BEFORE MUL.APIN: FIRST SOLAR AND STELLAR PAINTINGS

IN THE EPIPALEOLITHIC AND NEOLITHIC ROCK ART OF THE IBERIAN PENINSULA 1

José Fernández Quintano

beroso@hotmail.com

Abstract. Before the ancient Babylonian astronomy, before the MUL.APIN tables, the solar and stellar paintings

but ancient were painted for the first time of continued form in the Iberian epipaleolithic and neolithic art, does

between 9,000 and 4,000 years. These paintings describe the natural reality that their creators, who even know

neither the civilization nor the Gods. The first astral paintings are solely astronomical.

Keywords: astronomical paintings in epipaleolithic and neolithic art

1. THE TEXT

Paleolithic. In the Paleolithic art there are no sign of the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, not even celestial constellations

in the paintings. The possibility that some star or constellation could have been painted individually is being

investigated. If it were confirmed, for the moment the existence of Paleolithic astronomical antecedents could be

possibly admitted, but this does not mean that Paleolithic astronomy would exist at all, understood as a rational

activity and as a cultural transmission of knowledge. Someone could have painted the moon or a possible

constellation. But there is nothing more we can assert about his intention when he pictured it. So that the Paleolithic

astronomical science could be recognised as existing, similar patterns should appear in other caves whose datings are

distant.

Neither do we know if there was a religion as we understand it, that is to say, belief and adoration of supernatural

beings.

Mesopotamia. In the Mesopotamian art, five thousand years ago, there definitely are expressed pictures of the

Sun, the Moon and the stars, and we know that all of them are related to gods. Religion would therefore appear

together with civilisation, acting positively as a social cohesion (sense of belonging to the group), and negatively as an

oppression.

These pictures appear in cylindrical seals that are three thousand years old, in four thousand year old steles and,

already in the Kassite period, more than three thousand years ago, in kudurrus and in the most ancient astronomical

treaties. One of these treaties is the MUL.PIN tablets. The most recent copies of this treaty were found in the

Asurbanipal collection, but at that moment already, it was considered to be a more remote written work. Because

according to the tradition Mesopotamian scribes copied ancient texts to guarantee their survival.

MUL.APIN. The real antiquity of the MUL.APIN treaty is currently being investigated. If we consider Brad

Schaefer’s current proposal (that he himself exposed during this Congress in Lithuania), a final version of the treaty

could have been redacted during the Kassite period (the date proposed by Schaefer is 1370 B.C. and is endorsed by his

divulgation this year in the prestigious magazine Nature; and by the support he has received from the assyriologist

Hermann Hunger, compiler, translator and commentator for the treaty). The final version happened to be redacted at

the same time than the two main Mesopotamian texts, Enuma Elish and The Epic of Gilgamesh. But it is also true, in

the particular case of The Epic of Gilgamesh, that the compiler left aside two chapters, one of which referring to The

Agga of Kish, proving the high antiquity of the poem (although compiled in the Kassite period, its antiquity dates back

to the third millennium, as some fragments were found in Sumerian and Acadian). Probably, MUL.APIN also had a

final version in the year 1370 B.C. as suggests Brad Schaefer, but surely enough this Kassite version integrates ancient

astronomical observations (referring to this we have to mention Vladimir Turman, who proposed, twenty years ago,

2048 B.C. as the date for working out and observations, which has been discussed by the Italian assyriologist, G.

Pettinato and the archaeoastronomist S. Iwaniszewski). This great treaty will undoubtedly continue to be submitted to

analyse because, just like the Mesopotamian treaties are worked out, it is a text syncretic with possibly remote

observations, which dating obviously represents a major stimulation for archaeoastronomical research.

Epipaleolithic and Neolithic Rock Arts. Between the Paleolithic and the Mesopotamian arts was the Neolithic

art. In the Iberian Peninsula, the Neolithic art was made of two great periods: the most remote, with lineal and

geometric art and macroschematic art; and the most recent with levantine art and schematic art. It is an investigation

1 Exposed in 15TH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE EUROPEAN SOCIETY FOR ASTRONOMY IN CULTURE and VIIITH

OXFORD INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ARCHAEOASTRONOMY AND ASTRONOMY IN CULTURE, Klaipèda

(Lithuania). On July 7, 2007. It was not included of the edition of the Proceedings.

matter to know who were actually their authors, as in this large period Epipaleolithic hunters coexisted in the Iberian

Peninsula with Neolithic people just arrived from Orient.

And this raises the difficulty that is on one same wall, figures could have been painted whether by hunters from

Paleolithic tradition or by farmers from Neolithic tradition. There are therefore two challenges here: dating the

paintings and differentiating cultures.

