IMAGE OF A FANTASTIC PREDATORON STELES AND STATUES OF THE OKUNEV CULTURE
The article is devoted to the image of a fantastic predator in the art of the EarlyBronze Age of the Middle Yenisei. Characteristics of images are given, and two main types of mythical characters are identified: theriomorphic and ichthyo-serpentomorphic. They coexisted in parallel, mutually complementing each other, starting from the Neolithic. The main emphasis is placed on the consideration of the line of development of ichthyo-serpentomorphic images. This is the most archaic, numerous and diverse group of images. They are depicted on statues, steles, gravestones, objects of mobile art, and on the rocks. They are found both independently and forming the headdress and torsos of anthropomorphic images. The process of volumetric- plane transformation and reduction of mythical images is traced; their correlation with different types of anthropomorphic masks is carried out. The questions of the genesis and interpretation of fantastic predators are partially considered. Ideas about this image were formed on a local basis. The iconography of theriomorphic characters is determined by the morphology of the inhabitants of the terrestrial fauna: a bear, a wolf and a wild boar. The basis for the formation of the iconography of ichthyo-serpentomorphic predators was, apparently, the image of a representatives of the ichthyofauna with a serpentine body such as burbot or catfish. In the process of development of Okunev art, realistic features of zoomorphs acquire a fantastic or schematic appearance. The stable combination of fantastic predators with anthropomorphic images and solar symbols reflects the basic positions of the worldview associated with both cosmogony ideas and real processes in the life of nature and man. In subsequent periods, the image of the mythical predator experienced a “renaissance” (both in artistic and content aspects) in Scythian-Siberian art, reflecting the paradigm of “unity and struggle of opposites” in the ancient worldview.