The Artwork of Unknown Souls

[Hanrahan 2885]

 

T H E   A R T W O R K

 

O F

 

P R E H I S T O R I C   M A N

 

B Y

 

T H O M A S   E. C.   N A P I E R

 

P R I N T E D   I N   H A E N S E

 

B Y

 

T H E   N O R T H E R N    

G E O G R A P H I C A L

A C A D E M I C   P R E S S

 

I N 

 

A N N O   D O M I N I   MDCCCLXXVIII

 

F I R S T   E D I T I O N

 

 

Foreword by T. Napier

 

In the Autumn morning of [Date], I had indulged a stroll along a river which I know quite well, and have walked along many times. The water flows at the bottom of a valley along the river Reden, which has carved a path through the mountains and rock for untold millennia. Previously that week, there had been a mudslide from unseasonal rains. Whilst typically a force of natural chaos and obfuscation, this geological event revealed to me something extra-ordinary. Along one of the banks, was the unmistakable draft of air, in a pattern immediately noticeable as ‘unnatural’. Upon my investigation, I found an opening in the rock, a hole in the mountain, a doorway into the earth itself. 

 

My excavation was unprofessional and undocumented in my curiosity, I pulled at the rock and mud, widening the crevice; air ushered from the vacancy that had sat entombed since, I was to learn, before man had ever shaped stone, or put the word into writing; or even forged the first metals. It was utterly dark, but for the light of the day proffering a shaft inward, shining a morphing beam into the abyss. I stepped in - I crawled in, something beckoning me into it. I am not a spelunker, I do not enjoy the dark places of the world, yet something pulled me in, a force indescribable. 

 

I could see little, but for the sun that backed me. I cast a long shadow inside, one that stretched - the cave was deep. It was utterly still, but only for a moment. Drops of water echoed in front of me, and the air behind me rustled leaves, and carried aloof the sounds of birds. I was in the past, stepping out of the present. At once, I turned about, resolved to investigate further. I raced home, to fetch a lantern, to illuminate that which the sun could not. When I had returned with light, the things that I saw, filled me with a wonder and curiosity which I relate to you, in this book. It is academic, but it is also philosophic, and, perhaps, spiritual. It is a connection that has been broken by time, only to be reforged by chance.

 

This is the story of ghosts, of our ancestors beyond conceived time, of people who existed outside of history, yet who are responsible for all that we see around us today. 

 

 

Contents

1. Forward

2. Introduction

3. The Cavern

4. The Artwork

 

 

I N T R O D U C T I O N

   

   

 

While this discovery would be remarkable by its own merit of spectacle and geology, I was at once made aware of something far, far greater than what the crystals had to show. While there is beauty and story in nature, the alteration of it is infinitely more captivating. Lines on the walls, first, etched into the stone, and then, painted over. Lines joined lines, to give form to shapes, and the shapes; figures, distinguishable, of things, of animals. What was in this cave was something more than the clawings of bat feet or bear claws. It was the unmistakable work of a sentient mind, working on a purpose of the soul: it was artwork, in its most simple, and most complex.

 

While I had difficulty dating my finds in the historical record; I made a rough estimate of the age of the cave via a process of evaporation rates. Within water, specifically in caves, any condensation that forms inevitably carries within it, some salts. At home, you may notice that as you boil water, a crusty film, like rock, or salt, builds up in the bottom of your kettle as it boils. The water is carried away as steam; and any solids dissolved in the water are left as that particulate. In the case of boiling, this happens quickly - but even then, it takes months for even a thin film to form on the kettle. At the ambient temperature (measured at 11 Degrees), this process occurs much more slowly. Over several months, I measured the rate of build-up in the cave. The results are shocking.

 

Over the course of several months (six, to be precise), I charted the rate of crystal growth at one millimeter per year, (or zero-point-six millimeters per half-year). Several of the Stalactites in the cave stood twice as tall as myself; at 6’1, or, 6100 millimeters. The math is obvious. Critical to this, was also the rate of crystal growth over the artwork. While not as old as the crystal formations, this was evidence that the paintings were not the work of recent cult artists; but people - or something like them - thousands of years ago. 

