The Virtual Past: The History of Ancient Cave Paintings

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

There is a place in Kuzbass where rock paintings made five or six thousand years ago have been preserved. They managed not only to be preserved, but also turned into one of the most modern interactive museums.

A little north of the Kuzbass capital in the Yashkinsky district of the Kemerovo region there is a village with an unusual name - Pisanaya. Locals say that it was simply named the same as the local river. But there is another legend - the village is called so because there are painted rocks that can be seen right there - right above the bank of the Tom River.

On the rock mass there are about 300 drawings, the earliest belong to the Neolithic era and were made in the IV-III millennium BC. Figures of birds and animals are carved on the rocks, various rituals are depicted.

Now on this site is the Tomskaya Pisanitsa Museum-Reserve, the first museum-certified monument of rock art in Siberia and one of the most modern interactive museums in Kuzbass. But first things first.

300 years ago

Historians find the first mention of the written rocks in the documents of the 17th century, dedicated to the beginning of the development of Siberia. But nevertheless, it is customary to keep the chronicle of the scientific study of this monument since the 18th century, when the first scientific expedition of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences was organized by the decree of Peter I.

"In 1721, during the academic expedition of Daniel Messerschmidt, the rock carvings of the Tomsk Pisanitsa were first described and sketched, and from this period it is considered to be the beginning of the scientific study of the drawings of this monument," says Irina Abolonkova, head of the scientific exposition department of the Tomsk Pisanitsa Museum-Reserve ".

In 2021, when Kuzbass will celebrate the anniversary date of the discovery of Kuzbass coals, the Museum-Reserve will celebrate another date - the 300th anniversary of the scientific discovery of the Tomsk Pisanitsa.

Scribble in danger

However, the Kuzbass painted rocks received the status of a museum only in the 20th century. And all thanks to Anatoly Martynov, an archaeologist, academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences.

He began to study the monument of primitive art in the 60s of the last century, trying, together with other archaeologists, to unravel the meanings and secrets of the plots of rock paintings.

"Through the efforts of Anatoly Ivanovich in 1988, the Tomskaya Pisanitsa Museum-Reserve was created. This was the first national precedent for museification of a rock art monument," says Irina Abolonkova about the history of the museum.

By that time, the written rock on the banks of the Tom was no longer so inaccessible: from time to time, children from neighboring villages came running here, tourists came who had already heard about this picturesque place.

True, at that time very few people understood what historical value was collected here. The rock was already a monument of archeology and it has survived, but locals and tourists applied their inscriptions over the drawings, thereby spoiling the appearance of the monument. In a word, the primitive drawings might not have survived at all if archaeologists had not defended these unique places 30 years ago.

Traces of unseen beasts

It is believed that the first people on these shores appeared in the Paleolithic era - about 25 thousand years ago. But they mainly hunted mammoths, but their descendants were artists many centuries later - in the Neolithic era, VI-IV millennium BC. e., and bronze, IV-II millennium BC. e., it is to these periods that historians attribute rock paintings on the Kuzbass coast.

"Petrified Epic" - that is how it is also customary to call drawings on painted rocks, there are about 300 of them, and each plot has its own frozen story. Despite the seeming primitivism of the images, they are not so simple.

"They are made in various techniques: embossed, drawn with the finest lines, polished, there are even painted ones," says a museum employee about the rock art, paying special attention to the plots and their heroes, the main of which is the elk. This character of rock painting is found here most often in various artistic variations.

"There are especially many images of moose on the Tomsk scribble," confirms Irina Abolonkova.

The poses of the animals are also remarkable: they all stride widely on long dry legs, as if climbing up the slope of the mountain.

"These drawings reflect primitive realism, confirm how the ancient artists subtly knew the nature of animals. Bears are also depicted in the writings in the same realistic features. This beast has long occupied a prominent place in the worldview and beliefs of the peoples of Western Siberia and the Urals, was considered a deity with whom they tied their origin, "says Abolonkova.

Migratory birds - herons, cranes, ducks - froze in their flight on the rocks. The figures of each of them are made very skillfully and jewelry, especially if you imagine how difficult it is to work with a tool on a monolithic stone. But, despite this, the lines are thin, graceful, all plumage is made filigree. One of these images has become the hallmark of the museum.

