The Hunter, the Stag, and the Mother of Animals

Image, Monument, and Landscape in Ancient North Asia

Esther Jacobson-Tepfer

Richly illustrated with over 250 color and black-and-white images, including originals never before seen
Offers a critical synthesis of central Eurasian Bronze and Iron Age archeology

The Hunter, the Stag, and the Mother of Animals

Image, Monument, and Landscape in Ancient North Asia

Esther Jacobson-Tepfer

Description

The ancient landscape of North Asia gave rise to a mythic narrative of birth, death, and transformation that reflected the hardship of life for ancient nomadic hunters and herders. Of the central protagonists, we tend to privilege the hero hunter of the Bronze Age and his re-incarnation as a warrior in the Iron Age. But before him and, in a sense, behind him was a female power, half animal, half human. From her came permission to hunt the animals of the taiga, and by her they were replenished. She was, in other words, the source of the hunter's success. The stag was a latecomer to this tale, a complex symbol of death and transformation embedded in what ultimately became a struggle for priority between animal mother and hero hunter.

From this region there are no written texts to illuminate prehistory, and the hundreds of burials across the steppe reveal little relating to myth and belief before the late Bronze Age. What they do tell us is that peoples and cultures came and went, leaving behind huge stone mounds, altars, and standing stones as well as thousands of petroglyphic images. With The Hunter, the Stag, and the Mother of Animals, Esther Jacobson-Tepfer uses that material to reconstruct the prehistory of myth and belief in ancient North Asia. Her narrative places monuments and imagery within the context of the physical landscape and by considering all three elements as reflections of the archaeology of belief. Within that process, paleoenvironmental forces, economic innovations, and changing social order served as pivots of mythic transformation. With this vividly illustrated study, Jacobson-Tepfer brings together for this first time in any language Russian and Mongolian archaeology with prehistoric representational traditions of South Siberia and Mongolia in order to explore the non-material aspects of these fascinating prehistoric cultures.

The Hunter, the Stag, and the Mother of Animals

Image, Monument, and Landscape in Ancient North Asia

Esther Jacobson-Tepfer

List of Illustrations: Maps, Figures
Preface
Chapter One: The Transformation of Image, Object and Belief in Prehistoric North Asia

Chapter Two: The Appearance of the Animal Mother

Chapter Three: The Persistence of Liminal Beings

Chapter Four: The Mother of Animals

Chapter Five: The Emergence of Pictorial Narrative

Chapter Six: Intimations of Death and Transformation

Chapter Seven: The End of Naturalism in Nomadic Art

Chapter Eight: The Pivot Between Life and Death

Chapter Nine: Traces of Ancient Beliefs

Chapter Ten: The Archaeology of Belief

Appendix: The Dating of Rock Art

List of Abbreviations
Bibliography
Index

The Hunter, the Stag, and the Mother of Animals

Image, Monument, and Landscape in Ancient North Asia

Esther Jacobson-Tepfer

Author Information

Esther Jacobson-Tepfer is Maude I. Kerns Professor Emeritus of Art History, University of Oregon, and author or co-author of four books.

The Hunter, the Stag, and the Mother of Animals

Image, Monument, and Landscape in Ancient North Asia

Esther Jacobson-Tepfer

Reviews and Awards

CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title, 2015

"Professor Jacobson-Tepfer offers to readers her outstanding first-hand knowledge and deep understanding of unique Eurasian civilizations: the societies of ancient hunters, nomadic mounted pastoralists, and their animal symbolism. Archaeology, art history, and the history of religions, including shamanism, are synthesized by using careful scientific theoretical approaches." -- Henri-Paul Francfort, Director of the French Archaeological Mission in Central Asia.

"The Hunter, the Stag, and the Mother of Animals is an important book not only in terms of its value as a scientific treatise nonpareil but also as an elegant exploration of the prehistoric human mind with implications far beyond the geographical and temporal focus of Jacobson-Tepfer's study. Her lucid, informative and entertaining writing is complemented by superb illustrations, including world-class photographs contributed by her husband, world-renowned photographer, Gary Tepfer." -- John W. Olsen, University of Arizona

'Adorned with hauntingly beautiful photos by Gary Tepfer and well-chosen line drawings illustrating key artifacts, this assessment of long-muted societies is an inspired triumph of dedicated scholarship and an inspirational work of art in its own right. It may well remain the most revealing interpretation of ancient rock art in South Siberia until the stones themselves begin to speak with human voices...Essential" -- Choice

The Hunter, the Stag, and the Mother of Animals

Image, Monument, and Landscape in Ancient North Asia

Esther Jacobson-Tepfer

From Our Blog

Animal Mother, Mother of Animals, Guardian of the Road to the Land of the Dead

We were working in Baga Oigor II when I heard my husband yelling from above, 'Esther, get up here, fast!' Thinking he had seen some wild animal on a high ridge, I scrambled up the slope. There, at the back of a protected terrace marked by old stone mounds was a huge boulder covered with hundreds of images. Within that maze of elements I could distinguish a hunting scene and several square patterns suggesting the outlines of dwellings.

Posted on April 11, 2015

Read the blog post

Animal Mother, Mother of Animals, Guardian of the Road to the Land of the Dead

We were working in Baga Oigor II when I heard my husband yelling from above, 'Esther, get up here, fast!' Thinking he had seen some wild animal on a high ridge, I scrambled up the slope. There, at the back of a protected terrace marked by old stone mounds was a huge boulder covered with hundreds of images. Within that maze of elements I could distinguish a hunting scene and several square patterns suggesting the outlines of dwellings.

Posted on April 11, 2015

Read the blog post