Rock paintings in the Baltic Sea Region

Hunting scene with footprints from Zalavruga in Karelia, Russia.
Photo: Jan Magnusson

The rock pictures of the northern hunting and fishing culture were created, like the rock carvings, to communicate with the worlds around them, both the physical and the spiritual world. The images and themes are often repeated in a stereotype manner, but in most cases still produced with great artistic skill. All known paintings have a more or less strong ochre-red tone which, comes from a pigment based on iron oxide. In many cases this mineral is to be found close to the paintings, often oozing from fissures in the rock. The lines are usually about a finger's breadth wide, which suggests that they were painted without brushes. The images are said to reflect their surroundings closely, as the animal figures are from the local fauna. Elk is the most depicted animal in the north; there are also reindeer and bear.

These animals were important game and the depictions indicate that the rock figures had a primary function in widespread magic hunting rites. It is evident that the elk was an important creature in hunting culture cosmology in this entire area. But it could also be that the paintings and engravings of the hunting cultures reflect the strong relationship between man and nature. A relationship that was normally expressed at dangerous and hidden, sacred places literally located at the outer limits of the World. And where the rock surfaces functioned as a computer screen of today, like an interface between the "real" and the hidden worlds. The numerous elk images might then reflect the existence of an Elk God or Spirit. It is well known from Saami mythology that spirits and deities "lived" in big boulders and rocks.

It seems that at first animals were the most important mythological creatures like in the Late Palaeolithic art of the Mediterranean countries. But as time went on man also entered into the mythology and became spiritualised. Further, it seems like man and animal gradually became equally important. Finally, it seems as though that the latter lost importance as is indicated by the decreasing size of the animal depictions. Exactly when this change took place is not evident, it was probably a gradually occurring process that became more marked at the time of the Bronze Age cultures (1 800 - 500 BC) in the south. In that way it also indicates contacts and relations between the northern and southern traditions.

Read about rock engravings in the Baltic Sea Region