In this paper I will present the most antique antecedents of the Sun and Star paintings. There are the celestial body

paintings, the most antique of all mankind. All of them have an antiquity ranging between 3.000 and 8.000 years.

Therefore their dating is still being investigated, because some of these paintings could be recent, which means false

as to their presumed antiquity.

Today in the Iberian Peninsula, there are suns and stars paintings in more than fifty schematic shelters, and in one

sole Paleolithic cave.

Before, astronomical suns; after, divine suns. Unlike the Mesopotamian suns and stars, the Neolithic suns and

stars are not situated in the upper part of the panel, nor above kings or sovereigns. They are next to goats, “combs” and

other abstract patterns. In my opinion, the authors of these suns and stars only painted celestial bodies that were visible

in the sky. There was thus only an astronomical intention. Or, to put it another way, we can not draw any conclusion

out of this. At the time being therefore, with the data we possess, we can assert restrictively that religion and gods had

not been created yet, and that both their real and dreamlike worlds were a world relying on nature, and this is such a

world that always appears in their naturalist paintings. Those first suns and stars by humankind are only astronomical

objects. As a scientist, this represents for me a personal satisfaction. Nevertheless, it reflects more our cultural

categories and our wish to feel them closer to us; it is true that we usually assert (without having any proof of it) that

during the Neolithic and even before, in the Paleolithic period, there had been a kind of magical-natural religion which

could have opened the cultural gate of such peoples to ideas related with beings from another dimension. A dimension

that is accessible through magical and hallucinatory practices, during the Paleolithic period, inside the caves. As

writing did not exist, it is not possible to express a valuable opinion on this subject.

Conclusion. Let us receive as a contribution to this international archeoastronomical congress the proposal

according to which the first suns and stars painted by men for cultural purposes (performed in caves or distant shelters

and, when it will be feasible to date them, performed in differentiated times), were nothing more, but also nothing less

than astronomical observations.

Conclusions about the astral paintings visited.

1. I have visited in total two Paleolithic caves (both were covered with schematic paintings, only one displayed

two stars) and eight shelters (seven schematic and one levantine, and I have catalogued and photographed in those

shelters in total 20 suns or stars). There are today more than 50 shelters illustrated with suns or stars.

2. The stars in Pala Pinta (Portugal) do not have other patterns next to them, and they are the two bigger ones.

Comparatively to the Mesopotamian astral patterns, I propose in this paper to interpret three of the Pala Pinta’s

patterns, such as the following celestial bodies: the Sun, the Moon and Venus. The interpretation rules are as follow:

they would be bodies like the Sun or the Moon if in the centre they have a large circle; when there is no such circle,

we can think of stars. If where there is a large circle there are beams longer than the circle diameter we can then

consider it as solar, if the beams are short comparing to the circle, it is lunar. The eight arm star looks like Venus, and

presumably the fourth body in this panel, a minor star, could also be a minor planet just like Mercury, Mars or Jupiter

(understood as minor for its apparent brilliance). The fifth star, in another Pala Pinta panel, has two circles, which can

associate it with the solar or the lunar.

3. In accordance with the rest of the paintings on the panel, the astral patterns are usually painted in red. The two

black stars from the Paleolithic cave of La Pileta indicate nothing at all, because there are two black stars as well in the

shelter of Zarzalón de las Batuecas.

4. Peña Escrita panels, already discovered in the XVIIIth century, are the ones that best conserve their plastic

quality, together with those in the Paleolithic caves. Cañaica del Calar, Fuente de la Selva Pascuala and Los Maquis

are also in a good state of conservation. The worst conserved and at the same time the most numerous and varied

inside a panel are the ones in Las Batuecas shelters, some of them being practically imperceptible at first glance.

2. THE TRAVEL

For to prepare this paper, I have two travels by the Iberian Peninsula and I have been photos of the astral

paintings:

Paleolithic caves visited: 1. El Castillo. (Puente Viesgo, Cantabria). 2. La Pileta. (Benaoján, Málaga).

Iberian shelters visited: 3. Pala Pinta (Carlao, PORTUGAL). 4. Peña Escrita (Fuencaliente, Ciudad Real). 5.

Cañaica del Calar III. (Calar de la Santa, Murcia). 6. Fuente de la Selva Pascuala (Villar del Humo, Cuenca). 7-10.

Shelters of Las Batuecas: Canchal de las Cabras Pintadas, Canchal del Zarzalón, Cueva del Cristo, Umbría del Cristo

(La Alberca, Salamanca).

In the paleolithic caves El Castillo and La Pileta there are panels with paleolithic paintings and panels with

schematic paintings. The paleolithic caves can have paintings to 500 mts of depth. The shelters there are 10 mts of

wide and one or two meters of depth.

CHRONOLOGY ROCK ARTS (B.P.)

