The first prayer to the Sun

The first prayer to the Sun (abstract)

 

At the end of Pleistocene, from the 15th to the 12th millennia BP people of the Magdalenian culture one of the last cultures of Paleolith were living in Pyrenean at the basin of Ariège River. Magdalenian people had left great works of art on the walls of the caves in the region. Also many tools and sculptures had been found inside these caves. According to the French archeologists who were investigating the caves  (i.a. Pailhaugue 1998, Clottes 1999), Magdalenians were hunting in the tundra for the bison, reindeer, horse, deer and antelope during the Summer. During the cold Winter they were moving to the Pyrenees, and that time they had been visiting the Pyrenean caves. On the basis of the paintings and sculptures found in Ariège, French archeologists draw conclusions concerning the structure of the social groups and shamanism.

After electrification of the Grotte de la Vache (one of the caves in Ariège), a very modest image became visible. French archeologists agreed that it represents the image of sun. However, nobody has been analyzing it in a more detailed way.

According to the proposed paper, this modest image of the sun on the wall of the Grotte de la Vache is the most important among all other images and paintings. This is because it shows the transition from shamanism to the first religion, the Sun worship. Basing on the chronology of the known volcanic eruptions and the data gathered in the framework of the Greenland Ice Core Project (2009) we are able to place this transition in time as 12 945 (+/- 15) years BP.

Keywords: shamanism, first religion, Sun worship, Magdalenian culture, Ariége, Niaux, Vache