Remnants Of Cave Art In Ancient Societies example essay topic

Gradual Shift from Mythopoeic Mindset to Speculative One in Ancient Societies In the dawn of the human society, a sparkle enlightened the world and gave birth to ancient knowledge of universe and earth, life and death, beginning and end. Later in the development of human society, extremes began to loose their importance and the human mindset wondered in search of the mean between two opposite ends. Myths and legends shaped day-to-day surviving of man in the harsh ancient world, reality had been recreated in a metaphorical way and became an entertaining method that amused and perplexed the human being. Anything that happened in everyday existence of mankind had been elucidated using the mystery and influence of myths; legends entertained people and interpreted the secrecy of the happening in understandable language. The mythopoeic way of thinking was born and it spread its wings above the mind and soul of ancient man, turning him into a person living in the world of fairy stories and legends where the amusing and even scary face of the reality became almost a god. Any event that put a distinguishable mark on the existence of human beings in ancient societies was interpreted as a sign from a supreme power that ruled the world and life of all mankind, questions of "how" and "why" seemed unimportant and even forbidden in order not to turn the absolute power against the whole society.

Nature had been an essential part of the power that patronized and defined the habitual life of mankind; it had two contradicting faces acting graciously once and cruelly in other occasions. Strong religious feelings overwhelmed ancient man and became the only way of explaining the world around with its perplexities and wonders. Since its birth and throughout its life, human society developed its thinking and finally it evolved into a complex mixture of believes in a supreme power ruling the world and strives to reach the understanding of "how" and "why" things happen in a certain way. At some point of human mind maturity process, ancient man started to look at the world surrounding him in a speculative way and to ask himself about the reasons and laws hidden behind every event of its daily life. Nature still represented an important part of the world of ancient societies as a source essential in the day-to-day survival but it started to lose it mystery and perplexity by becoming a more understandable part of human life Human mindset made its general shift from a mythopoeic to a speculative one and evolved into a more multifaceted unity. The process has been a never-ending struggle to change human perceptions of the world surrounding people and an everyday alteration of values, ideals, moral conceptions, and habits.

The route of this general shift began in early ages with the astonishing remnants of archaic cave art, through the Mesopotamian pessimistic perception of the surrounding world and the polytheistic Egyptian society, and finally reached the Greek three-dimensional philosophical thinking and the Iranian speculative thought and metaphysical dualism. Intense historical evolution of human society and transformation of ancient world gave birth to numerous illustrative examples of mindset shift towards a speculative understanding of human race and nature. Long ago, many years before contemporary world had been formed and in a time when myth and legends still conceptualized every single part of human day-to-day life, a representation of mythopoeic mindset can be easily found in the astonishing remnants of cave art. The earliest form of art, which has survived, is often referred to as "Cave Art". It has been found around the world from Europe, Australia, Africa, and China, as well as other places.

This type of art typically depicted animals, but also included humans, weapons, crude maps, and symbols. Many of the paintings had been repainted several times, the colors most often used were red and black with some yellow, maroon, and violet. The paint was typically made out of materials ground into animal fats. Most were also deep inside the caves where the artist would have needed a lamp to accomplish their work.

These two facts have led scholars to suggest that the paintings may have had a social or religious significance to these early people. Recreating a piece of art in the deepest and most unwelcoming part of a cave where the spiritual atmosphere and mystical surroundings nourished in the artist the belief that supreme powers will give him straight and luck in future hunt, could be seen as a strong representation of a mythopoeic mindset in ancient world. People believed in supernatural forces that ruled the world and every single event that happened in their lives was accordingly to the will of those powers. The paintings of the Upper Paleolithic period on the cave walls of Lascaux in France and Altamira in Northern Spain represent symbols shown by hands, patterned lines and grids, and dots. Their meaning can only be guessed, but most interpretations include a magical or religious significance. Some scholars speculate that the hands near an animal's image may represent some magical control that would guarantee the success of the hunt.

