 and 12,000 years ago.
These prehistoric images are painted with red and white paint. In the paintings you can find hunting scenes for buffaloes, tigers, giraffes, elks, lions, leopards, elephants and rhinos. Other drawings show fruit and honey gathering and animal domestication. You can also find images of animals that have long since become extinct in India.

8. Laas Gaal

Somalia
The complex of eight caves in Somaliland contains some of the oldest and best preserved rock paintings in Africa. They are estimated to be between 5,000 and 11,000 years old, and these drawings of cows, humans, dogs, and giraffes are done in red, orange, and cream. Almost nothing is known about the people who lived here at that time, but many locals still consider the caves to be sacred.

9. Cueva de las Manos

Argentina
This unusual cave in Patagonia is literally overflowing with 9,000-year-old red and black handprints on the walls. Since there are mainly images of the left hands of teenage boys, scientists have suggested that drawing the image of one's hand was part of the rite of initiation for young men. In addition, hunting scenes of guanacos and flightless rhea birds can also be found in the cave.

10 Swimmers Cave

Egypt
In the Libyan desert in 1933, they found a cave with cave paintings from the Neolithic era. The images of floating people (from which the cave got its name), as well as the handprints that adorn the walls, were made between 6000 and 8000 years ago.

On September 12, 1940, rock paintings were found in the famous Lascaux cave in France, which is called the Sistine Chapel of prehistoric painting. There are several more places where you can find impressive art of primitive people.

Lascaux cave, France

This is one of the largest and most important paleontological monuments on the planet. There are no other caves with such a large number of rock paintings. In addition to the impressive number of inscriptions, it is also surprising how well they are preserved. The plots of the cave are standard for painting of that period: these are drawings of animals, people, tools.

The cave is included in the UNESCO World Heritage List and is closed to tourists. The fact is that due to the presence of people in Lascaux, the fragile natural balance was disturbed, which allowed these inscriptions to exist for many millennia. Now the walls of the cave are treated by scientists every few weeks, removing constantly multiplying bacteria and algae from the rock. For tourists to visit, Lascaux 2 Cave was created, located two hundred meters from the original cave and consisting of reproductions.

Kapova Cave, Russia

The cave is located on the territory of the Republic of Bashkortostan in the Shulgan-Tash reserve, has a length of about three kilometers. It was formed in limestone, in a karst massif. A small lake flows into the cave, the water in which is undrinkable and is used exclusively for healing baths.

The drawings on the walls of the Kapova cave were discovered in the mid-fifties by the Soviet zoologist Ryumin. They were applied with the help of ocher, and their age is about eighteen thousand years. This colossal number is hard to imagine: creativity and the desire to create something new made a person draw even before the existence of civilization, religion, science, language. The place, unlike the Lascaux cave, is fully accessible to tourists.

Altamira Cave, Spain

This cave, discovered in 1789, is also quite famous for the fact that, like Lascaux, it uses the technique of polychrome painting: that is, the drawings have color. An interesting nuance is that the natural contours of the walls are used to create a three-dimensional effect.

By the way, you can find drawings not only on the walls, but also on the ceiling. After several closures of the cave due to the fact that mold appeared in the drawings from dampness, in 2011 visits were resumed again.

Tamgaly tract, Kazakhstan

In this place in the Anrakay mountains, 170 kilometers from Alma-Ata, there was once a sanctuary of ancient people. Here you can see images of deities, animals and people: married couples, warriors, hunters.

In total, there are about two thousand drawings. Most of the inscriptions scientists attribute to the Bronze Age. Another UNESCO World Heritage Site is open-air and open to the public.

Newspaper Rock, USA

This place is located in the southeast of Utah, literally its name is translated as "newspaper stone". Its peculiarity is the collection of petroglyphs, which was created by the Indians in the prehistoric period. It still remains unclear why such a large number of petroglyphs are drawn on such a small area.

Friends, where and how did it all start?

Maybe when an ancient man saw his footprint in the sand?
Or, when you ran your finger along the ground, did you realize that you get a fingerprint?
Or maybe when our ancestors learned to control the “fiery beast” (fire) by passing the burnt end of the stick over the stone?

In any case, it is clear that man has always been curious and even our ancestors, leaving primitive drawings on rocks and stones, wanted to convey their feelings to each other.

