camunian.swastika @ summer.solstice

Léo DUBAL, Monique LARREY & Battista MAFFESSOLI

virtual laboratory for archaeometry

Abstract

A total of seven "Yin-Yang Camunian Roses", orientated toward the solsticial rising sun
at 09:30 am, have been identified at Dos Sulif ("Sunny Shoulder"), a rupestrian site on the eastern side of Valcamonica.
This site was discovered over 30 years ago by two pioneers in the hunt for Camunian Rock Art:
Battista Maffessoli and Vittorio Martinazzoli.

Yin-Yang Camunian Roses are composed of 9 cup-marks in the form of
a cross, wrapped into a Basque oviphile swastika.
Their diameter ranges from 12 to 50 cm. One axis of each cross is engraved parallel to the glacial striae,
while the other axis matches the shade cast by a plumb-line facing the summer solsticial sun.
The curved arms of the swastikas mostly point clockwise, though, Buddhist swastikas are counterclockwise.

With the present findings of an obvious solsticial orientation,
the Yin-Yang Camunian Rose - clockwise or counterclockwise -
might be considered as a metaphor for the seasonal cycle,
just as the Naquane labyrinth, discussed at NEWS95, probably represents the cycle of life.

A further conclusion is that the dozen of Camunian roses,
classified by Paola Farina as asymmetrical,
should most probably be re-interpreted in term of imperfect workmanship.

This study is a follow-up of the presentation, at the 1993 Valcamonica Symposium, of tactigraphies of
two yin-yang camunian roses engraved on the western side of the valley, one levogyre and one dextrogyre.
Despite their difference in size by a factor of  five,
each exhibits a quasi-perfect mirror-image of the other.

Click a rose to enter

"le jardin des roses yin-yang"

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