The emergence of religious beliefs and art briefly. Presentation on the topic "the origin of art and religion in antiquity." Magic and religion
Primitive people knew a lot about the world. They understood the habits of animals, the properties of various plants and stones, were able to predict the weather, treat grains and bites of poisonous snakes. Stone tools even made surgical operations cut off an injured arm or leg
In many practical knowledge, ancient people surpassed modern man. However, they had no idea about many things. Observations of natural phenomena, reflections on the life of people led to the emergence of the idea of the existence of invisible forces - spirits And gods, that affect nature and human life. This is how religion was born. Primitive religion differed significantly from the religion of later times. For primitive people, gods and spirits were not some otherworldly forces that rule the world, they were not perceived as something different from man. The gods were embodied in very specific objects: stones, trees, animals. The ancestors of the clan were also gods. were also considered some kind of animals. People felt their constant "* connection with the gods. Therefore, they believed that they could influence | "6ogs and spirits: appease, feed them (the rite of sacrifice), and sometimes punish.
Many religious rites were associated with hunting. With the help of magical actions, they sought to make animals easier prey. Much attention was paid to the burial rite, since the members of the clan who went to the afterlife had to be provided with everything necessary for life there.
Religion is associated with primitive art, the problem of the origin of which is still the subject of scientific discussion. It is assumed that art, like religion, has become one of the ways to comprehend the world around us.
Art originated from the Neanderthals (notches, ornaments). Under the Cro-Magnons, the time came for its true heyday. The most impressive monument of the Paleolithic period is cave painting. Hundreds of magnificent color realistic images of mammoths, bison, deer, horses, bears were found in a number of caves. cave drawings date back to the period from 30 to 12 thousand years ago. These images were created for witchcraft hunting rites, some of them showed traces of blows with stone arrowheads. Perhaps, the caves with drawings were also used from the time of initiation as a kind of school of hunting skills.
Paleolithic sculpture is no less interesting. These are figurines of animals made of stone, bone, turf. On some of them there are traces of blows that were inflicted during magical rites.
Unlike animals, depictions of people were usually done abstractly. On the walls of the caves, all people have masks on their faces. Paleolithic venuses also have practically no faces - small (5-15 cm) figurines of women, as a rule, naked, occasionally dressed. Many such figurines were found in Western Europe, but most of all in Russia, in the Voronezh region, and also "near Baikal. Historians suggest that these are the progenitors of the role. Similar sculptures also expressed the ideas of motherhood, fertility.
In addition to fine arts, songs and secrets undoubtedly played a big role in people's lives.
Topic: « The Emergence of Art and Religious Beliefs, Grade 5
Target: identify the constituent elements of primitive art and religious beliefs; analyze the causal relationship in the formation of the worldview of primitive man.
Planned results:
subject: learn to use the techniques of historical analysis to reveal the essence and significance of art and religion for primitive man; explain the reasons for the emergence and development of the foundations of spiritual culture in primitive society; study and systematize information based on various historical sources;
meta-subject UUD: form your own point of view; listen and hear each other; independently formulate a learning problem; find ways to solve the tasks; give definitions of concepts; be able to extract information from texts different types;
personal UUD : to form personal motivation to study new material; be aware of the importance of cultural and moral heritage for modern man and society as a whole.
Basic concepts: werewolves, soul, religious beliefs, cave painting, "land of the dead", witchcraft, art.
Equipment : history textbook ancient world, multimedia board, ½ A4 sheet and pencils in three colors - black, red, brown.
Lesson type: a lesson in solving particular problems using an open method.
I. Organizational moment
II. Updating of basic knowledge
Frontal survey (conversation)
Dates written on the board:2 million liters n., 100 thousand liters. n., 40 thousand liters. n.
What events are included in the given dates?
– Why didn't ancient people die during a cold snap on Earth? List the main reasons.
– Why could only a tight-knit group of people succeed in hunting large game?
– What signs of a tribal community expresses the word "community"? What are the characteristics of the word "generic"?
III . Formation of the educational problem.
The teacher draws the attention of students to the topic of the lesson, and on its basis, the formation of a learning task takes place.