Exploring drawings of ancient people, it is obvious that in the process of evolution, their drawings also improved, moving from primitive to more complex images of people and animals.

It is known that archaeologists have found in Africa, in the Sibudu cave, rock paintings made by ancient people 49 thousand years ago! The drawings were painted with ocher mixed with milk. Primitive people used ocher even earlier, about 250 thousand years ago, but the presence of milk in the paint was not found.

This find was strange in that the ancient people who lived 49 thousand years ago did not yet have livestock, which means they got milk by hunting the beast. In addition to ocher, our ancestors used charcoal or burnt roots, crushed into powder, limestone.

Everyone knows murals of ancient egypt most popular. The history of the Ancient Egyptian civilization has about 40 centuries! This civilization reached great heights in architecture, the writing of papyri, as well as graphic drawings and other images.

Existence ancient egypt began 3000 BC. e. and ended IV-VII centuries. ad.

The Egyptians loved to decorate almost everything with paintings: tombs, temples, sarcophagi, various household trifles and utensils, statues. For paints used: limestone (white), soot (black), iron ore (yellow and red), copper ore (blue and green).

The painting of ancient Egypt was meaningful, depicting people, for example, the dead, rendering services to them in the afterlife.

They believed in an afterlife and believed that life was just a gap to another, more interesting life. Therefore, after death, the deceased was glorified in images.

No less fascinating ancient drawings and frescoes of other civilizations - Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece.

Greco-Roman antiquity began in the 7th century BC and ended in the 6th century AD. The Romans spied on the ancient Greeks to make wall paintings on wet plaster.

So, for example, for paints, colored minerals mixed with egg white and animal glue. And after drying, such a fresco was covered melted wax.

But here ancient Greeks knew a much better way to preserve bright colors. The plaster they used contained lime and, when dried, formed a transparent, thin film of calcium. It was this film that made the fresco durable!

Wall frescoes of ancient Greece have survived to this day, millennia later, perfectly preserved in the same bright and saturated color as when they were created.

Previously, a fresco was called painting work on wet plaster. But in our time, any wall painting can be called a fresco, regardless of the technique of its execution.

In general, wall paintings or frescoes belong to monumental painting. And it has a direct bearing on me. It is alfrey painting, that is, wall painting, that is my main specialization, which I studied at a private school in the south of France.

You can see my work in the section >>> <<<

In the Middle Ages in Kievan Rus the walls of the cathedrals were painted with beautiful frescoes. So, for example, in 2016 I visited the Sophia Kyiv Reserve in Kyiv. And in the most beautiful cathedral, founded in 1037 by the Grand Duke of Kyiv Yaroslav the Wise, wall frescoes have been preserved on the walls (the total area of ​​frescoes is 3000 sq. m.)

The main composition in the cathedral - family portrait of Yaroslav the Wise on three walls. But only portraits of the sons and daughters of the prince have survived and are well preserved. The huge frescoes painted in the 11th century, of course, made a strong impression on me.

Also already in Middle Ages (period V - XV centuries) used for painting not only walls, but also surfaces made of wood (for painting). Tempera paints were used for such works. This paint, of course, is considered one of the oldest types of paints and was used to paint pictures until the 15th century.

Until one day Dutch painter Van Eyck not widely used oil based paints in Europe

Tempera These are water based paints. Coloring powder diluted with water and chicken yolk. The history goes back more than 3000 years to this type of paint.

Sandro Botticelli / Sandro Botticelli. Left Portrait of a young woman 1480-1485, 82 x 54 cm , Frankfurt. On right Annunciation 1489-1490, tempera on wood, 150 x 156 cm, Florence

For example, in ancient Egypt sarcophagi of the pharaohs painted with tempera.

But to use canvas, instead of a wooden board for writing pictures, in the countries of Western Europe began only at the beginning of the 16th century. Florentine and Venetian painters painted in significant quantities on canvas.

In Russia, canvases as the basis for painting began to be used even later, only from the second half of the 17th century. But that's another story…. Or rather

So, showing curiosity and making a little analysis, you can trace the ways of human self-expression from a primitive drawing to true creations of the Middle Ages !!! Of course, this is not a scientific article, but only the view of one curious artist who likes to dig and dig in the labyrinths of the human mind.

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