“We have an owl on the logo of the Tomsk Pisanitsa, it has become a kind of visiting card of the museum, very recognizable. This is not a drawing invented by the artists, it is really one of the petroglyphs on a rock, made in an unusual technique. the form of small potholes , - shows Abolonkova.

In some cave paintings, you can also see whole stories telling about the life, life of artists and their era.

"Boats with schematic figures of" rowers ", for example, illustrate a mythological plot about how the souls of the dead are transported to the mythical land of their ancestors," the hostess of the museum's exposition interprets the meaning of the symbols on the rock.

Despite the fact that the history of rock painting goes back several millennia and scientists-archaeologists have explored these places more than once, new drawings can still be found on the scribble. Another such discovery was made quite recently.

As Ilya Arefiev, deputy director of the Tomskaya Pisanitsa Museum-Reserve for scientific work, said, last fall, museum workers took pictures of rocky planes from the water using a telephoto lens and discovered new drawings typical of the already known planes of Tomsk Pisanitsa. The elk figures are fragmentary and barely readable, but on one of the silhouettes traces of ancient paint were found.

“We found them between that part of the rock massif of the Tomsk Pisanitsa, which the visitors of the museum see, and a group of drawings at the mouth of the Pisana River,” says Arefiev.

It is not surprising: this site is difficult to access, on both sides it is surrounded by rocks descending into the water, which is why a small bay is formed here. To get here along the coast is possible only by the river.

"The safety of the found drawings is not very good, they are heavily weathered, located quite high from the ground and there is no direct access to them. It is possible to get to the plane only with the help of climbing equipment," Arefiev said.

Virtual past

Museum visitors won't be able to get here either: it's too dangerous. However, they will still be able to see the drawings found in these places - thanks to augmented reality.

“We are working to ensure that, using augmented reality technology, everyone can see rock paintings in the smallest detail through smartphones and tablets and get scientific information about the monument on which these drawings are located. Thanks to digitalization, it will be possible to see even those petroglyphs that are inaccessible to visitors due to the complexity of the relief and were familiar to only a few petroglyphists, says Ilya Arefiev.

The digitalization of petroglyphs will be carried out within the framework of the Kultura national project, one of the tasks of which is precisely the creation of such virtual digital versions of museum expositions throughout the country. The first excursions with a virtual mobile guide at the Pisanitsa are planned to be held this fall, but even before that time, many interesting events and discoveries are being prepared for tourists and guests.

The Tomsk Pisanitsa in Kuzbass has long been accustomed to being considered not just a museum. It is a large historical and natural park with an area of 156 hectares.

Written rocks occupy only a small part of it, on the rest of the territory there is the only stationary zoo in Kuzbass, where you can see about 70 animals and birds, a real Shor village transported from the settlement of Blizhny Kezek by ethnographer Valery Kimeev, interactive exhibition complexes that allow museum guests to literally immerse yourself in the past, not just touch it.

Recently, a new interactive exhibition "Hunter's Camp" was opened here.

"This is a story about Siberian hunting and the life of Siberian fishermen, into which everyone can plunge, travel back in time 150-200 years ago, learn how to make a fire, as our ancestors did, shoot a bow, meet and communicate with a real Siberian hunter., which will tell the history of the development of commercial hunting in Siberia since the 17th century ", - tells about the new exposition Ilya Arefiev.

Traveling around the museum-reserve, you can learn how our ancestors lived, visit the residential house of a well-to-do Shor in a reconstructed estate with authentic outbuildings, look into a Mongolian yurt and plunge into the traditional way of life of the Mongols, or you can travel back to the more distant past - to II thousand years BC e. The reconstructed dwellings of the Bronze Age and the Iron Age are also on the Tomsk Pisanitsa and visually acquaint guests with the way of life and way of life of those distant eras.

“Over the past year, we have been trying to get away from traditional forms of interaction with visitors - excursions, concert programs - and introduce an interactive component in cultural events. The role of the viewer fades into the background, all our guests are direct participants. We have a historical, cultural and natural museum -reserve, we have always been and will be engaged in science, but we also develop the tourist component in parallel to be interesting to our guests, - Ilya Arefiev shares a modern vision of the museum concept. - Everyone is used to thinking that a museum is something closed behind glass, where you can't touch anything. Everything is different with us, there are many interactive excursions, holidays. This, in our opinion, should be a modern museum."