Ignateva cave, also known as Ignatievka cave, Ignatievskaya cave (Russian: Игнатьевская пещера), or Yamazy-Tash, is a large limestone cave on the banks of the Sim River, a tributary of the Belaya river in the southern Ural mountains of Russia. It was in 1980 the site of the discovery of a venus figure, with twenty-eight red dots between her legs that are believed to represent the female menstrual cycle. The cave also contains microliths, remains of animals, and many other cave paintings, as well as a layer of Iron Age materials. Although some sources date the paintings in the cave to the Upper Paleolithic, radiocarbon dating of the pigments in the paintings places their origin more recently, between 6000 and 8000 years ago.
Famous quotes containing the word cave:
“The use of symbols has a certain power of emancipation and exhilaration for all men. We seem to be touched by a wand, which makes us dance and run about happily, like children. We are like persons who come out of a cave or cellar into the open air. This is the effect on us of tropes, fables, oracles, and all poetic forms. Poets are thus liberating gods.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)