Lesson topic
"The Rise of Art and Religious Beliefs"
The teacher highlights the words"art" And"belief"
How do you understand the word "art" and "belief"?
Pupils give their answers, which the teacher fixes on the board. From the above associations, we form the main task of the lesson -"To determine the causal relationship in the formation of the spiritual life of primitive man"
IV. Learning new material
Cave painting. Riddles of ancient drawing
Work with text, reading, conversation, work with illustration(time, clearly controlled by the teacher, allotted for acquaintance with the text).
p. 1, 2 § 3 - independent work with the text.
Conversation on:
– How was cave painting discovered?
– Why did primitive artists portray humans poorly and convey the appearance and character of animals well?
– Why did primitive artists depict mammoths, bison, deer, horses? What role did these animals play in people's lives?
Man "enchants" the beast. religious
beliefs.
The teacher's story based on illustrations and the creation of a reference diagram.
In the Paleolithic era, drawings were created depicting people in strange clothes (Appendix 1), according to most scientists, these are sorcerers.(here you can work with the class - Who is a sorcerer?)
Ancient man was powerless before natural phenomena - wind, storm, thunder, lightning, etc. - he was afraid and bowed before the natural elements. A stable concept is being formed that in order for natural forces to be favorable to a person, it is necessary to make a sacrifice to them. This is how paganism arises - the deification of the forces of nature. At the same time, a funeral cult also appears, that is, various rites and beliefs associated with the burial of the dead.
Other forms of beliefs arise and develop in primitive society:
Totemism - belief in the mysterious connection of the human race (tribe) with certain animals or plants;
Animism - belief in invisible "spirits" or "souls" that were endowed with animate and inanimate objects;
Magic - sorcery
Ancient people believed that the success of the hunt depended on supernatural forces. Therefore, figures of animals pierced by spears and arrows were painted on the walls of the caves (Appendix 2). Some tribes drew the intended victim on the ground and pierced the drawing with spears in a ritual dance.
Supernatural forces, deities, people represented in different ways - in the form of people, animals, or fantastic creatures. He carved their images from improvised material (wood, bone, stone) and worshiped them. In ancient times, even human sacrifices were made to idols.
In the course of the development and complication of religious ideas, the former sorcerers become professional servants of the gods. Gradually, they stand out in a special group.priests who lived off donations and passed on their profession by inheritance.
The beliefs that appeared among primitive people - in witchcraft, in the soul, in life after death - are called religious.
V. Consolidation of the studied material
Each student has ½ of an A4 sheet and pencils of three colors - black, red, brown.
The task:
Draw a scene from your Everyday life, given the basic rules: 1 - you are a primitive person; 2 - we use only three colors (black, red, brown - min. paints); 3 - features of the rock art technique (a person is depicted schematically); 4 - time is limited (10-15 min.)
VI. Reflection
– What is the goal, tasks we faced at the beginning of the lesson?
– Were you able to achieve them?
– What skills and abilities did you acquire in the lesson? Will they be useful to you in everyday life? Can they be used in other lessons?
– What else would you like to think about in class? Why do you consider it significant?
VII . Homework
§ 3, task 2 p.20
The teacher announces the task and shows the accompanying image (Annex 3 )
Why did primitive artists sometimes depict a hand on the body of an animal painted in a cave?
Attachment 1
Annex 2
Annex 3
Much in the surrounding world was mysterious and frightening for primitive man. People believed that the earth, water and sky are inhabited by gods and spirits who control the phenomena of nature and the life of the people themselves. So about 200 thousand years ago religion was born. It is to that period that the oldest traces of the funeral cult belong. Archaeologists have discovered burials in which the bones are oriented in an east-west direction. They are sprinkled with ocher, symbolizing the color of life??? Zubov said - “like blood”?? ..., and pollen was found on the grave mounds coniferous plants and the flowers that covered the grave during farewell to the deceased. All this testifies to the beginnings of religious beliefs that appeared among primitive man.
