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Page 6

The creation of the material basis for the development of social life and the formation of ethnical great unions was favoring, in its turn, the shaping of the early laud cultivating-animal raising mentality and of the religious beliefs and worships. Incited by the most practical needs of domestic life, the prehistoric herder and land-,tiller turned to the starry sky, the high tide and the low tide of the rivers; they were the first unsophisticated "investigators" of the climatic changes, who interpreted these phenomena in their own way, supported by a brilliant imagination that turned them into beautiful tales and legends. Many of the rock -carved pictures of the Gueghamian mountains are directly related with myths and legends originating from the cult of the starry sky, the moon and the luminaries, the other elemental deities and the worship of ancestors, a considerable part of which has reached, from the Hurrian-Armenian crater, the actual stage of Armenian folklore. In the prehistoric sanctuaries of the Gueghamian mountains we may come across an extremely great number of geometrical carvings figuring the sun, the moon, the lightning, the stars, as well as whole complexes of symbols, which bear in themselves the concept of the stellar system. The apprehensions and the worships connected with these survived until the early middle -ages, particularly among the sectarians, who worshipped the sun as a deity, representing it as a radiant wheel, and explained the very existence of all living creatures by its almightiness, since they are all dependent of its nature, as the rays are dependent of the wheel, since "... it is itself a wheel and a multiplicity of rays". This is easily connected with the idea of the chariot. For that reason it is likely that the pictures of the variously shaped carts met in the engravings of the Gueghamian mountains and elsewhere may be connected with the cult of the sun, since the bulls drawing them and the surrounding other animals are nothing else than celestial bodies. In the art of the 3-rd millennium B. C. we find a multitude of carts and chariots drawn by oxen or bulls having stellar symbols on their fronts; the pictures of anthropomorphic solar deities and of war -chariots or carts were also common among the late bronze age and Urartian objects of art and worship. On one of the Urartian imprints is figuring a wonderful cart, over which is shining the sun; it is followed by the priest with his arms extended (or by the solar deity itself) and also by the fantastic griffin-goat offered to the sun and bearing a solar mark on its chest. In another imprint is figuring a boat (instead of the cart), a figure of a man, surrounded by animal and astral figures. In the Armenian popular mentality the sun and the moon are always together: on a cart or in a boat. In allusion of the sun-and-moon concept the Armenian riddle says "There's a sea, brother and sister are travelling together in a boat". Here the "brother and sister" are assumed to be the solar and lunar divinities, while the "sea" is interpreted as the purple sky belt. In the Gueghamian rock -carved pictures the cult of the firmament and of the heavenly bodies is often related with the birds. In the center of one of the pictures representing a constellation the sun is figured as a radiant wheel, upon which is shown a large bird, its beak pointed to the "blazing" globe.
Similar pictures related to middle-late bronze age are often met with in the art of that period and have their parallel in the following popular enigma "A bird flying across the sky, a hooked bill and a golden pan". In another riddle the sun, the moon and the stars are represented as birds "I have a poultry-yard, with two brood-hens and their chicken". In the Gueghamian rock-carved pictures there are unique group-images of aquatic birds accompanied by anthropomorphic ghosts and stellar symbols. Another group of pictures symbolizes the thunder-lightning or the natural elements. There are goats standing alone, with crosses and swastikas carved on their bodies, between the corns or upon the head and, which is the most important, with little beads ranged in circle and in rays, that give the impression of flashes emitted from their waist. These pictures of "sparkling" goats seem to have been done for illustrating the Armenian popular riddle "Itself a goat, with a sparkling waist". This riddle is the Laconic interpretation of the lightning.
By depicting animals our ancestors meant to represent not only the sun, the moon and the lightning, but also the whole of the star-adorned sky or the universe.


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