Rock Paintings in Laukaa, backgrounds
Jorma Kypp|
In December here was a thread about Saraa Rocks stone age
paintings in Laukaa, close to Jyvaskyla (in JMA, Jyvaskyla
Metropolitan Area, as somebody suggested, though originally
Jyvaskyla was a province of Laukaa, though now bigger ...
something like USA - GBR:).
I did mention, that these paintings might be the oldest
in Fennoscandia, but only might be. One thing how you
can assume the age of paintings is how high they are
from the present water level on the nearby lakes.
I also like to reremind, that now I'm talking about
*paintings*, made by red ochre based colours. In Fennoscandia,
there exist also same kind of rock carvings, which are
usually older. Rock carvings you can find eg. near the
Arctic Sea on the northest part of Norway (Komsa) and
in Carelia around Lake Aaninen (Petroskoy, Russia).
Now I've in my hands a book "Saraakallio" by Pekka Kivikas.
Pekka Kivikas is not a scientist, but a teacher in Jyvaskyla
and photographer, who has a summer cottage in Laukaa near
Saraa Rocks. He developed a method of his own to describe
these paintings and later got so involved, that travelled
all over the Finland and Carelia to check up the other
stone paintings. On base of these travels he made a more
specific book, that was praised last year in Finland with
an especial annual price, "Knowledge-Finlandia".
Though he isn't a scientist, he naturally has had assistants,
who are experts and who did read his texts before these books
were printed. One of the closest experts is Janne Vilkuna,
a scientist in third generation and an intendent of the Museum
of Central Finland.
In the end of the book you can find the list of sources, some
sixty books and thirty articles between the years 1899-1987.
Among then, BTW, L. Meri's book, we we talking about in
"rhubarb thread.
Especially about Saraa Rock paintings he has been discussing
with Eero Autio, who made the book about Carelian rock carvings.
One interestin source has been the books of Russian academic
Okladnikov, if somebody is interested.
Generally during the writing process Kivikas became convinved
of a large common cultural chain, where Laukaa Saraa Rocks
is one pearl, and that goes from Atlantic Ocean to Pacific
Ocean over Siberia.
METHOD: Just shortly about his method. Usually archeologs
use chalk to draw the lines of paintings.
But the problem in these old pictures is, that they are
somehow "four dimensional" = they look different from
different viewpoint in different light. And they change
during the time = morning, daytime, summer, winter.
I sometimes wonder if those who made them knew about
this phenomena and made paintings in such way, that you
can see them only in certain moment!
To avoid this changing problem, Kivikas took hundreds
of photoes about one figure during different times
of the year. Then he put the negatives on each other
and finally found the picture he redraw it.
Interesting method, that insists also a lot of risks.
WHO FOUND THEM: The first these paintings were found by
school boys in 40's. They were skiing on lake and
wondered the paintings. They were forgotten until
Heikki Hirvinen (teacher?) made an official announcement
and the foundation was investigated bythe Museum Office
of Finland.
However, it seems to be obvious, that people in Laukaa
knew already long time about the paintings, but they
thought, that the painter was Jussi Kuuvalo (John Moonlight),
whose house was nearby (and whose descendats still live
there), a famous magician and witch in the end of last century.
Jussi Kuuvalo was known of all kinds of tricks and
was able to make tricks like Harry Houdini or Franz Harary.
Eg, there are stories how he crawled into a living horse
and disappeared. Once a fellow, who had claypots on his
carriage, made John angry. John Moonlight made the
pots to look like grouses and broke himself his pots!
Have you seen any similar happening on nets...;)
Jorma Kyppo
Laukaa
Finland
Next: The timing of the paintings.
Lennart Regebro
s...@post1.com (S.W.) wrote:
>On 12 Jan 1997 13:16:09 GMT, jo...@jytko.jyu.fi (Jorma Kypp|) wrote:
>=>I did mention, that these paintings might be the oldest
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>=>in Fennoscandia, but only might be. One thing how you
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>Since man seems to have wandered north as the ice
>withdrew first reaching and settling in the southern part of
>Fenno-Scandia
This is only partly correct. The people coming from the south is only
one of the groups that populated fenno-scandia. Other people come from
the east into the north and migrated southwards.
>(which of course also includes Sweden, where the
>southern parts are far south of Finland....) then why should the first
>paintings have been made far way from those southern reaches, far
>inland, away from the coasts and river estuaries first settled.....
And besides, these are not THE FIRST paintings. They are THE OLDEST
paintings. Thats one heck of a difference.
Rolf Manne
I don't know what these paintings look like. I know, however, that
there are two kinds of rock carvings in Sweden and Norway. One kind
which is especially common in Bohuslän (Sweden) and the adjoining
Østfold area of Norway, the other kind is found in the north. The
northern carvings, often showing single big-game animals of high
artistic quality, are generally dated to the stone age, the southern
ones clearly related to some kind of fertility cult, to the bronze
age.
Rolf Manne
Lennart Regebro
ry...@tukki.cc.jyu.fi (Jarmo Ryyti) wrote:
>Well once again remembering a seminar at Fenno-Ugric congress
>1995 in Jyva"skyla"...by heart.
>The icebelt covered the mountains of so called Fenno-Scandia
>but on the western side there was free water and people may have
^^^
>moved from the south over present "Norwegian cost" to the
>north where they lived separated until the ice smelt
>and united people coming later from the south to the north.
Exactly. Although an interesting and fachinating theory, it is only a
theory. There is unfortunately not one speck of evidence to support
this, in my understanding.
>That can be one explanation of the Komsa culture. And one
>explanation to the creation of Finnish language because
I did not know that these needed explanation, and that most scholars
viewed this as a mystery.
Jorma Kypp|
Lennart Regebro (reg...@stacken.kth.se) wrote:
> ry...@tukki.cc.jyu.fi (Jarmo Ryyti) wrote:
> >Well once again remembering a seminar at Fenno-Ugric congress
> >1995 in Jyva"skyla"...by heart.
> >The icebelt covered the mountains of so called Fenno-Scandia
> >but on the western side there was free water and people may have
> ^^^
> >moved from the south over present "Norwegian cost" to the
> >north where they lived separated until the ice smelt
> >and united people coming later from the south to the north.
> Exactly. Although an interesting and fachinating theory, it is only a
> theory. There is unfortunately not one speck of evidence to support
> this, in my understanding.
> >That can be one explanation of the Komsa culture. And one
> >explanation to the creation of Finnish language because
I would like to know, that is there any other reason for this
theory than the fact, that it was *possible* to move using
that route?
> I did not know that these needed explanation, and that most scholars
> viewed this as a mystery.
I suppose not everybody needed the explanation, but there were some
comments, that defensed the purpose of explanation.
Jorma Kyppo
Laukaa
Finland