Further development religious beliefs led to the approval in the era of the Upper Paleolithic in humans modern look developed forms of primitive religion:
o Totemism (the belief that there is a mystical connection between a person and a certain class of objects of nature surrounding a person)
o Fetishism (religious worship of material objects - fetishes to which supernatural properties are attributed)
o Animism (belief in the existence of the soul and spirits, belief in the animation of all nature)
o Magic (one of the oldest forms of religiosity, elements of which are contained in the religious traditions of most peoples of the world)
Mantika - the practice of divination and predictions, in order to find out the will of the gods
The perception of primitive beliefs separately, in isolation from others, is impossible - they were all closely interconnected.
Those. = the person acknowledged superiority over himself higher powers, the non-material world, to which the world of everyday existence of people is subordinated.
It was believed that some people, who are called shamans, are able to communicate with the gods. Shamans supervised the performance of special rites. People performed ritual dances, cast spells, believing that in this way they could drive away evil spirits and call for the help of good ones.
Elements of culture, albeit in a rudimentary form, arose simultaneously with man.
Apparently some simple shapes dance, singing, music were known to both Pithecanthropes and Neanderthals. Their rudiments in instinctive forms can be found even in monkeys: they can sway rhythmically and make sounds, as it were, in time with the beat. But only at the end of the ancient Stone Age did people have a need and an opportunity to depict, draw, cut.
· + Myths - an attempt to find answers to the main questions of being, the origin of man, life and death, drawing up a picture of the world.
But only with the advent of about 40-35 thousand years ago homo sapiens sapiens, a man of a modern species, and with him the tribal community, the culture of primitive society reaches its highest development. Finally, artistic creativity appears, and spiritual culture takes on completed forms.
The first elements of artistic and figurative human thinking date back to the Aurignac-Solutre era in the Upper Paleolithic, 35-20 thousand years ago. The first attempts to depict something were drawing zigzag stripes or handprints on a stone surface. Then a round sculpture made of clay and bone appears, drawing with ocher, marl or soot, and images made with a flint chisel.
Women are the first representatives of the human race, who began to be portrayed. Several of these drawings have been preserved in the caves. More often they preferred to make their sculptural images. These were small figurines made of mammoth tusk, bone, stone, and specially prepared clay mass that fit in the palm of your hand. Usually women were depicted as full and naked - mothers who had many children. But there are also figures of slender, graceful women, as if they have not yet experienced the hardships and joys of motherhood. They are young huntresses, as agile as the men, though not as strong. In all likelihood, the figurines of women were used in rituals and worn as amulets.
Creations created by the hand of a primitive artist were sometimes not only works of art, but also religious and magical symbols.
Painting in primitive society reached its heyday in the Madeleine era (20-10 thousand years ago). At this time, animals were depicted with great skill, almost life-size, and skillfully painted. Amazing in perfection, accuracy of observations, images of animals - bison, horses, mammoths - were applied to the walls and low ceilings of caves in Spain, in the south of France, in the Urals.
This is how art was born. But primitive man could not yet create complex compositions.
In the subsequent Mesolithic era, multi-color images are replaced by schematic and largely conditional drawings of animals and people. But during this period, a person complicates the drawing and art-rhythm appears, which finally allows multi-figure drawings to be combined into compositions, often dedicated to plots on the theme of hunting. The departure from realistic images was due to the fact that, having learned through the artistic image of individual objects of the surrounding world, primitive man passed through a complex composition to comprehend another problem: what is he, man, in this world.
So, with the help of art and artistic images, primitive people learned the world and comprehended the secrets of a multifaceted and complex life. Primitive art played an important role in the history and culture of ancient mankind.
1. to ensure that students understand the concepts of "religion", "art", the reasons for their appearance
2. to continue the formation of the skills to reason, think logically, analyze elementarily historical facts;
3. to cultivate a sense of beauty.
Lesson type: lesson learning new material
Equipment: textbook, presentation "The Emergence of Art and Religious Beliefs", workbook on the history of the Ancient World, issue 1.
During the classes
I. Organizational moment
2.
Repetition of the material covered.
For several lessons, we studied the life of primitive man. Let's
remember what we have learned. Now, in order to tune in to the next lesson, we
let's play a little.
1. Warm-up game. I will ask you questions and we will see who is more competent and complete
will provide answers.
slide 2
1.Testing
2. Prepare a detailed answer to the question "What helped primitive people survive in the new natural conditions?". To do this, remember:
What natural changes took place on earth about 100,000 years ago?
