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Animal Influences in Paleolithic Egyptian and Greek

hey thought were the most importantfeatures of the content of Paleolithic art (the animals, the arrows. etc.) andstressing the locality of the art (deep done in caves far from habitation)inferred a secret magical function.1 The paintings depict strong,dangerous, and swift animals which may be a form of sympathetic magic,in an attempt to control them through representation.(fig. 1) Manypaintings have marks indicating wounds or bleeding, which may beconnected with hunting. One theory is that prehistoric hunters believedthat by depicting the animal on the wall they would capture its soul, andinevitable death during the hunt. However there has also been evidencethat the animals used most frequently for food were not the onestraditionally portrayed in cave art.2 The paintings reflect the humanrelationship with animals; for admiration, fascination, the feared and thehunted. Reasearchers have divided the animals into three major groups.The first comprises the large herbivores-bison, ox, mammoth, horse; thesecond, the small herbivores-stag and ibex; and the third, the mostdangerous animals-lion, bear and rhinoceros, all of which occur bythemselves in the rear portions of the caves.3(fig. 2) Smaller animals suchas rabbits were not painted, perhaps because they were very abundant. Thereason for the paintings will never be fully answered. They may be part ofrituals marking a successful hunt or maybe it is art for arts sake. AndreLeroi-Gourhan feels, By this route alone, thoughts of these men who arethe only people anywhere in the world, at any epoch, to have shelteredtheir works of art in the dank depths of caves.4Egyptian art Egyptians and animals (3150 to 2700 BCE) together symbolize manymysterious and magical powers. Marilyn Stockstad states, The many godand goddesses were depicted in various forms, some as human beings,others as animals, and still others as creatures half human, half animal.5 The symbolic nature of the lion, like that of many...

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