A rather sweeping proposition, to be sure, but there are one
or two themes among the very rare examples of narrative art
in the Magdalenian collection that seem particularly reminiscent
of Iranian myth and rite. The first is shown at its best in the
famous Shaft painting at Lascaux, described by one investigator
as "the most striking scene in the entire cave." 229 The Shaft itself
is sixteen feet deep and evidently was negotiated by means of
a rope. At the bottom a small chamber is dominated by a painted
panel some six feet long (fig. 63). Artistically the painting offers
no challenge to the magnificent works in Lascaux's Axial Gallery;
many of the elements here are no more than sketched,
without color or substance. At the center lies a bird-headed or
bird-masked man drawn in stiff black lines. Below him a bird,
also schematically drawn and with a head precisely like that of
the man, is perched on a pole. On the right a bison rendered
in an unusual style appears to be badly wounded. He too is
perhaps recumbent; large black loops believed to be entrails
issue from his lower body, and his head is turned back in that
direction. A line with a barbed hook, which may or may not
represent the Bird-Headed Man's spear, lies across the body of
the bison. To the left a rhinoceros is shown moving away from
the scene. His belly, chest, and foreleg were never sketched in,
and the six black dots under his upraised tail are of uncertain
significance. Leroi-Gourhan believes that this animal may be
irrelevant to the main drama,2 38 but in the opinion of the Abbe
Breuil, it was the rhinoceros, and not the fallen man, that was
responsible for the goring of the bison. 262
Countless numbers of human beings had apparently descended
into the Shaft over the years, wearing and blackening
the stone at the lip of the chasm. A great many bone points, all
broken, and a number of small dishlike stone lamps lay below
the painted panel. Presumed to have been ritual offerings, these
objects add to the impression, generally shared by prehistorians,
that this celebrated chamber played a central role in the religious
life of those who visited Lascaux. The most intensive analysis
of the cave to date has led its authors to conclude with respect
to the Shaft:
Though it is as yet too early to understand the real meaning of
it, such consistency between the place, the wall decoration, and
the whole assemblage invites us to see in this unity the heart of
what was quite obviously a sanctuary. 240
Too early or not, few prehistorians have failed to offer an
explanation of the meaning of the Shaft painting (e.g., hunter
slain by bison, shamanic trance; the man's rigid phallus could
indicate either condition). None has been found convincing
enough for a consensus, however, or for that matter, worthy
of enshrinement at the heart of Lascaux. Hunting magic, at one
time the answer to all problems in interpreting rock art, also
seems to be an inadequate explanation; as Laming-Emperaire
pointed out, it is difficult to see how the Bird-Headed Man, if
indeed dead or wounded, could further the success of the hunt. 229
She found it more likely that figures such as these represent
"mythical beings who were perhaps connected in some way
with the history of the ancestors of the group." If LamingEmperaire
was on the right track, the scene portrayed here
may find its closest surviving counterparts in Inda-European
cosmogony . The composition in the Lascaux Shaft bears a provocative
resemblance to the world-creating death of Gayomart (the
Iranian First Man) and the Primordial Bull.
As told in the Persian Bundahisn, Gayomart and the bull lived
in a state of divine bliss until the evil principle broke into the
world, causing the death of the pair . When the bull died, its
marrow flowed forth to create all the nourishing and healing
plants; its semen was borne to the moon for purification and
thence to the creation of all species of animals. From Gayomart' s
body came the metals ( originally perhaps the mineral kingdom
as a whole); from his own seed, purified in the sun, sprang the
ten species of men.