How has the animal world changed?
What new tools and weapons did man invent?
What is a tribal community?
Make a conclusion.
■ Sample student answer: Approximately 100 thousand years ago, a strong
cooling. A glacier was advancing from the north to the territory of Europe and Asia. In these new
natural conditions, man survived because he learned to use fire, dig
dugouts, mastered the caves, began to sew clothes. The animal world has changed too. Appeared
smaller animals that were more difficult to hunt. So man came up with
Bow and arrows. And also people became tribal communities, i.e. groups of relatives
having everything in common.
3. Creative problem solving with the class
Slide 3 Algorithm for solving creative problems .
Task #1
339 stone tools were found in the Teshik-Tash grotto during archaeological excavations
and over 10,000 fragments of animal bones. Of the total number of bones, it was possible
establish belonging 938. Of these, horses - 2, bears - 2, mountain goats - 767,
leopard - 1.
What is the main occupation of the inhabitants of the Teshik-Tash grotto?
Answer: Hunting.
The task can be formulated as follows: “What conclusions can be drawn on the basis of these
archaeological data?
Answer: People were engaged in hunting, catching more mountain goats, less ~ horses,
bears and leopards.
Task #
A. Describe the oldest tools from the drawings.
B. Which archaeological finds indicate the habitats of ape people, and which ones indicate
sites of Stone Age people?
Answer: The first sign of the site of an ancient person is traces of a fire, fragments of a well
processed stone tools (in ape-men, split pebbles).
III. Transition to the study of a new topic
slide6
And now we are waiting for an acquaintance with new material,today in the lesson we will get into
interesting fascinating world - the world of ancient man.
Slide 7
Let's get into the mysterious, hard-to-reach caves, where ancient people hid from natural disasters, lived and kept their innermost secrets. The purpose of our lesson: to find out what types of art appeared in primitive society, how religious beliefs were born, what was it expressed in?
Slide 8
Lesson plan:
1. Reasons for the emergence of religion
2. The emergence of art
Slide 9
Ancient people were able to do a lot, but they did not know the true causes of natural phenomena. They were afraid of thunder, lightning, hurricanes, floods, fires, they considered the sun, moon, stars, trees, rivers, stones to be alive. Everything in nature had its own spirit. Spirits in relation to people could be both good and evil. To appease the spirits of nature, people made sacrifices to them and performed special rites in their honor.
They believed in an afterlife. Ancient people believed that every person has a soul. The soul is an incorporeal principle that makes a person a living and thinking being.
When a person sleeps, he does not notice or hear anything. So the soul left his body. It is impossible to wake a person abruptly: the soul will not have time to return.
People believed that when the soul leaves the body, the person physically dies, but his soul continues to live.
People believed that the souls of their ancestors moved to a distant "land of the dead."
Slide 10
In caves, in special structures, archaeologists find burial places of ancient people.
2. Work with additional literature.
A short text is quoted.
“... It was decided to clear one grave. The first burial and quite rich. It turned out
female. At the head of the head was a birch bark box with decorations - temporal
pendants, beads. Archaeologists call such boxes with gifts sacrificial
complexes. Most often, these are small birch bark tueski, tightly closed with a lid.
Sometimes there were two or even three sacrificial complexes in the grave. However, the number of things
over twenty copies. Male graves were much poorer. In them
found iron knives, arrowheads and spears, quiver hooks, swords, parts
horse harness, bits, stone grindstones and the like ... "
Goldina R. D. "Silhouettes of melted times." - Izhevsk, 1996. S. 131,134.
3. Conversation on questions to the text.
- Why do archaeologists dig up human graves? (To get real
monuments, which means information.)
- How do they define female or male burial? (According to finds.)
- Why did people put things in graves? (They thought that all this would be useful to them in
land of the dead, believed in an afterlife.)
The souls of the ancestors could, according to ancient people, interfere in the affairs of the living, help them
or harm. Witchcraft, magic, belief in the spirits, in the existence of the soul testify to
the emergence of religious beliefs among ancient people. As early humans developed
their religious beliefs also became more complex. People believed that nature and life
govern special higher beings and more powerful and perfect. Them
represented either in the form of animals, or in images similar to a person. So the primitives
people had faith in gods, religion
slide 11
Scientists have noticed that primitive people often depicted mortally wounded
animals.Why do you think?
