A comparative analysis of the images of boats on the rocks of Kanozera and in the rock art of Northern Europe leads to the conclusion that they reflect one real structural type of ship, which was widespread in northern cultures. In the images, it is characterized by a straight keel protruding forward, an oblique after stem, and a moose head stem. A suitable type of vessel for these images is a structure based on a wide keel board with sides, bow and stern attached to it. This board protrudes forward, beyond the bow, and back, beyond the stern, forming a silhouette corresponding to the images of boats on the Kanozer.
Keywords: petroglyphs, Kanozero, boats, Northern Europe.
Introduction
Some of the most outstanding recent discoveries of ancient rock art in the Far North of Europe include those on the Alta Fiord coast in Norway and on the islands of Oz. 1, 2). The first petroglyphs of Alta were discovered in 1973. In 1985, when the rock art of Alta was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List, there were already more than 3,000 figures (Helskog, 1988). By 2008, 6,000 images were registered, covering more than 100 sites (Tansem and Johansen, 2008). The first petroglyphs were discovered on Kanozero in 1997 (Shumkin, 2000; Shumkin, 2001; Likhachev, 2007). By 2009, we had documented 1,140 figures in 18 groups [Kolpakov, Murashkin, and Shumkin, 2008].
Images of boats are one of the most popular motifs of Kanozero petroglyphs, accounting for 16 % of all figures. The same situation is typical for the entire rock art of Fennoscandia, both for the " northern "complexes belonging to the Neolithic and early Metal epochs, and for the" southern " ones belonging to the Bronze and Early Iron Ages. Perhaps it is in the figures of boats that one can see the greatest number of similar elements in the rock carvings of Fennoscandia. Therefore, they play an important role in identifying cultural connections, typological dating, and establishing internal relative chronology in complexes
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