Through the centuries and spaces: rock art of Russia

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

Since November 25, the Historical Society in Moscow is hosting the exhibition "Through the centuries and spaces: rock art of Russia." Elena Sergeevna Levanova, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Head of the Paleo Art Center of the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Elena Aleksandrovna Miklashevich, Research Fellow of the Center, spoke about the work of the organizers and the most interesting exhibits brought to the capital in the radio program "Proshloe". We offer you a transcript of this conversation.

From 3 to 6 December, excursions are held at the exhibition, which you can sign up for on the website of the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

And our great material on paleo art is here.

M. Rodin: Two events significant for Russian archeology will take place in Moscow next week. These are the exhibition “Through the centuries and spaces: rock art of Russia” and the conference “Signs and Images in the Art of the Stone Age”. Let's first talk about the exhibition: what is its concept, what exhibits will be presented?

E. Levanova: The exhibition is organized by the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Siberian Association of Researchers of Primitive Art. The exhibition area is not very large - just over 100 m². But this is a very saturated space: many exhibits from various regions of Russia are displayed here, from the North-West to the Far East and Chukotka. We tried to show how diverse rock art in Russia is, and therefore you can see very different exhibits at the exhibition.

In preparing this project, we focused on presenting it primarily to the scientific community. As you rightly said, we are opening a very large conference dedicated to the art of the Stone Age, and the guests of the conference will be among the first visitors to the exhibition. In addition, the project is addressed to representatives of the authorities and all those who, shall we say, make decisions in this country. Nowadays, the issues of research and preservation of rock art monuments are very acute, and these problems need to be raised, it is necessary to draw attention to them. Those who wish to come to the exhibition can sign up for excursions, we will be happy to show the exhibits and tell you about them.

M. Rodin: How to sign up? Where will the exhibition take place?

E. Levanova: The exhibition is held in the Russian Historical Society. You can come there from 3 to 6 December for an excursion. And detailed information about the recording is on the website of the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences and on the pages of the Institute in social networks.

M. Rodin: Elena Aleksandrovna, it turns out that for this exhibition you have collected the most iconic monuments from all over Russia and brought them here, to Moscow?

E. Miklashevich: Yes, there will be monuments from all over Russia, but not the most iconic ones. Since we were limited by space and, in addition, by our tasks, we decided to select those monuments that are now on the preliminary list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. There are four of them from Russia. There are no rock art monuments in the main UNESCO List of Russia, despite the fact that this is a very significant part of our cultural heritage, although, perhaps, little-known.

M. Rodin: This information is simply shocking. After all, everyone, even people far from history, knows about the Kapova cave, knows about petroglyphs. It turns out that none of this is protected by UNESCO?

E. Miklashevich: Not guarded yet, yes.

E. Levanova: But a lot of work is being done. The first monument - Sikachi-Alyan from the Far East - entered the List back in 2012. But in order to get there, just to prepare the dossier, both the researchers and the representatives of the authorities need to do a huge amount of work. That is why we show these monuments at the exhibition - so that people know about them, represent them.

M. Rodin: We all, of course, understand what rock art is. This is something painted or scratched on a rock, in a cave, on a stone. But how can rock art be brought to Moscow in general and how can it be shown?

E. Miklashevich: First, I would like to list all four candidates on the preliminary list of UNESCO. This is the already mentioned Sikachi-Alyan in the Far East. This is the Oglakhty mountain range of the Republic of Khakassia. These are the petroglyphs of the White Sea and Lake Onega in the Republic of Karelia and, of course, the famous Kapova cave in the Urals.

So at the exhibition we present information about them, talk about what kind of work is being done there, what drawings are available, what kind of art is presented. All these monuments are very different. There are cave paintings, there are petroglyphs on open rocks, there is a Neolithic, a Paleolithic, and there are ethnographic drawings. The monuments belong to different eras, they use different techniques, different subjects, and therefore they can adequately represent the rock art of all of Russia. In addition, the exhibition will showcase the Tomsk Pisanitsa as a museum-certified monument, as well as the petroglyphs of Pegtymel in Chukotka. These petroglyphs were studied a lot by Ekaterina Georgievna Devlet, to whose memory the exhibition is dedicated.