Hunters were afraid that there would be fewer animals in the forests, and fish would disappear from lakes and rivers.
They believed that by drawing animals in a cave, they would be enchanted and not
leave the area. And the image of a wounded animal will lead to a successful hunt.
Hunters before the hunt performed a witchcraft rite, striking with spears drawn
an animal on the sand. Scientists learned this by observing tribes in Australia,
made today
slide12
How did the man enchant the beast? Who are werewolves? Independent work with textbook
p.15 &3 p. 3
Attempts to influence the future and natural phenomena through rites or
witchcraft means led to the emergence of magic. Sorcerers and magicians used great
respect from primitive people. Often they led the community. Magic is close
magic. It uses spells, magical actions, charms. Magic helps
to perform miracles - so the ancient people believed.
These were the first religious beliefs
So, we can conclude that in ancient times primitive religious
ereniya. What are these beliefs? Let's read the definition in the textbook on page 18: “Beliefs
into witchcraft, into werewolves, into the soul, into life after death are called religious.
4. Work on a new concept.
Slide 13.
Religion - this is belief in the supernatural (gods, spirits, souls, idols) and worship them.
Term on slide, students write in notebook
What conclusion shall we draw as to whyreligious beliefs?
1. from the impotence of man before the power of nature; from the inability to explain many of its phenomena.
2. They originated with the advent of a reasonable person, able not only to take care of his immediate needs, but also to think about himself, about his past and future.
3. Religious beliefs were manifested in the performance of special rites associated with important events in life.
2. The emergence of art
Children love to draw. Ancient people in their attitude to the world were direct
and look like children.
Amazing messages came to us from the past, distant from us by 35-30 thousand years.
Ancient people left images of their palms on the walls of caves. One day man
put his hand to the wall, and then circled it with colored earth. The result is an image of a hand.
Remember how you, sending a letter to your grandparents, when you were very young and
did not know how to write, they circled their palms with a pencil. Possibly the earliest depictions of hands
on the walls of the famous cave of Altamira in northern Spain reflected the desire of the ancient
a person to leave forever the imprint of his own life.
slide14
It was the first manifestation of human creativity. This is how it was born
art.
slide 15
Let's watch a video about ancient painting.
slide 16
What are ancient drawings? Describe the image, do you like it and, if so, why? The answers are summarized (“the deer eats or drinks, he has a beautiful head and horns”)
slide17
What was the skill of the first artists? The most ancient artists managed to convey not only the appearance but also the character of those animals they hunted - bison, bears, rhinos. They depicted deer as sensitive and wary. Horses are fast and swift. Mammoths are massive and heavy.
In 1959, in the Kalova cave in the Urals, remarkable monuments of the ancient
art. Mammoths, rhinos and horses were painted on the walls of the cave with red paint. Animal figures are depicted with great persuasiveness. They resemble images in the ancient caves of Europe, which testifies to the unity of the art of primitive people.
slide18
Gradually expanded and became more specific our ideas about
ancient people. Drawings were the first means of transmission from person to person.
information - his "letter". This is evidenced by the record of the ancient Indians about the conditions
exchange of 30 killed beavers for an otter and a sheep.
5. Work on a new concept.
Painting is the creation of images on a plane with the help of paints.
Rock symbolism.
The first drawings werepictograms - symbolic signs. The very first symbol and drawing of a person was an imprint of a person’s hand or foot - which, probably, can be compared with the modern inscription “I was here!”. Especially popular were signs depicting the sun and moon, the so-called solar signs, which were drawn in the form of circles with divergent rays. After all, already in ancient times, people wondered what gives heat, why day follows night. Why does one luminary, the sun, is replaced by another, the moon. Especially many such signs were found in the countries of Western Europe.
petroglyphs (paintings or rock images) - carved images on a stone basis (from other Greek πέτρος - stone and γλυφή - carving
The merit belongs to ancient people in the creation of painting, which became the property of world spiritual culture.
slide 22
Birth of sculptureThe earliest people were the first sculptors: in stone
and clay recreated the world they knew well.
