The Space and Time in Rock Art of Armenia

Rock carvings of Armenia are of great cognitive importance as a historical and cultural primary source of the pre-literate era, which reflects the deep past in a pictorial way.Representing almost all the main and important spheres of our ancestors' life, petroglyphs convay a peculiar picture of their mental activity and worldview.They are closely and harmoniously intertwined with the surrounding natural and historical environment, forming the cultural landscape.The role of heavenly luminaries and phenomena, on which life and safety mainly depend, has been understood since ancient times.The connection between the heavenly and earthly phenomena was reflected in the mythological thinking, manifested iconographically in the products of almost all significant spheres of Armenian culture.Rock paintings stand out among them, as an ancient expression of human observation abilities and worldview.Among them there are many compositions with calendars, drawings and maps of the starry sky and surroundings, the Sun and the Moon, stars and stellar groups, atmospheric phenomena, Earth's pole marks, time of day, eclipse, comets and meteors, geometric symbols, ideograms, etc.They were also objectified in observatory structures, stone alignments, later vividly expressed in the culture of the Urartian period (IX-VI ce.BC) and in medieval manuscripts.The manifestations of ancient perceptions of space and time are abundant in the main areas of Armenian culture.All that greatly predetermined the development of the Armenian mythological and scientific mind.