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THE CREATION OF MYTH
On Rock Art as early
documentation of Myth-making |
On Rock Art as early documentation of Myth-making
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While the living speech of Homer eventually moved into the historical record of the West, the older oral forms of the mythos appear to lack any form of written record.
Nevertheless — many of the earlier and more primitive cultural sites recovered thus far by archeology demonstrate a type of pictorial 'documentation' of their home-culture’s founding mythos — by way of remarkable visual representations found scratched, chiseled, cut or incised, ...etc... painted, ... . on stone surfaces , .... etc. <examples> It seems quite possible that, among at least some of the earlier human cultural groups, their handed-down beliefs were not only relayed by word of mouth, but were also the basis of . . . glyphs ... and graphics . . . ... |
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Many instances seem to more or less illustrate the later remembered vestiges of the local mythos, and indeed are often hypothesized to have originally been presented and explained in tandem with accompanying narratives or performances — by these means, perhaps, “storing” information that was originally intentionally conveyed by older meanings behind the myths, in graphic media capable of preserving and transmitting more primary (if seemingly obscure) data to future generations.
<E.g., petroglyphs, etc.> As a vast majority of these graphic representations seem to be specifically related to the cosmogonic and cosmological themes and tropes at the center of our study, we propose considering many instances of Neolithic rock art as the earliest documentation of myth-making activity we have recovered. The quizzical shapes and forms of these glyphs commonly appear to tell a “story” — quite possibly parts of the the same story we also encounter when listening to the myths these same peoples inherited from the voices of the past — a story perhaps still recoverable today, in the traces preserved down the line of generations forward. |
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Although these graphic representations are commonly regarded as having been undertaken by largely preliterate cultures, we find some of the glyphic forms inscribed or painted in the late Stone Age re-purposed later during the Bronze Age — by becoming rudimentary root-shapes of common hieroglyphs, and sometimes even later alphabetical forms of writing . ...
<examples> — The longest-lived glyphic forms, moreover, are remarkably most often the very shapes we find most numerously spread around the globe. ... <examples> Might we also consider these facts as further demonstration of the indelible impression some of the oldest traces of human activity seem to have left upon the collective psyche, down to this very day? |