If they were animals, then certainly strong and powerful, sometimes pierced by arrows, often wounded or dying. Female figurines were especially peculiar, since it was believed that a woman is the progenitor of the family. Therefore, she was depicted as pregnant: with large breasts, a fat belly, with short plump legs. Only such a woman could survive in those cruel times and give the world another hunter or fisherman. The sculptures of men looked thin and mobile. They had to feed the family.
Also among the sculptural works were found figurines of people imitating ritual dances and ceremonies.)
slide 23
Conclusion
Ancient man - a reasonable man, created painting and sculpture even before the advent of agriculture
and pastoralism, before he invented writing, he built cities. That was his need for creativity
And now we're going to have a physical activity.
It's time to work with creative tasks workbook
Students complete tasksworkbook ( release 1) Task 9, p. eleven.
Let's sum up the lesson.
Answer the questions:
What word can replace the following expressions;
Belief in gods and spirits - _______________ (religion).
Images of revered gods and spirits - _____________ (painting).
Gifts to the gods and spirits -____________________ (sacrifice).
Spearing a painted animal - ________________ (witchcraft rite).
Creatures that were fantasy ancient people- ____________ (werewolves).
1. Who was the first to discover and announce to the world about the cave paintings of primitive man? Who was it and where?
about the life of primitive man they could get there?
3. What forms of religious beliefs did Stone Age people have?
4. What types of primitive art do you know?
5. What paints did primitive artists use?
6. What did primitive artists most often depict?
Self-study task
2. Prepare a detailed answer to the question "Why did religion and art appear?". Be able to explain these concepts.
3.creative task: draw scenes of hunting, fishing, religious dances or rituals of primitive people, make a model of the dwelling of a primitive man with landscape elements.
References:
1. Vigasin A.A., Goder G.I., Sventsitskaya I.S. Ancient world history. Textbook for grade 5 educational institutions. M., 2007
2. World history: in 24 volumes. T. 1 stone age / A.N. Badak, I.E. Voinich and others - Mn.: Literature, 1998
3. Goder G.I. workbook on the history of the ancient world. Grade 5. Handbook for students of educational institutions in 2 editions. Issue 1M, 2007
4.O. A. Severina History of the ancient world Grade 5 (in two parts). Lesson plans for the textbook "HISTORY OF THE ANCIENT WORLD, Grade 5" Publishing house "Teacher - AST" Volgograd 2002
5.Electronic library "Enlightenment". ANCIENT WORLD HISTORY. 5th grade Format: PC CD_ROM 6. educational electronic edition "General History" - the history of the Ancient World PC CD_ROM
7. Supplied as part of the federal target program "Development of a unified educational information environment (2001 - 2005)" GREAT ENCYCLOPEDIA OF CYRIL AND METHODIUS" Cyril and Methodius, 2002
8. Interactive book in Russian. Supplied as part of the federal target program "Development of a unified educational information environment (2001 - 2005)" MYTHS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD. ENCYCLOPEDIA IN RUSSIAN
9. . ART OF ANCIENT EGYPT
10 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MATERIAL CULTURE. ORNAMENT DirectMediaPublishing. Moscow TheYorckProjectGmbH. Berlin
The emergence of art and religious beliefs
Prerequisites
Awareness of one's mortality and an attempt to come to terms with one's mortal nature led to the emergence of a belief in an afterlife. The desire to influence natural phenomena and events led to the emergence of magic and religion.
Primitive art was part of religion. It was closely connected with the rites and rituals of ancient people. It had a magical function.
Art already existed in the Late Paleolithic (about 40-10 thousand years ago).
Developments
The emergence of belief in the afterlife. Scientists draw a conclusion about this from the excavations of ancient burials in which red ocher was found. She symbolized blood, which means life (belief in life after death).
The emergence of religious beliefs
. Animism: belief in the animation of all objects surrounding a person (belief that they all have a soul). Anima - lat. "soul".
. totemism: belief in the origin of a group of people (kind) from any animal, plant or object.
