Calendar symbols in Glazkovo (Siberia) culture

Oldest «tools» for time counting - Moon and Sun, so it has formal possibilities to include of that semantic field all, which have any connections with this luminaries. One may include too some constellations or stars, which have special configuration - «moose», «bowman» et al., or special time of visibilities on the sky. There are many Siberian calendars with a months, named zoomorphic, - such us eagle, burbot and others. The oldest type of calendar symbols of Glazkovo culture was models of stone fish. They were discovered near lake Baikal, rivers Angara and Lena (upper part). The most of them are figures of burbot, models of white fish occur less. Generally their length changed from 16 to 21 cm, some of them were polished, and had one or more drilled holes. Very particularly they were described by Okladnikov A.P., Studzickaya S.V., Gorunova O.I., Novikov A.G. a.o. Okladnikov A.P. proposed that some of stone fish were baits for big fish catching. However, exist more than one reason think about sacral function only. At first all types of real known baits was made from fang or ivory, but not stone, with the length no more than 12 - 14 cm. Second reason, they never polished. Thirdly, majority of stone fish models were made from soft limestone rock, with low mechanical strength. Very big and bilateral examples of stone fish (with two head, called Janus liked) all of explorers named sacral. There are very important motives to choice all of them as a calendar symbols. This applies to biological behavior of burbot and white fish (baikalian omul). Burbot biological activity began rises as cold snap. Spawning period of him beginning in October, and coinside with the advent of the «belt» of Orion on the Sky. In the second half of December maximal intensity of spawning reaches, it matches with data of winter solstice and the culmination of Betelgeize, the most bright star of Orion. The end of burbot spawning coincide with vernal equinox and meeting Orion belt from heaven. Omul spawning began in the second half of September with an autumn equinox, thus marking the beginning of winter season. On the petroglyphs attributable to Early Bronze we know bears image, with an opening mouth. Tchernetsov V.N. thought of them Ural -Siberian feature of bear images. Added stick up wool on the back, and they are the features of male bear during mating time, which finished with summer solstice (the end of June). Some of the above - mentioned images «bears» had a disk, which he try to swallow. Some time it was vertically divided. In some Siberian calendar second part of March and September named as «month half of the glow», and this is just a synonym of equinox. So the bears images which have opening mouth and sticking wool on the back probably denote summer time before solstice, and autumn equinox on the images with a divided Sun disk. This is due to the fact that the time of bear hibernation matches with an autumn equinox, - bear (in figurative sense) «carries» the sun with him. Coming out of hibernation in the spring, bear «returns» the sun, becomes a symbol of summer time. On the other hand elk do not lose his activity, and starting mating games in the beginning of winter season, becomes of winter season symbol. But we have no blended image bear - moose in glazkovo materials. The earliest artifact this kind of is known from okunevo culture, and later becomes to fantastic predator, with features of bear, moose, eagle, snake. Thus the calendar symbols of Glazkovo culture had solar - astral semantic and zoomorphic view.

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