Abstract
The article deals with the Stone Age rock art of the Lower Amur. Petroglyphs are manifested aspects of a complete view of the worldarticulated in mythology and transformed into artistic images on stones and rocks. The study focuses on coupled masks of the Lower Amur petroglyphs as elements of an ancient world model. Goals.The article attempts an insight into symbolic essentials of the coupled mask on stone no. 57 of the Sikachi-Alyan-Malyshevo petroglyphs. The research employs an approach to describe rock art through the iconographic method to depict masks. Тhe study of signs inherent to masks appeals to B. Rybakov’s theory of double (coupled) rozhanitsy and fertility spirits, analyzes writings by a number of ethnographers and archaeologists, such as A. Anisimov, A. Zolotarev, A. Popov, A. Lipsky, A. Okladnikov, and E. Okladnikova. Results.The signs in coupled masks semantically depict an artistic image of the mythological celestial pair of rozhanitsy that favorthe birth of everything. Sedentary fishermen of the Amur created a model of the universe consisting of the heavenly and earthly spheres. One such partis depicted on stone no. 57. The drawings had been created as attributes of rituals associated with the cult of fertility.
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