Images of the Tomsk Pisanitsa. Source:

M. Rodin: Still, how can you show different specific objects, how will they be presented?

E. Miklashevich: Of course, we cannot bring originals, because the rocks are heavy and they must be in their place. An important role is played by high-quality photographs and various copies that convey the features and beauty of these monuments. One of the most interesting moments of this exhibition is a large number of facsimile copies: voluminous, taken from the originals, which you can touch, touch, look at.

E. Levanova: The main thing is not to drop them on the leg, they are heavy.

M. Rodin: How can such a cast be made?

E. Miklashevich: A silicone impression matrix is removed from the original rock. To do this, the rock is coated with liquid silicone resin, which allows you to copy absolutely everything. The detailing is absolutely incredible: if there is a print of a fly's paw on a rock, then it will be visible on the resin. Then the silicone hardens, and we get a flexible impression, a matrix in which, under laboratory conditions, you can make a casting from plaster, from various modern materials, plastics, acrylic plaster. There are many opportunities - it all depends on the budget, on how much weight the copy should be, and on other reasons.

The resulting copies are tinted for greater likelihood so that they look like a living stone. And as a result, we get a facsimile copy of a part of the rock - one drawing or a small scene. The exhibition will feature copies from various monuments: Pegtymel, Tomskaya Pisanitsa and Oglakhty.

These monuments will show different advantages of obtaining such copies. For example, Pegtymel is the most remote, hard-to-reach monument in our country (located in Chukotka), there even the specialists could be counted on one hand. Most of the copies were made during the expedition of Ekaterina Georgievna Devlet, some of them we show at this exhibition.

Tomsk Pisanitsa is an accessible monument, museumified, in the Kemerovo Region there is a museum of the same name "Tomsk Pisanitsa". Almost all the drawings are clearly visible there. In addition to the most interesting: the so-called upper frieze, which is higher than human height. There are more than a hundred figures of running moose, the famous owl and various other birds, bears, and anthropomorphic figures. This drawing is the best preserved on this monument, but we feel the happiness to see it only when we can build forests and get closer to it. Therefore, we decided to make a facsimile copy of the upper frieze and display it in our museum. We have now brought several fragments of copies here, to the exhibition.

E. Levanova: We will also show very interesting copies of the petroglyphs of Lake Onega and the White Sea, made by the artist Svetlana Georgievskaya. She brought several three-meter long rubs of huge petroglyphs: this is an otter and a burbot. Very beautiful life-size copies, real art objects. We also have mica copies - from Oglakhta, for example.

M. Rodin: What are wipes and what are mica copies?

E. Miklashevich: I always give visitors the following example: in childhood, everyone used a graphite pencil to rub them from coins to paper.

M. Rodin: Yes, yes, you put paper on a coin - and you start rubbing it with a pencil lead …

E. Miklashevich: Yes something like that. Only for wipes, instead of ordinary paper, special - rice or mica paper is used, and instead of graphite - paint.

E. Levanova: In addition, we have 3D models. For example, Kapova Cave is represented by several models of images: there is a small camel and mammoths. An excellent video with full laser scanning of the Shulgan-Tash or Kapovoy cave in Bashkiria will also be demonstrated at the exhibition.

A lot of information will also be presented about the research of Ekaterina Georgievna Devlet, the first head of the Center for Paleo-Art of the Institute of Archeologists of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

We wanted, of course, to give more information specifically about UNESCO and UNESCO rock art, to draw attention to the fact that these monuments need to be promoted. Now, unfortunately, of all cultural heritage sites, rock art is the least accessible to the general public. And, of course, we would like exhibitions like ours to take place in larger spaces. For example, now from Kemerovo we have brought far from all the castings that we could. And from the Far East one could bring a very famous image of a moose on the Sikachi-Alyan monument - a full-size copy, a huge boulder …

M. Rodin: Having copies is a big advantage, isn't it? In this case, is the copy a plus?

E. Miklashevich: Right.

M. Rodin: In addition, copies allow you to see what you will not see even on the object itself. By what means?

E. Levanova: Copies allow us to see more than we could see on the rock, for example, due to the peculiarities of its lighting, and besides, sometimes we may not see the petroglyphs at all. For example, this spring we had a seminar on rock art at the Tomskaya Pisanitsa monument, and, unfortunately, the guests of the seminar could not see the Tomskaya Pisanitsa monument, because the water rose and it was no longer possible to approach the monument.

