Petroglyphs

Petroglyphs (petro = rock; glyph = carving) are human-made images which were pecked, scratched, incised or abraided into stone. Petroglyphs date back tens of thousands of years and are found all over the world. They were used by early people to record events, visions and story telling. They were produced using crude tools such as sticks, rocks or bone. Unlike Heiroglyphics, Petroglyphs are generally not a language. They are pictures that tell a story. Some are historic markers, some are geological markers, and some are for ritualistic purposes. Sometimes glyphs were made to label a nearby underground spring or other geological thing.

Source: Petroglyphs

Images from:

Italy

Naquane National Park (Capo di Ponte) Hunting scene and Acrobatic riding scene, First Iron Age, 7-6 B.C.E

Source: Valcamonica Rock Art: Petroglyphs from the Italian Alps

Russia

This piece of rock has over sixty chipped drawings on it: figures of men, deer, elks, birds, boats with people in them, circles and semicircles with long projections. Many attempts have been made to decode the petroglyph, found in the middle of the 19th century. Some scholars think that the images record the annual economic cycle of the ancient inhabitants of Karelia (circles and semicircles with projections are interpreted as animal traps). Others regard the drawings as mythological scenes connected with sun worship (circles and semicircles) and the cult of ancestors (boats with men).

Source: Rock Art From Russia: The Hermitage Collection of Prehistoria Art

Carved Petroglyph (fragment) Lake Onega 4th-3rd millenium BC Granite L 308 cm, w 240 cm

USA

The upraised arm figure is a common representation of a shamanic dance posture for imbuing supernatural power through the wrist. This is frequently seen as a stick figure with upraised arms and bent legs.

Source: COMMON SYMBOLS AND MOTIFS IN MINNESOTA ROCK ART

Australia

Australian rock art shows some of the oldest-known human artistic images, and there is indirect evidence of possibly the earliest known artistic activity anywhere.

Archaeological evidence suggests that humans first arrived in Australia between 60,000 and 65,000 years ago. Northern Australia is the most likely place for people to have travelled from south east Asia across the land bridges then sailed across the ocean gaps to northern Australia. Archaeologists have now discovered early occupation sites at the three most probable entry areas - the Kimberley, Arnhem Land and Cape York Peninsula.

Aboriginal Mythological painting in a cave near Mount Barnett, along the Gibb River Road in the southern Kimberleys, northern Western Australia.

Human figure said to be painted by a Mimi spirit - from Kakadu National Park

Aboriginal people of western Arnhem Land say that their Mimi rock pictures were painted not by humans but by the Mimi spirits. The drawings, usually in red ochre, show elegant, graceful stick-like human figures in action - fighting, running, dancing, leaping and hunting.

Hand and boomerang stencils, made by blowing water and red ochre from the mouth, on a rock face in Carnarvon National Park, central Queensland.

Link: Aboriginal Art Online: Rock Art

Africa

The oldest dated San art is 27,000 years old. The last art was made in the 19th century, by when the San had been destroyed or driven out of their ancestral areas in Southern Africa. Though there are no longer any San rock painters, their spirit lives on to inspire those who explore its mysterious meanings. The brilliantly captured images of San rock art are not simply pictures of animals encountered on the Savanna and in the mountains. They are symbolic of beliefs and values, and deeply moved the San mind to fill it with religious feeling. Most often depicted was the eland, the largest African antelope (pictured at the right) believed to hold a supernatural potency rather like electricity.

Source: African Odyssey

Image from Ndedema Shelter, Southern Africa.

India

Deer from pre-historic rock painting from Bhimbetaka