 

 

T H E   C A V E R N

 

The caves, which I have titled the La Fleur Caves, are a multi-roomed complex of natural caverns formed by water action, and geological activity. Very little of the interior is rocky; rather through calcification, almost the entirety of the cave is covered in glass-like sheen of white crystal, evaporated from the dripping of waters above. In some places, it is smooth, like ice, and in others, it is bumpy. Stalactites and Stalagmites in innumerable quantities make navigation somewhat difficult, and provoke a most unworldly feeling. Rarely, the calcification has resulted in spikes of minute size, which sparkle like thousands of miniature fish-scales in the firelight. The cave stretches deep into the mountain, and I have charted eight caverns, though there are surely more in places unobserved. 

 

T H E   A R T W O R K

 

While this discovery would be remarkable by its own merit of spectacle and geology, I was at once made aware of something far, far greater than what the crystals had to show. While there is beauty and story in nature, the alteration of it is infinitely more captivating. Lines on the walls, first, etched into the stone, and then, painted over. Lines joined lines, to give form to shapes, and the shapes; figures, distinguishable, of things, of animals. What was in this cave was something more than the clawings of bat feet or bear claws. It was the unmistakable work of a sentient mind, working on a purpose of the soul: it was artwork, in its most simple, and most complex.

 

My eye only caught one panel at first, this shocked me so dearly I nearly dropped my lantern. The subject was unexpected, terrifying, moving; and opened a line of questioning that provoked me further. I have a photographic record of the site, which shall be seen at the bottom of this chapter. Upon the wall were the heads of beasts; lions to be precise, yet lions as such as I have never seen in any book or recorded safari. Unmanned, and of a distinctly different size and shape. Further in the cave is a mural of two lions, a male, and a female, which I believe to be life sized. If so, they were at least three meters in length, and one-and-one-fourth meters tall. 

 

Obviously, the most curious thing about this find is that the River Reden, and the area in which it flows; Arentania, is a temperate broadleaf forest, which I do not think I need to inform my readers, is not the habitat of lions. There are three conclusions that can be instantly drawn from this: the Arentanian area once had lions, these lions were different from their southern relatives, and that something sentient created likeness of these beasts in the form of painted art. 

 

A Photograph of the Lion Pride.

 

Further in the cave, along the scoops and ridges of the wall, lay dozens, if not hundreds more paintings. Another one of great significance lay along one of the smoother walls, near the entrance. Here, we see the heads of horses, as well as two other species; a great bull with curved horns, and what appear to be something like rhinoceri, yet again, different from extant species. The images are layered atop each other, in a suggestion of movement; the horses mouths are open, the neigh is heard - the darkness of the bulls looms overhead, the huff before the lowered charge. Most exciting is the clash of horns in the bottom-right, between the two rhinoceri, who, locked in ferocious battle, bash against each other, likely for a prospective mate. The artist, or artists, were clearly moved by the action of the natural world around them, and took great care to depict it for others.

 

The mystery of the rhinoceri ties to the lions as well. One may wonder, if this landscape was once different, markedly so from the pastoral gentle greenery that we know today. Perhaps it was once a sprawling serengeti, with vast herds of zebra, elephant, and gazelle. But this is not so; the other animals in the paintings bear no similarities to those southern beasts. These animals lived in this area, however long ago, but now, do no longer. What were they then? The shape of the Rhinoceri gives us a clue. Southern Rhinoceri have a clear definition of shape to them, they are unhaired, and armor plated - yet these are not, and give an indication of hair at the flanks of their legs, and underside. It is possible that in this area, beasts of the south lived here in a northern style; replete with great wooly hair. This is most likely, when paired with the last of my photographs.