. Fetishism: the worship of inanimate objects to which supernatural properties are attributed. Fetishes (amulets, amulets, talismans) are able to protect a person from trouble.
The advent of art
.
Figurines carved from soft stone, from mammoth tusks or molded from clay.
.
Rock paintings: Created in dark caves, scientists suggest that they were not intended for aesthetic perception. Most likely, they played some role in the rituals of primitive man.
Conclusion
In the late Paleolithic era, religious beliefs such as animism, totemism, and fetishism first appear. The religion of primitive people was inextricably linked with magic. The art that arose in the same period was not separated from magic and religion, and did not have a purely aesthetic function.
Abstract
For a long time, scientists did not know that there were skilled artists among primitive people, but the discoveries they made spoke for themselves. Ancient artists drew not only for their own pleasure, but also to "enchant" the beast. How did religious beliefs originate? What cults were worshiped by our distant ancestors? You will learn about this in our today's lesson.
One of the main manifestations of the spiritual life of man is religion. All peoples had religious beliefs. Some scientists believe that religious beliefs date back to the Neanderthals. Archaeologists find burials in which, in addition to the remains, they find household items and tools (Fig. 1).
Rice. 1. Ancient grave ()
The Neanderthals had a bear cult. The skulls of cave bears served as objects of witchcraft, from which religious beliefs and rituals subsequently developed.
The religious beliefs of the Cro-Magnons were more complex. In the graves near their camps, in addition to household items and tools, scientists found ocher, which had the color of blood - the color of life. It can be assumed that the “reasonable man” had a belief in the immortality of the soul. Animation of objects, forces and elements of nature is called animism.
During the period of the emergence of tribal communities, a religious idea arose about a supernatural relationship between members of the clan and totem- a mythical ancestor. Most often, various animals and plants served as totems, even natural phenomena and inanimate objects. Australian Aborigines and Indians North America totemism is the basis of the traditional worldview.
A fishing cult is also associated with totemism. There were witchcraft rites associated with hunting and fishing. Primitive hunters were afraid that there would be fewer animals in the forests, the meat of which they ate, and fish would disappear from the lakes. People have a belief that there is a connection between an animal and its image created by an artist. If you draw bison, deer or horses in the depths of the cave, people thought, then living animals will be enchanted and will not leave the surrounding area (Fig. 2). If you draw a wounded animal or hit its image with a spear, then this will help you succeed in hunting. With amazing skill, the ancient artist painted a mammoth with a flexible trunk, a deer with branched horns thrown back, a bear, wounded and bleeding. Images of a mortally wounded bison and a hunter killed by it have been preserved. In some caves, people depicting animals are painted. A man has horns on his head, a tail behind; he seems to be dancing, imitating the movements of a deer.
Rice. 2. Man enchants the beast ()
About a hundred years ago, a Spanish archaeologist examined the cave of Altamira, where people lived in ancient times. Unexpectedly, he found on the ceiling of the cave images of animals painted with paints. At first, scientists believed that these paintings were painted quite recently; no one believed that ancient people could draw. But then similar images were found in many caves. Archaeologists also found figurines of people and animals carved from bone and horn. No one doubted that the paintings and figurines were works of art of the distant past (Fig. 3).
Rice. 3. Altamira. bison ()
Works of art show that "reasonable man" was observant, knew animals well, and his hand drew precise lines on stone and bone.
Bibliography
- Vigasin A. A., Goder G. I., Sventsitskaya I. S. History of the Ancient World. Grade 5 - M .: Education, 2006.
- Nemirovsky A. I. A book for reading on the history of the Ancient World. - M .: Education, 1991.
- Ancient Rome. Book for reading / Ed. D. P. Kallistova, S. L. Utchenko. — M.: Uchpedgiz, 1953.
Additional precommended links to Internet resources
- Ancient world history ().
- Miracles and mystery of nature ().
- Ancient world history ().
Homework
- What were the oldest religious beliefs?
- Fairy tales say that a boy turned into a goat, a girl into a willow, what beliefs are associated with these fabulous transformations?
- What objects found by archaeologists during the excavation of ancient burials confirm the assumption about the emergence of religious ideas in people?
- Why did primitive people depict animals?
