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Humans have lived on this coast of Sweden since the Stone Age.
But human-caused damage to nature is a characteristic of our era.
The Tanum petroglyphs tell of lives still lived in harmony with nature.
They are scenes depicting hunts, lovers, and travel by ship
that were created between 1000 and 1500 B.C.
These are not generic people—they are people in a variety of contexts.
Here we see a woman. Many women are depicted on these rocks.
Significant features are her ponytail, her long hair, and the sex marker:
a bowl shape, which is a fertility symbol.
Here are two men.
The men are always ***—also a symbol of fertility.
The two are clearly fighting.
However, this probably means something else.
We're very familiar with these axes from archeological finds.
They are made of clay overlaid with bronze.
We call them ceremonial axes.
This depicts not a literal battle, but possibly a ceremonial battle
between Summer and Winter, for example, or something along those lines.
Six hundred rocks bearing 10,000 images are known to exist in the region around Tanum alone.
Archeologists regularly paint some of the images red to make them visible.
It is not known whether the original artists also used color.
Who left these messages?
It is assumed that at some point, the people who settled here as farmers over 6,000 years ago
felt the urge to depict their rituals as symbols in order to understand their world.
These people already had what we would call religion.
Priests were a part of the political and religious system
and served as conveyors of messages.
They interpreted the most important life-giving forces, such as water, the sun, and fertility.
That is: births and harvests.
All of these elements have their own pantheon.
Historian Gerhard Milstreu, originally from Denmark, has been studying
the Tanum rock carvings since 1972.
He has compiled an archive of thousands of petroglyph tracings
that researchers and visitors can explore at the Underslös Museum.
One symbol is depicted on nearly every rock.
The most important figure is the ship.
It does not represent a common ship:
it is an icon.
The ship was the most important means of transportation.
It made conquests possible and was essential for fishing.
At the same time, as a symbol, it was used to explain the path of the sun.
We know of 10,000 ships in Bohuslän.
The ship is depicted as a hull, with these lines symbolizing the crew.
We clearly see a bulge at the stem, here and down there.
That is the Sun Horse.
People believed that during the day, the sun was transported by a horse.
But then, how did it come back again overnight?
So here we have the Sun Ship with the Sun Horse on board during the day,
and here we see it at night, as it sails home again.
Today, most of the rock carvings still lie hidden, invisible under moss and lichens.
Only scientists know where they are located.
But even the known petroglyphs are no longer located on the coast where they were once created.
During the post-glacial rebound, the sea retreated.
The rocks bearing carvings moved farther inland.
Today, Gerhard Milstreu's documentation ensures
that we can again understand these Bronze Age petroglyphs
and recognize the artistic quality inherent in the rock art.
The messages left by the first farming culture can easily be made visible
using a technique known as frottage.
You only need to know where the rubbing will be worthwhile.
A horse is revealed, pulling the sun with its mane.
It is one of the most sensual and beautiful images in Tanum.
The chlorophyll from the grass acts as a fixative, setting the coal on the paper.
The work of art is now complete.
Every detail becomes visible.
The Sun Horse, of course,
the damage caused by weathering,
the types of vegetation and drag marks caused by the ice, which show the direction
in which the glaciers moved—from Scandinavia towards Denmark and Germany.
But how long will these images from the past survive?
Natural weathering is not the only problem.
In the last 100 years, the biggest problem has been that industrialization and
environmental pollution are causing a tremendous increase in the speed of geological weathering.
The rain is acid rain.
The water from the forest is acidic water.
And the acids dissolve parts of the rock.
It crumbles and disappears.
We very rarely see intact petroglyphs.
Many have nearly disappeared.
Our lifestyle today is destroying our cultural heritage.
The rock carvings of Tanum,
3,500-year-old works of art,
erased—literally—within just a few decades.