 

    A Photograph of Horses, Bulls, and Northern Rhinoceri in contest.

 

The final photograph, I have saved for last, in that it is most stunning and unnerving. As you progress through the cave, passing dozens of other hitherto undocumented paintings of every kind, the passage narrows. It was a long, and tight fit in the darkness, one that I could barely get through - I ripped my waistcoat trying to access it, and nerve-wrackingly coaxed my lantern and camera through. The passage opens to a large, roughly circular room that is domed, and surrounded by rocks in layers. It is immediately clear that hands have been at work, beyond the paintings on the walls. Rocks have been placed carefully below, and above, on a shelf, lining the circumference of the entire room. Unlike the white and cream crystalline color of the other rooms, this area was more rocky, and drier. The original stone was able to be seen, uncovered by precipitate. The surrounding rock is gray, brown, but the stones on the shelf and floor are red, one and all. 

 

They were obviously carried in from outside, and placed, in some form of artistic display, or religious. As the terminus of the system, it is likely that this chamber served a spiritual purpose. In a full arc around you, in a line, are elephants; yet not elephants. They are large, taller than me, but likely still not scale. The artist must have had artificial elevation, as the paintings measure around ten feet tall, from the top of the head, to the bottom of the foot, uniformly. In a circle, they stand flickering in the firelight of the lamp, giving a hint of movement. Tails swish, and trunks raise up and down. A shiver runs down your back, and you get the feeling of standing in a place of importance - or a place of being seen. By who, or what, you cannot say, you cannot even put picture to mind - but watched, you feel, as if some presence from primordial days is looking upon you, as the artist presides over his work, and watches the watcher with bated breath. 

 

On a less poetic note, the subject of the Elephants, like the Rhinoceri, is a curious one. Elephantine they appear, yet precise matches, they are decisively not. Modern Elephants do not match their shape in any way. These creatures have a high back ridge, a more rounded skull, and their tusks curve in a way that elephants do not. Their tusks are almost much larger, proportionately. Perhaps most astoundingly, like the Rhinoceros, they appear to have hair, and in this depiction, it is no mere suggestion, but an integral part of the depiction. These elephant-like beasts are covered in thick, wooly hair that stretches down to their ankles. Perhaps these creatures once lived, and grazed on the tall grasses of the Reden valley - or perhaps they were a distant memory of a migratory people who journeyed south in search of fairer lives, but never forgot the majesty of the creatures that once shared the land with them. 

 

 

This is the first of multiple papers I will be writing on this cavern, as there is much yet undiscovered, and unshared. I have barely scratched the surface of what is within, and it may be the project of a lifetime to discover it all. What I have found is astounding, and I do hope you have been entertained, and educated by this. It is a most thought-provoking thing. My conclusions, put plainly, are thus: 

 

Humanity, or more generally, ‘sentient life’, has existed since before the written word. Simple mathematics and the style, positions, and material evidence of the cavern suggests that these people were illiterate, yet highly technical artistically. Their use of color, and shapes, are complex and skillful. There are no mistakes in the artwork, it was the business of trained people. They knew no metal; for I found stone that was clearly chipped to fashion sharp edges on one side, and soft, holding edges on another. They knew of fire; for I found the remnants of charcoal, crushed on the ground. These people also were privy, either in person, or in memory, to animals which no longer exist. My Grandfather once wrote of ‘Fossils’, and extinct animals. If these animals are extinct, then the people who witnessed them must have done so long, long ago, beyond any writing of man, for in no treatise are mentioned un-maned lions, or elephants with hair. 

 

It is unscientific to postulate, but I have a feeling this is the work of man - and if it is, it is the work of a mankind we are unfamiliar with… but may be lucky enough to get to know. 

 

[wowj 2886]

"OI juz realoized I can't read.." BLUEMANE says, staring at the missive.

[Fie 2521]

"The **** is a photograph? He must mean a sketch. What a simpleton," remarked Aloisia to her husband. @M1919