New fingers paintings were found in Shulgan-Tash Cave

Scientists have identified a whole complex of several dozen small planes in the Shulgan-Tash (Kapova) cave, with figures of horses, deer, bear, and bulls' heads.

As the Research and Production Center for the Protection and Use of Cultural Heritage Sites reported to the Bashinform News Agency, the paintings were applied to the cave walls with fingers without using any dye. This is so-called "finger flutings", the detection of which was first reported in the summer of 2019. Then the first zoomorphic figures were discovered on the ceiling of the Throat passage.

During this period, a group of specialists conducted several expeditions and examined several more cavities of the Kapova Cave for the presence of "fingerprints". The work was carried out as part of the bid book development to include the "Rock painting of the Shulgan-Tash Cave" in the UNESCO World Heritage List.

A new group of images was found in the First and Second Galleries, in the Near Well, in the Temple and Upper Halls, in the Throat passage. They look like tangles of parallel lines drawn with two or three fingers.

The described locations of "fingerprints" significantly expand the accepted science concept of the Shulgan-Tash Cave as a monument of rock art. The number of cave halls where traces of human artistic activity are found and, accordingly, the overall "decorated space" significantly increased. Instead of the previously known four halls, researchers' attention will now be attracted by at least five more inner halls of the cave.

The Shulgan-Tash Cave study results can be found in more detail in an article published by the scientific journal "Scientific Notes of the Tomskaya Pisanitsa Museum-Reserve" in December.