The Hunter, the Stag, and the Mother of Animals : Image, Monument, and Landscape in Ancient North Asia

The ancient landscape of North Asia gave rise to a mythic narrative of birth, death, and transformation that reflected the hardship of life for ancient nomadic hunters and herders. Of the central protagonists, we tend to privilege the hero hunter of the Bronze Age and his re-incarnation as a warrior in the Iron Age. But before him and, in a sense, behind him was a female power, half animal, half human. From her came permission to hunt the animals of the taiga, and by her they were replenished. She was, in other words, the source of the hunter's success. The stag was a latecomer to this tale, a complex symbol of death and transformation embedded in what ultimately became a struggle for priority between animal mother and hero hunter. From this region there are no written texts to illuminate prehistory, and the hundreds of burials across the steppe reveal little relating to myth and belief before the late Bronze Age. What they do tell us is that peoples and cultures came and went, leaving behind huge stone mounds, altars, and standing stones as well as thousands of petroglyphic images. With The Hunter, the Stag, and the Mother of Animals , Esther Jacobson-Tepfer uses that material to reconstruct the prehistory of myth and belief in ancient North Asia. Her narrative places monuments and imagery within the context of the physical landscape and by considering all three elements as reflections of the archaeology of belief. Within that process, paleoenvironmental forces, economic innovations, and changing social order served as pivots of mythic transformation. With this vividly illustrated study, Jacobson-Tepfer brings together for this first time in any language Russian and Mongolian archaeology with prehistoric representational traditions of South Siberia and Mongolia in order to explore the non-material aspects of these fascinating prehistoric cultures. Cover The Hunter, the Stag, and the Mother of Animals: Image, Monument, and Landscape in Ancient North Asia Copyright Dedication Contents Preface List of Maps and Illustrations 1: The Transformation of Image, Object, and Belief in Prehistoric North Asia The Beginning: The Guardian of the Road to the Land of the Dead The Background to this Study Signifying Structures and the Reconstruction of Archaic Belief The Physical Context The Cultural Context Resources for the Study of the Early Nomads and Their Predecessors Conclusion 2: The Appearance of the Animal Mother The Tradition of Rivers and Taiga The Tradition of the Steppe Carved monoliths: masks and beasts Carved slabs: masks and beasts Cattle, carts, and female images Cultural Enigmas and Methodological Problems The Ideological Shaping of Siberian Cultural Studies Cultural Studies and the Problem of Interpreting Imagery Returning to Signifying Structures 3: The Persistence of Liminal Beings Masks of the Upper Yenisei Drainage The Spirit Figures of Karakol The Bird-Women of Kalbak-Tash The Liminal beings of Tsagaan Salaa–Baga Oigor Masks of the Oigor Gol drainage The Spirit Figures of Tsagaan Salaa–Baga Oigor The Persistence of Liminal Beings 4: The Mother of Animals The Birthing Woman The Hunter, the Hunt, and the Birthing Woman The Hunt, the Woman at the Side of the Hunt, and the Couple in Sexual Embrace The woman and the couple in sexual embrace as signs of well-being The Beginning of the End 5: The Emergence of Pictorial Narrative The Appearance of the Human Being as Central Actor: Real Worlds, Mythic Worlds The creation of symbolic landscapes The absence of death and dying The Structure of Pictorial Narrative The Reinvention of the Female Presence 6: Intimations of Death and Transformation The Appearance of the Wheeled Vehicle The Woman at the Threshold between Life and Death The Wolf as Predator The Disappearance of the Stag The deformation of the stag The subordination of the stag to the human form The stag as a sign of aggression From stag into wolf The End of Liminal Beings 7: The End of Naturalism in Nomadic Art Social and Cultural Background: The Adoption of Riding Emerging Signs of Wealth and Status: Khirigsuur and Burial Mounds The Finds at Arzhan: The Death of Naturalism 8: The Pivot Between Life and Death The Ornamental Signs of Death and Transformation Burials after Arzhan and the Order of Regalia Tuekta Bashadar Pazyryk Pazyryk period burials from the Ukok Plateau and Berel’ Commoner burials of the Pazyryk culture Nomadic Materials from the China Borderlands The Siberian Treasure of Peter the Great The Tree of Life, the Cosmic Axis 9: Traces of Ancient Beliefs Problems in the Use of Ethnographic Sources The Ket The Evenks Ket and Evenk Preshamanic Cults Mountain cults Bear cults Nature and clan cults Protective household spirits Ket Mythic Traditions Evenk Mythic Traditions Shamanic Traditions 10: The Archaeology of Belief The Logic of the Physical World The Archaeology of Belief The Imagery of Belief The End of Mythic Time Appendix: The Dating of Rock Art Execution and Definition Subject Matter Style Patina (Recoloration of the Stone) Overlay and Juxtaposition A Case Study References Index This book offers an in-depth exploration of the changing traditions of belief in pre-Bronze and Bronze Age North Asia. Esther Jacobson-Tepfer centers her argument on a female deity and her evolution up until the early Iron Age, across a 2,000 year period. Through the art historical and archaeological evidence of the symbolic systems left behind, she traces the progression of the deity from an originating animal mother through her incarnation as the mother of animals, her late embodiment as the guardian of the road to the land of the dead, the transformation of her essential liminality into the structures of predation and, in the form of a predated stag, her subsequent destruction. In detailed commentaries on rock art structures and monuments, Jacobson-Tepfer reconstructs and explores how the deity's power was embedded in the Janus-faced concept of life/death: how, in all her forms, the deity occupied the threshold between the worlds of humans and ancestors, humans and animals.0 Jacobson-tepfer Explores The Changing Traditions Of Belief In Pre-bronze And Bronze Age North Asia, Centering Her Argument On A Female Deity And Her Evolution Until The Early Iron Age--provided By Publisher. The Transformation Of Image, Object And Belief In Prehistoric North Asia -- The Appearance Of The Animal Mother -- The Persistence Of Liminal Beings -- The Mother Of Animals -- Intimations Of Death And Transformation -- The End Of Naturalism In Nomadic Art -- The Pivot Between Life And Death -- Traces Of Ancient Beliefs -- The Archaeology Of Belief. Esther Jacobson-tepfer. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. "Jacobson-Tepfer explores the changing traditions of belief in pre-Bronze and Bronze Age North Asia, centering her argument on a female deity and her evolution until the early Iron Age."-- Provided by publisher