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- Herausgeber: Books on Demand
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
There is a lot that hides among the rocks. Many secrets. Here I tell about the beginning of my travels. On the coast of East Greenland, I have learned about a rock with petroglyphs, which I have come to investigate and I find more than I could dream of. The rock tells the story of a forgotten whale culture that lived along the Arctic coasts millennia ago and based everything on their whaling. A culture that was completely based on the sea and what it could provide. One discovery follows the other as I wrestle the secrets from the rock and a forgotten ancient culture reveals itself to me and draws me into it. This is the beginning of my travels and the basis of my further search for traces of the forgotten whale culture. This is my translation of some of the writings of the lost explorer Vito de la Vera, who's travels brought him into contact with many lost cultures before he himself was lost.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
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Archeology is special among the sciences. One does not necessarily know what one is looking for and even less what one finds. Everything you thought you knew can change with just a single find that changes everything.
This is how I came here to Scoresbyland in Northeast Greenland.
Much is known about the Inuit and Thule culture, which spread in the Arctic archipelago and Greenland seven hundred years ago and is still the origin of today's Inuit culture.
But before that, there was another culture up here in the Arctic. A much older culture, which we call the Dorset culture. Our museums have objects from this culture, which count between 1000 and 2000, but since the culture was already fading away when the Thule culture came along with the small ice age, it is sparse what we know about them.
During his Thule expeditions among the Inuit, the well-known Knud Rasmussen heard legends about the long-gone "Tunit". Giants of the past who had disappeared with the advent of the Inuit. The Tunit, however, has left many traces.
They lived in houses, so you can find in the Arctic ruins from the Tunit settlements, which were also excavated by Therkel Mathiasen during the Thule expeditions.
There are many indications that the Dorset culture was in its last phase long before the Thule culture came and that they were not as well adapted to the colder climate as the Inuit. Their time was from before the Little Ice Age, when the Arctic was more hospitable.
And now climate change is loosening up for the Arctic again, more and more of the Tunit cultural remnants are being brought to light again.
Among other things, many petroglyphs have been found, which we also know from Denmark's antiquity.
The Dorset culture has left many behind and they are one of the most emphatic memories of them.
It is also petroglyphs that have brought me here to Scoresbyland, where I, who write these words, am not far from Zackenberg station, where these special petroglyphs were recently found, which others unfortunately have not taken so much notice of, but I think they are of utmost importance!
Normally, the oldest of the Dorset culture is set to 1000-800 BC, but the culture took long to die and was not as well adapted to the cold Arctic as the Thule culture that followed it. Therefore, the compelling question of whether the Dorset culture was the slow adaptation and death of an Arctic culture that was even older but adapted to a warmer Arctic arise.
Much could indicate that the Dorset culture is the remnants of a culture around the Arctic Ocean, which has had its peak during the Holocene maximum around 5000-2000 BC. During this warm period, the Arctic Ocean would have been ice-free and far more hospitable, which is why it would also be able to support a different type of culture.
This is what I have found indications for and the reason that I am now here in Scoresbyland to examine the petroglyphs. Evidence that during the Holocene maximum there was an Arctic culture that was contemporaneous with our Bronze Age and which slowly degenerated and fled south under the colder conditions until the Little Ice Age finally ended the sad remnants of their culture.
My journey is going well. Scoresbyland has a beautiful Arctic summer and I was able to sail my yacht L’Aguila here with a stop in Scoresbysund, where I stocked up.
There were no major problems in the sailing, as the East Greenlandic ocean ice is not what it has been. It almost gives an insight into how the sea was for the Holocene culture in the Arctic.
The sea would have been rich and provided what was needed. Like all Arctic cultures, even in warmer conditions, the Holocene culture must have depended on the sea and grazing animals on land.
The question then is how developed it was. Have they perhaps had some form of aquaculture? It thrives in Arctic waters. I put my trust in the petroglyphs that they can show me something.
In the Scoresby plains, the musk oxen graze well contented in the abundance of the Arctic summer. Further down in the fjords, the whales' large fins and backs appear from time to time when they break the water surface.
This is what one should always remember about the Arctic. The inconsolability of winter is replaced by the abundance of summer, as long as the sun stands forever in the sky and the light bathes the landscape in its rays.
The arctic flora is in full bloom around me and provides abundant food for musk oxen, reindeer, insects and birds. The short growth period only makes the explosion of life so much more impressive when all the flowers are blooming at the same time.
It is not necessarily all a benefit to me as there are many insects in the air. The mosquitoes are fierce, but I have the classic Greenlandic mosquito net over my head and face, so I do not quite end up as a buffet.
The rocks protrude everywhere in the landscape, while the rivers with meltwater run between them.
The Arctic summer offers plenty of good weather. It's only sometimes that the weather gets bad, but then it's really bad!
Finally, I see the cliff that I am looking for. It is a large slightly sloping rock wall in the landscape. It has a huge, easily accessible surface to carve in, as the ancient Tunit did.
I run fast towards my goal full of anticipation. This is what I've been looking for!
It is true! The rock is filled with petroglyphs, the entire surface has incisions! I can hardly believe it!
I put my pack down and immediately start unpacking. Paint, brushes, charcoal, tracing paper and a camera.
First the paint! I grab a brush and open a bucket of paint. The petroglyphs only become clear and fully visible when they are painted up, otherwise they are just scratches in the rock, even though the artists here in their time have chosen rocks where the surface is colored differently than the interior due to exposure to wind and weather. So when they were made, they were completely visible. But that's a long time ago. Wind and weather have long changed that.
I will make up for that soon! I use paint, which becomes luminescent in the dark. It does not make much sense now in the summer, but if you come back when the season of darkness has come, the petroglyphs will shine. A pretty good idea I think to myself.
I'm getting off to a good start painting. And some forms also make sense. I'm sure these round horned figures are the musk oxen that graze nearby. And whale tails as we ourselves reproduce them. And matchmen have always been made.
It's a wealth of characters. Some are more stylized than others. It could almost be a pictorial writing.
