From the book SEEING KNOWING: Understanding Rock Art with and without ethnography
Department of Cultural Sciences, Tromsø University Museum, Tromsø, Norway
Rock art was often deliberately made where communication with the spirits was believed to be good. It was therefore made in caves and shelters, on steep cliffs, high in the mountains and on the shore — a range of localities all considered transitional spaces between cosmic worlds (Lewis-Williams & Dowson 1990; Tilley 1991; Whitley 1998; Helskog 1999). This emphasises that rock art is often just one part of a broader ritual landscape. This chapter focuses on the physical rock art panel, the surface with art, and bow this art engages with the rock art figures. On some surfaces, specific topographic features enhanced the form of the figures. Figures directly associated with cracks and fissures appear to be climbing out from inside/under the surface, or a serpent depicted in a basin is interpreted as a serpent within water, or the tracks of the bear entering a basin are interpreted as the bear going underwater, passing through to the underworld (Helskog 1999). To secure a prosperous field season at Besov Nos on the east coast of Lake Onega in Karelia, some Russian archaeologists always start fieldwork by sacrificing a shot or two of vodka into the mouth — a fissure — of the large rock engraving called ‘the demon’. Fieldwork is always good.
Topographic features might be one reason for selecting a particular surface; orientation to the sun, dark hidden places, colours and the presence of water are others. It is to be expected that around the world the reasons will be numerous, the locations different — each particular to a specific culture and to that people’s rituals and understandings of their life in the known universe. However, in many areas it is clear that surfaces were selected with great care, for specific reasons, all connected with the symbolism of the rock art. These points are demonstrated for a series of rock art panels made by prehistoric hunter-fisher-gatherers in Alta, Arctic Norway (Figure 10.1).
Figure 10.1. Map of northernmost Europe showing the location of Alta and Zalavruga (at the river Vyg)
During the last few years, my understanding of rock art has changed. The process began when I saw compositions in which bears were the central ‘actors’ (Figure 10.2). These seemed to be illustrations in which the animals moved through space and time. This was a story in which I could recognise some key elements without needing to know the full meaning (Helskog 1999). I realised that the rock surface itself played a much larger part in the composition than I had previously thought. I then understood that my recorded rock art information was incomplete; I lacked detailed knowledge of the surfaces. The thousand photographs taken as part of my documentation have not relieved my uneasiness or made me feel more comfortable. In 19971 asked an artist to draw one of the large panels (Figures 10.2,10.3). The artist found that the changes in perspective that occurred in different parts of the panel made it impossible to make a satisfactory single rendering of the panel, and no (three-dimensional) drawing was made.
Figure 10.2 Bergbukten I. Photograph of part of the panel, taken from a high ladder;
a perspective that was probably never seen in prehistoric times. Water has collected in small pools after a rainstorm.
Tracks lead up to but do not descend into the largest of these pools (bottom right comer).
Clearly, this pool of water formed a part of the story of the panel.
The figures are now painted red so as to be more visible to visitors.
In 1999 I challenged another artist, illustrator and technical drawer to work on the same panel. Part of the result is seen in Figure 10.4. At around the same time I bought a book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (Edwards 1979), with the Norwegian title To Draw is to See (Å Tegne er å Se), because nobody seemed able to give me what I wanted. Reading and practicing drawing made me realise how bound I was to the long-established tradit