Rock Art and Its Legacy in Myth and Art

Petroglyphs from Eurasia, Arabia and Northern Africa

Rock art is the oldest artistic expression of mankind. The first creation of these rock carvings (“petroglyphs”) and rock paintings (“pictographs”) by homo-sapiens represented in multiple aspects a real quantum leap in mental performance.

In Rock Art and Its Legacy in Myth and Art explorer Christoph Baumer tells the story of these remarkable phenomena of early human imagination, taking in examples from Central Asia and the Caucasus through to Arabia and the Sahara. Baumer examines petroglyphs created on natural rock surfaces or inside prehistoric caves, by engraving, carving or scratching techniques using lithic or metallic tools and explores their meanings through local myths and legends and ceramic artefacts of the time. Vividly illustrated throughout with 300 full colour images, the book celebrates the legacy of these petroglyphs as a means of expression, of communication, of recording events and coded messages as well as an element within rituals for tens of thousands of years down to the present.