As a result, unsurprisingly myths and legends shaped the ancient human mind and turned it into a creature that lived in never-ending attempt to satisfy the supreme powers and, as a result, under the constant influence of the mythopoeic way of thinking. Moving ahead in the historical evolution of the human race, the remnants of the impact on the individual's life of the mythopoeic mindset could be traced to ancient Mesopotamian culture. Living in the harsh geographical conditions, mesopotamian were at the mercy of their hostile environment, and consequently believed themselves to be at the mercy of angry and irrational gods. The civilization, which produced one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, the hanging gardens of Babylon, also complied the Epic of Gilgamesh, a pessimistic portrayal of the futile search for immorality and human meaning.

The religious life of the private individual in Mesopotamia appears to have been centered around spirits, demons, witches, ghosts and other basic animistic and natural forces. In this world view of magic and personal gods, the practice of religion was probably largely concerned with the appeasement of such forces through incantations, spells, amulets, and personal devotions. After the Mesopotamian civilization and as an absolute contrast in both geographical environment and attitude towards the world itself, came the reign of the Egyptian culture and religion, which has left an unquestionable trace on the way of thinking of ancient people. The ancient Egyptians were one of the most remarkable phenomena of human civilization.

Noted for monumental building projects such as pyramids and strong structure of a rigid society dominated by pharaoh, a living god, and an optimistic view of life and afterlife, they developed a complex hierarchical picture of supreme powers in order to preserve their life and social identity. Egyptian religion had over 700 gods and goddesses with a variety of beliefs depending on the time period of Egyptian history, early Egyptians even built up cults of worship often centered around animals and each community would worship its own deity or set of deities. The high dependence of each member of the Egyptian society on the polytheistic cults and the strong belief that people's lives are patronized by supreme powers, which must be pleased with everyday oblations, proved that ancient Egyptians had developed a mythopoeic mindset with a dualistic dimension. Later on in the evolution of human society, abstract thought about the ultimate nature of the world and of human life began to appear in cultures all over the world during the sixth century B.C.E., as an urge to move beyond superstition toward explanation.

A focus could be made here on its embodiment among the ancient Greek, whose active and tumultuous social life provided ample opportunities for the expression of philosophical thinking of three sorts: speculative, practical, and critical one. Speculative thinking expressed human curiosity about the world, striving to understand in natural (rather than super-natural) terms how things really are, what they are made of, and how they function. Practical thinking emphasized the desire to guide conduct by comprehending the nature of life and the place of human beings and human behavior in the greater scheme of reality. Critical thinking involved a careful examination of the foundations upon which thinking of any sort must rely, trying to achieve an effective method for assessing the reliability of positions adopted on the significant issues. So Greek society developed a belief in the capacity of the mind (rationality) to apprehend the universe and a concomitant reliance on the power of language to come to terms with that understanding. That all people should be morally accountable for their actions is characteristic of the Greek thought that represented a major subject in the art, philosophy, and culture of that time.

Another essential example of the transition of ancient societies towards a speculative mindset and perceptions of the world itself is the religion and culture of ancient Iran. Living in the time when people had been wondering about the reason and explanation of all happening, the community of ancient Iran had been led by the religious movement Zoroastrianism. Developed in a monotheistic society, the Zoroastrianism's central belief became the cosmic dualism between the forces of good and evil spirit of violence and death. The resulting cosmic conflict involves the entire universe, including humanity who is required to choose which to follow. Another school of thought perceives the battle between Good and Evil as an ethical dualism, set within the human consciousness. It became an issue of human mind to choose which way to go but the process involved complex speculations over the reason, struggle to find the explanation of the procedure toward the desired end.

The closing stage of the human mind development reached the speculative perceptions of the world and the meaning of human existence represented mostly in the art, religion, and culture of ancient societies. The gradual shift from mythopoeic mindset towards a speculative understanding of the place of each member of the community in the universe became a turning point in the development of numerous ancient societies. Beliefs in myths and legends and the dependence of human being on the supreme powers as a mean towards happiness gave up their place to a more reasonable process of questioning the way things are. Every single occurrence in ancient people's lives went through a transformation from simple fact to a more complex unity of a speculative attitude towards the reality itself.

The remnants of cave art in ancient societies and both the Mesopotamian and Egyptian mythological perceptions of the world represented the beginning of the transition that led to the complex speculative way of thinking in Greece and Persia. Human mindset made its gradual shift from mythopoeic towards exploratory one and that change left its undeletable traces in all ancient societies.