Murfatlar Rock Art (Part 2)

According to Bulgarian archaeologists, the stone quarry was built in the first quarter of the 10th century to supply stone blocks to a building of a 39 km-long stone wall stretching from the Danube to the Black Sea coast. Known are six panels of Rock art carved in the soft walls of the chalk quarry. They are available either as photos.

Figure 1, General plan of Murfatlar Cave Complex.

or/and sketches, and their quality and accuracy vary significantly. In the first of them is carved a unique cross, boot and a figure of an animal, probably a horse. The cross here consists of a square and four V signs. Since the signs can be seen as phallic symbols, and the square - the vulva of an agrarian goddess, the image will symbolise the fertilisation of the earth and the expected abundance of food as a result (Fig. 3a). The second rock image

Figure 2, Section of the rock massif showing the location of some of the temples.

consists of a closed swastika and a horse with a bridle (Fig. 3b). In the rock images from the caves of Tsarevets, the closed swastika symbolises the Sun god. In the third image from the quarry, the silhouette of an old man leaning on a stick is incised. Here might be depicted one of the monks who

Figure 3, Images from the Quarry: a Square, boot and horse, b- a swastika and a horse.

use to live in the Cave complex (Fig. 4). He could have been also one of those buried there and considered holly. The fourth rock image, a drawing discovered in the career, represents deer hunting. The graphemes inscribed in the bodies of man and animals suggest that this is not an ordinary hunt but a scene from a pagan myth. For example, the hunter's body is shaded with several characters "sura" (white, bright). The Runiform character is engraved on the bodies of the deer and the dog (Ins. M84).

Figure 5, Rock image from the quarry. A hunt of a Stag.

Figure 6, Image of a deer from the quarry.

Parallels to this practice can be found in Central Asia. There the character is incorporated into the bodies of mountain goats. This panel from the quarry is reminiscent of the Finnish myth of the celestial hunter Hegren who lost his deer and chased it across the sky, followed by his dogs. The fifth engraving

Figure 7, Symbolic signs among petroglyphs from Ketmen.

A drawing of a deer is found on the walls of the chalk quarry. It is made in style typical of Bulgarian Pagan art - the parts of the deer's body are shaped in the form of Runiform characters. Hieroglyphs can be distinguished here: or ,, , and (ins. M85). It is difficult to say in what sequence they can be read, but perhaps here, as in Tsarevets Caves, the deer is the incarnation of a Pagan deity.