Paleolíthic 28.000 – 12.500 Levantine 10-7.000? – 4.000

Macroschematic 7.000 – 5.500 Schematic 6.000 – 3.000

ASTRAL PAINTINGS VISITED

*

Paleol. cave with

schematic paint.

N W Panel

(1)

Fig

(2)

Sit

(3)

Col

(4)

Rays

(5)

º

(6)

1 S Cueva La Pileta

(Salón del Lago)

36º41 5º16 300 mt

to entr.

1-2 L B 12 120º

2 1-2 L B 11 120º

Schematic or

Levantine Shelter

N W Panel

(1)

Fig

(2)

Sit

(3)

Col

(4)

Rays

(5)

º

(6)

1 S Pala Pinta 41º18 7º22 Right 1 !! R R 15 40º

2 Id “ 3 !! L R 9 y 7 40º

3 “ 4 !! C Up R 8 40º

4 “ 2 C R 8 40º

5 Left 3 !! C R ? 340º

1 S Peña Escrita 38º25 4º16 Right 1 R R 15 70º

2 Right 1-2 L R 10 0º

3 Left 1 L R +14 0º

1 S Cañaica del Calar 38º11 2º11 Right 1 R R 8 60º

1 L Fuente Selva P. 39º55 1º40 Central 1 L R 12 190º

1 S Cabras Pintadas 40º27 6º08 Central 1 C R ? 55º

1 S Zarzalón 40º27 6º08 Right 1-2 L Up R 7 20º

2 “ 1 C R 8 20º

3 “ 2 L C B 6 20º

4 “ 2 L D B 5 20º

5 “ 1-2 R C R 8 20º

6 “ 1-2 R D R 5 20º

7 Left 1-2 C R 7 20º

1 S Cueva del Cristo 40º27 6º09 Left 1 C R ? 240º

* S: schematic painting; L: Levantine painting.

(1). Situation astral painting panel to Cave or Shelter.

(2). Type astral painting: 1-2 Sun or Star (?); 1 Sun; 2 Star; 3 Moon (!!); 4 Venus (!!).

(3). Situation astral painting in the panel. L: left; R: right; C: center; Up: up; D: down.

(4). Colour of painting: B: black: R: red.

(5). Number rays astral painting.

(6). Compass to astral painting (+/- 20º)

Fig. 1-3. Pala Pinta Peña Escrita, left panel Fuente de la Selva Pascuala

3. ¿LUNAR ECLIPSE PAINTING IN PALEOLITHIC ART?

In the first travel I have visited again the paleolithic cave El Castillo. I presented one hypothesis in the last

Congress Mondial of Archaeology (U.I.S.P.P., Lisboa 2006), in relation a one painting. Luz Antequera (Congress

BEROSO, Barcelona 2001) proposed to interpreted a group of points next a one figure in the Gallery of Disks, how a

group of stars next to the Moon. My hipothesis only add what if this figure is a lunar figure, their horns only we can

see them in phase of lunar eclypse.

4. ASTRONOMICAL PANELS

In Mesopotamia, the astral figures almost always are up, and they are divine correspondance: in the Steele of

Naram Sin there are two stellar forms up; in the Steele of Ur Nammu, up, the Moon with a Star; in the kudurrus

(Kassite Dynasty), the astral figures there are always up.

In these schematic panels visited the astral paintings are on the left, on the right or down, but never up, and

they are next to abstracts figures.

Fig. 4. Cañaica del Calar III. In the panel the Sun is on the right under points.

Fig. 5. Peña Escrita, right panel. Two astral paintings are under the abstract humans

(Translated from Spanish to English by Caroline Gallay)

REFERENCES

Acosta, P. 1968. La pintura rupestre esquemática en España. Salamanca.

Alonso, A. Grimal, A. 1997. “Investigaciones sobre arte rupestre en Moratalla: III Campaña”. Memorias de

Arqueología, nº 11, p. 67-116

Antequera, L. 2001. Los hombres del Paleolítico y las estrellas. “Ias

Jornadas de Historia de la Astrología en la

Antigüedad”. BEROSO, nº 4, p. 56-68.

Fernández Quintano, J. 2006. Schematic panel with paleolithic punctuation and other questions of Paleoastronomy

and Philosophy of Antiquity. Mondial Congress U.I.S.P.P. Lisboa, 2006. Actes in impression.

Mesquita, H. De; Correia, V. 1922. A Arte rupestre em Portugal A Pala Pinta. In Terra Portuguesa , vol. IV. Lisboa,

p.145-147.

Ramírez, Luis M. 1846. Templo fenicio y geroglíficos de Fuencaliente. Semanario Pintoresco Español, nº 31. Also:

BEROSO, nº 8-9, p. 107-124.

© photos: José Fernández Quintano, 2007