The Engraved Pebble from Pavlo-Ochakovskaya Spit

Abstract

The status of the pebble artifacts found on the seashores and banks of the lakes in the sacral places is being discussed intensively in modern archaeology during recent years. Many of suchlike engraved stone sculptures in a shape or with the images of a bear, a bird, an elk/deer, etc. were found in the Urals and Siberia. All finds are connected with the cult places of worship, namely, painted cliffs or petroglyphs. The shamans’ burials also were found nearby. This article presents a new find made by the author in summer, 2020 on the Sea of Azov shore, on Pavlo-Ochakovskaya spit—the sandy beach in the Gulf of Taganrog, Rostov-on-Don Region. The shape of this pebble is of the canonized form of an elk/deer head and it looks like the artifacts from: Kazachka-I, the basin of the river Yenisei; Zamostie-2; Podty 1 (Komi Republic) and Mikhailovka-Klyuch (Osinoozersk culture), western Amur region archaeological sites. The previous findings of the similar shape were found not only on the open spaces but also in the archaeological layers. Archaeology still does not have a clear answer to the question of the usage of this kind of artifact. A new find from the Sea of Azov shore has an image of a running deer, which is partially painted and partially engraved. It has an incision marking the muzzle of a deer and very thin lines crossing the deer’s body. With the help of comparative study and interdisciplinary approach in this paper, we found out that similar stone sculptures in the shape of an elk/deer head were the markers of the migrated tribes since Paleolithic and can be attributed as the symbols of the Great Goddess—a divinity of mountains, stones and fertility cult widely spread in Eurasia since the Upper Paleolithic.