UDK 903.27(450-i3)"634"
Documenta Praehistorica XXXIV (2007)
The Grotta dei Cervi
(Otranto - Lecce)
Elettra Ingravallo
Universita di Lecce, Dipartimento di Beni Culturali, Lecce, Italy
elettra.ingravallo@unile.it
ABSTRACT - Warburg (1988) offers an interesting interpretative approach to the images of Grotta
dei Cervi by the notion of the concept of'survival'. We can read them as the images of memory which
acquire other meanings every time they are brought back to the present flow.
IZVLEČEK - Warburg (1988)ponuja s konceptom 'preživetja' zanimivopojasnitevpodob v Grotta dei
Cervi. Jamske poslikave lahko razumemo kot podobe spomina, ki vedno znova spreminjajo svoj
pomen.
KEY WORDS - Neolithic; art; Grotta dei Cervi; Italy
In the art of the Grotta dei Cervi and therefore of
the Neolithic period, Graziosi (1980) believes that
two trends can be recognised: the first is simplifica-
tion, the tendency to contract reality into simple gra-
phemes in order to make their meaning more imme-
diate; the other is the tendency to complication, by
which a real subject is made more obscure, thus ex-
pressing its immaterial essence. On the other hand,
Whitehouse (1992) sees in this a reproduction of ro-
les in Neolithic societies: the woman corresponds to
nature, the man to culture, since the former is always
depicted in her biological nudity, and the latter is al-
ways depicted with artefacts or weapons such as the
bow. The cave, therefore, must have been used by
secret societies of men for initiation rituals which
enabled them to exert control and power over wo-
men. Finally, other authors generally prefer to refer
to it as a place connected with initiation rituals reser-
ved for a few prominent individuals.
From the first discoveries of prehistoric art dating
back to the Upper Palaeolithic Period, all scholars
have attempted the difficult task of decoding incised
or painted images and signs on the walls of caves or
on simple artefacts. However, the use of images as a
means to interpret what their authors thought entails
a series of difficulties, as has been acknowledged du-
ring a long debate in which historians of art and phi-
losophers have participated.
The material remains of Neolithic cultures undoub-
tedly show that they were societies that lived by ag-
riculture and farming. Thus, agricultural practices
played a central role, as they allowed people to have
rich harvests and store food in case of shortages. In
this way, the land became the main source of survi-
val and wealth. All this, of course, does not autho-
rize anyone to believe that there is a clear connec-
tion between living conditions and symbolic pro-
duction, since the relationship between them is more
complicated than it seems. Yet, many ritual practi-
ces seem to refer to the celebration of the land, as in
the case of those discovered in many caves where,
however, it is not always easy to distinguish cult as-
pects from funerary rituals. While offers of agricultu-
ral products enable us to hypothesize that agrarian
cults were performed, other evidence show such a
vast range of situations that it is impossible either to
make a generalization or to give just one single in-
terpretation. With its ancestral allusion to subterra-
nean depths, the cave has always represented a po-
werful metaphor which has to do with the begin-
ning and the end of everything: the Great Mother
from whom everything is born and to whom every-
Copyright by Department of Archaeology, Faculty of arts, University of Ljubljana.
215
thing returns. A cosmic princi-
ple that regulates the univer-
se, marking the cycle through
birth, death and resurrection.
Female statuettes are the re-
incarnation of this, and some
authors consider many deco-
rative motifs on pottery a re-
proposal of the goddess (Cop-
pola 1999-2000; Grifoni Cre-
monesi 2004).
It is a fact that the ideological
world of Neolithic societies
has come down to us through
a discontinuous and heteroge-
neous documentation, such as
the one regarding social and political organization
and the consequent power relations inside the com-
munities. It is normal, therefore, that the possibility
to interpret their embedded meanings is limited com-
pared with the various evidence of funerary and cult
rituals. Nevertheless, it is not inappropriate to re-
member that such difficulty - even more present in
prehistory - concerns all historical periods when
having to deal with the immaterial world and all its
unexpressed concepts. In fact, because of its nature,
symbolic activity is irreconcilable with the ordered
and hierarchical world of reason, since it draws from
the subconscious of countless experiences, of which
there is no trace in the records or in archaeological
findings.
In the case of the Grotta dei Cervi several authors
agree that the images may be of help. But it is known
Fig. 1. Grotta dei Cervi: plan (after Graziosi 1980).
that images are also deceitful witnesses, whose con-
tent is often untranslatable into words able to con-
vey their meaning. Even representations defined as
realistic - the reference is to the hunting scenes in
the Grotta dei Cervi - hide various views that are
linked to different perceptions of the world and that
alternated and stratified throughout time. It is also
inappropriate to attempt to find particular meanings
in the abstract images, such as the cruciform, spiral-
shaped images or the various compositions with geo-
metric motifs. Yet, there is one more possible decli-
nation of the image which produces results irredu-
cible neither to its supposed reproduction of reality
nor to its nature as a symbol permanently connected
to its fixity. The key to avoid these two possibilities
is offered by Aby Warburg (1988) and, in particular,
by his known and controversial notion of 'survival'
(Nachleben) (cfr. Didi-Huberman 2006.51-59) as a
statute of images. The time of
images is the time of 'survi-
val': not a way to deny the in-
cidence of historical time, but
an attempt to correct the evo-
lutive linear conception, ack-
nowledging that during his-
tory a mixture of heterogene-
ous temporal factors also play
a role. This mixture disrupts
the definition of styles based
on 'the spirit of the time' (Zeit-
geist), since the 'ghosts' (Ge-
spenst) of a remote and never
forgotten past merge with it.
