The Styla Cave: the history of its study and archival heritage.
Keywords:
the Styla cave, rock art, history of archeology, archive materialsAbstract
Due to the geological history in the Northern Azov region, a large massif of limestones of various types had formed there. The most significant limestone deposits outcrop in the Kalmius, Sukhaia Volnovakha and Mokraia Volnovakha rivers’ basins. There are known comparatively small karst caverns, and the Styla Cave is one of them. The cave is located in 6 km from the village of Styla, in the ArkhutdyiasTarama gully, in the basin of the Sukhaia Volnovakha River. The village of Styla of the Starobeshevsky district, the Donetsk region, was founded in 1779 by Greek emigrants from Crimea, and the name of the gully in Greek means “the archon”. In the summer of 1973, A.I. Privalov, an archaeologist from the Donetsk, noted schematic images on the roof of the cave made in red ochre. In the fall of the same year, lecturer Donetsk State University D.S. Tsveibel organized the detailed survey of the cave, during which the life-size watercolor copies of the images were made. In 1978 were edited drawings made in 1973. An article about the Styla Cave had been published in 1993, where the authors dated the ochre painting to the Bronze Age. For the forty years past since archaeological discovery of the cave, paintings had been greatly damaged due to both natural causes and human activity. Especially harmful were graffiti left by the visitors. The cave itself was damaged by sediments: the entrance chamber is almost completely fill with porous deposits; the passage to the second chamber (which, according to the old time residents, was clearly visible) is covered completely. Sediments in the entrance chamber were partially removed in 2012 by an expedition of the Donetsk National University. Paintings on the cave’s roof now are hardly recognizable. This article includes illustrations of the original color copies of the paintings, black-and-white photographs and line drawings made in 1973/1978 that are published for the first time. These materials are the most reliable sources for the study of paintings of the entrance chamber of the Styla Cave.References
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