Petroglyphs of Lake Onega and the White Sea
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How it came to be
Some 4,500 Neolithic petroglyphs are carved at two places in the Republic of Karelia in Russia: the eastern shore of Lake Onega and islands in the Vyg River near the White Sea. UNESCO dates them to about 6,000 to 7,000 years ago, and the site is one of the largest of its kind in Europe. The two clusters lie 300 km apart and together hold 33 rock art panels.
The Lake Onega cluster in Pudozhsky District has 22 groups with more than 1,200 figures, mostly birds, animals, half-human half-animal beings and geometric shapes that may stand for the moon and the sun. A famous triad on Cape Besov Nos shows a demon, a catfish and an otter, and tradition holds that monks of the Murom monastery carved a Christian cross over it around the 15th century. The White Sea cluster in Belomorsky District has 3,411 figures in 11 groups, mostly scenes of hunting and sailing, equipment, and animal and human footprints.
The White Sea carvings were found by the archaeologist Alexander Linevsky, and more than 30 ancient campsites have been studied around them. The government of the Karelian ASSR listed them as archaeological monuments in 1971; they entered the Tentative List in 2018 and were inscribed in July 2021.
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