Fig. 2. Grotta dei Cervi: red paintings on the cave wall at the entrance
(after Graziosi 1980).
The action of an image which
survives its time is, in other
Fig. 3. Grotta dei Cervi: red paintings on the cave wall at the entrance
(after Graziosi 1980J.
sition of the masculine and femini-
ne principle exemplified by the re-
lative images. Similarly to Leroi-
Gourhan, other authors have
drawn from the images of the Up-
per Palaeolithic period a sort of
spirit of the time', identified occa-
sionally with the magic of hunting,
shamanism etc. (Ingravallo 2006).
Gimbutas, instead, has come to the
conclusion that the character of a
Great Goddess was at the centre of
religious conceptions in the Neo-
Eneolithic Period in Europe. A Great
Goddess thanks to whom Neolithic
Europe was to be matrilineal, rural
and sedentary.
words, that of remembering that there is no past
which deposits itself passively in the record of time,
but it creeps under the earth like a karstic river along
a path with gaps and latent presences, anachronisms
and survivals. It is not, as mistakenly thought, the
idea of an eternal return, or of archetypes, which in
their immutability explain nothing.
What is, then, the meaning of an image that goes be-
yond its time? Differing from Panofsky, who wanted
to understand the meaning of images (according to
Warburg), an image, more than being deciphered,
needs to be comprehended in its evocative energy.
According to Panofsky (1999), the levels of interpre-
tation of an image are threefold: the pre-iconogra-
phic level, by which the 'natural' meaning is identi-
fied, things and events represented in the image; the
iconographic level, which allows the identification
of characters and personifications; the third level,
the iconological, aims at interpreting the orientati-
ons and basic principles of an epoch. Although fol-
lowing independent paths,
many scholars of prehistoric
art have come to this appro-
ach in an attempt to interpret
it. Some of the best-known ca-
ses are those of Leroi-Gourhan
(1965) for the Palaeolithic pe-
riod and Gimbutas (1982) for
the Neolithic period. Even
though he later denied it, Le-
roi-Gourhan believed he had
caught - in the art of the Up-
per Palaeolithic period - a bi-
nary representation of the
cosmos through the juxtapo-
The risk in similar reconstructions is to reduce to a
presumed homogeneity the complexity of periods
such as the Palaeolithic and the Neolithic, which
lasted thousands of years.
It is on this issue that one may agree with Warburg:
the knowledge of an epoch determined by its ima-
ges is illusory, especially when one tries to investi-
gate the symbolic meanings and come to a solution
of the rebuses they embody. Images, those of pre-
history, are not meant to fill our gaps. But they 'sur-
vive', as they continue to produce rebus chains, chal-
lenging a science, such as prehistoric research,
which aims at surveying the obscure and unreacha-
ble depths of our culture. Here images, stories and
legends conceived in unmemorable times acquire ot-
her meanings every time they are brought back into
the present flow.
The morphological identity which they share is of-
ten in contrast with the heterogeneity of their con-
Fig. 4. Grotta dei Cervi: brown paintings on the cave wall in the second
corridor (after Graziosi 1980J.
Fig. 5. Grotta dei Cervi: hand stencils (after Graziosi 1980)
texts, and this shows that history had a role behind
their forms, in the sense that every context declined
them in the way it wanted. While describing the ima-
ges of the Grotta dei Cervi, though aware of the geo-
graphical and sometimes chronological distance,
Graziosi (1980) found some similarities with Balkan,
Aegean and Anatolian civilizations. Behind this ap-
pearance of kinship it is logical to perceive a circuit
of exchanges and contacts
among cultures which, after
thousands of years of sedi-
mentation, have been able to
produce isomorphisms. Whe-
ther these have also been rea-
lised among other cultures in
other periods of history is an
open question concerning the
limits of knowledge of human
history. Today, in images of
prehistory it is possible to ad-
mire their evocative force,
comparable to that of mythi-
cal characters with the eter-
nal charm conveyed by their
countless disguises. Similarly,
the 'survival' of the images of
the Grotta dei Cervi is due to their
metamorphic capability, which is
able to dissolve in thousands of
variations, none of which is impri-
soned by metaphors fixed throu-
ghout time. 'Realistic' motifs and
'abstract' compositions are arra-
yed on the walls, becoming part
of the walls themselves, and with
them they perform an enchanting
game with which they accompany,
perhaps, an initiation path which
ends in the room with hand prints.
'Pathos formulas', Warburg would
say, in which form and content
are indissolubly intertwined and
in which various times blend and
continue to convey emotions and
tensions.
The iconographic apparatus of the
Grotta dei Cervi cannot be easily
deciphered. It offers a cosmic
abundance of shapes which can
be interpreted and re-interpreted
to create the stories of human li-
ves with an unceasing prolifera-
tion of rebuses. In this apparatus the social actors of
that time could recognise themselves. By sharing
myths and stories transmitted in versions that were
never the same, they found a meaning to their own
existence.
Images of these people remain and they bring 'ghosts'
back to life. If today we still continue to tell their
Fig. 6. Grotta dei Cervi: anthropomorphic and cruciform motifs (after
Graziosi 1980).
story, it is because in the intertwinement between
the world of the living and the world of the dead
there is an invisible relationship which links one to
the other. What is our research into the past if not
another way of asking the dead for a past which le-
gitimises us in exchange for a future that commemo-
rates them?
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