We have several casts, facsimile copies taken by Elena Alexandrovna from monuments in flooded areas, where you will not see anything in high water. In low water you can see, but for this you need to collect an expedition and sail there by boat.

Or our Sikachi-Alyan on the Amur, which are also in the flooded area. Many of our beautiful petroglyph boulders will either be silted or submerged.

M. Rodin: As far as I understand, we will not see some of the monuments in the near future. What happens to them? How are they trying to restore them, fix them, or what, so that they do not collapse?

E. Miklashevich: A very good and correct question. Because another function of facsimile copies is to create a kind of "backup". Almost any of the original planes with rock paintings is subject to both natural destruction and destruction as a result of human actions. And it’s impossible to control.

M. Rodin: How acute is this problem for different monuments now?

E. Miklashevich: This is a very acute problem, because monuments are destroyed for a variety of reasons and it is impossible to restore all of them, and some of the causes of destruction cannot be prevented.

I would like to cite Oglakhty as an example - a very large complex of rock art, part of which is located on the coastal cliffs of the Yenisei, that is, the former Yenisei, and now the Krasnoyarsk reservoir. The rocks were flooded with water after they reclaimed the reservoir. And petroglyphs are exposed only in early spring, sometimes in late autumn. Naturally, most of them have already collapsed because they have been under water for so long and, especially, from fluctuations in the water level. Some of the petroglyphs are still alive, but every year fewer and fewer of them emerge from the water. We have carried out a project to copy such petroglyphs temporarily emerging from the water, and some of them are presented just at this exhibition.

M. Rodin: Tell us about the dating of this monument, about the plots of the petroglyphs, about the people who did it.

E. Miklashevich: The most ancient drawings in Khakassia are located on these coastal rocks. We do not know their exact age, we only know that they appeared before the Bronze Age. That is, they are at least five thousand years old. And how far they go inland, whether it is Neolithic or Paleolithic - we, of course, do not know. We do not have any references to date these drawings. They depict animals that either became extinct or changed their habitat: wild horses, wild bulls, rounds, wild boars, bears … These wild animals "live" in the drawings in a completely different natural environment than the one that we see now in Khakassia - these are steppe landscapes.

M. Rodin: And a similar question about Sikachi-Alyan. What kind of people made these drawings, what plots are there? What do we even know about this monument?

E. Levanova: Sikachi-Alyan is also a complex monument with dating. It dates from the early Neolithic period (by analogy with ceramics found on nearby sites) to the Middle Ages.

M. Rodin: That is, all this was drawn for thousands and thousands of years?

E. Levanova: Yes, they left embossing and drawings in very different techniques. On Sikachi-Alyan there are several points for the location of stones. And several points have already been destroyed due to human activities. That is, what we do not have time to copy now, we can lose, if, first of all, the hydraulic situation with the monuments does not change in any way. Boulders with petroglyphs will simply go under the water and no longer appear. And such examples already exist: images that we cannot find since they were documented by the expedition of Academician Okladnikov in the 70s. There, people depicted both animals and many masks, very beautiful geometric images. But, perhaps, the most recognizable image is masks. These are such face-masks of the Lower Amur. We are trying to document them completely, so that the monument is completely copied and remains for humanity.

Disguise mask. Sheremetyevo, Khabarovsk Territory, r. Ussuri

M. Rodin: In conclusion, let us remind once again what kind of exhibition it is, where it is held, how to sign up for it, where to get detailed information.

E. Levanova: The exhibition "Through Ages and Spaces: Rock Art of Russia" is being held in the Russian Historical Society. This is a wonderful foundation that helps us a lot with the exhibition. The exhibition was organized by the Siberian Association of Researchers of Primitive Art and the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The website of the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences has all the information about registering for the exhibition. You can come there from 3 to 6 December with a guided tour. Elena Aleksandrovna and I, or one of the guides, will tell you about the rock art of Russia.

M. Rodin: Thank you very much.