We shall later find that the creation of the world out of the
body of a primeval anthropomorph, or of a slain bull, was not
limited to Inda-European traditions. But as Gayomart and the
bull have close counterparts in Scandinavian as well as Vedic
mythology, 72 many scholars believe that this theme, like that of
Yima's reign, was known to the Inda-European unity. (In the
Norse myth Ymir, who was also associated with a primordial
bovid, is slain and the earth made from his flesh, the water
from his blood, the mountains from his bones, etc. [Gylfaginning
6-8]; the sacrifice of the Vedic Purusa, a name which combines
the Sanskrit words for "man" and "bull," 244 was similarly generative
[Rig Veda X.90.vi-xvi].) It has further been suggested
that because of the greater conservatism of the Inda-Iranian
branch of the Inda-Europeans, the eastern versions may more
closely approximate the original myth. 243 And it is in fact the
Iranian account which seems most faithful to the scene in the
Lascaux Shaft.
...he may well have slain both man and bison. The pronounced
ithyphallic condition of the fallen man could signify not only
his moribund state but also the release of his seed, while the
effluent from the lower belly of the bison may denote his own
freed seminal substance, as well as or instead of his entrails.
(The barbed line across the body of the bison is in any event
oddly placed to be the man's spear and may depict a symbolic
line of force.) The Persian association of the xvarenah with bird
forms (as in Yima's loss of the Glory, above) suggests that the
bird's head or mask on the fallen man and the bird perched
below him may represent the immortal Glory which Gayomart
himself possessed. Finally, and not of least importance, the
slaying of the First Man and the Primordial Bull- the cosmogonic
act itself-would have been an eminently appropriate
subject for portrayal in the depths of the sanctuary at Lascaux.
The story describing the event depicted in the Shaft may
have played a major part in the oral tradition during the Early
and Middle Magdalenian periods; artistic variations on the
man-bison theme have been found at three other European sites,
dating from perhaps 17,000 to 12,000 B. C. 238 (Lascaux's paintings
were executed in the first half of the fifteenth millennium.) In
Persian mythology the death of the First Man did not prevent
the celebration of a Golden Age; the resplendent Yima was said
to be a descendant of Gayomart, five generations removed (Bundahisn
XXXV). However telescoped mythic time may be, if the
scene in the Shaft does represent the Inda-European cosmogony,
the reign of Yima and the Magdalenian Golden Age may in fact
have been one.
Accepting for the moment this hypothetical identity, we would
expect the decay of art and culture in Late Paleolithic southwest
Europe to have marked the fall of Yima (or of his line). It is in
this light, perhaps, that one should view the next, and almost
the only other, certain examples of narrative art in the Magdalenian
collection, apparently rendered later in the Paleolithic
period. 237 Of these two carved bone plaques, the one from Les
Eyzies (fig. 64a) shows nine small silhouettes of human figures
walking in file toward a bison. They either carry sticks or have
been "struck through" by signs of unknown meaning .265 The
other, from Raymonden (fig. 64b), depicts the head of a bison,
still attached to the spine, with the severed legs of the animal
in front. On either side human figures have again been schematically
drawn, one of which also appears to have lines extending
from his chest. According to one prehistorian: "To regard
this scene as depicting some magic rite connected with trapping,
or the ritual interment of an animal, is altogether far-fetched.
The men facing each other from either side of the animal's spine
are obviously 'faithful' present at the ceremony." 260
What sort of ceremony is not specified; we presume a sacrifice
is meant. Nor is the reason why only now, possibly quite late
in the Magdalenian day, does it seem to have been pictorially
represented. If this is not merely an accident of recovery, these
plaques may depict rites that had been newly instituted (or
perhaps made public) toward the end of the Magdalenian era.
We noted earlier that one of Yima' s alleged sins was giving the
flesh of cattle to the people to eat, which has been interpreted see page 107
as the establishing of ritualized slaughter of the bull. If the body
of the dismembered bison at figure 64b had been ceremonially
consumed by the men surrounding its remains , this was not a
dissimilar ritual. Precise dates are lacking , but it is possible that
these plaques were carved during the decline of prehistoric
Europe's Golden Age. Did the ceremony they depict anticipate
the end of Yima's reign?
). Quoting Collins:
