The cognition and the reflection of the worldview of ancient human in the works of the artist and paleometrologist V. I. Zhalkovskii

Abstract

The article considers the life path and worldview of V. I. Zhalkovskii. He was an artist, paleometrologist and astroarchaeologist and for most part of his life worked at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the Siberian Branch of the RAS (Novosibirsk). Zhalkovskii was the author of the initial design of the expositions of the Museum of the History and Culture of the Peoples of Siberia and Russian Far-East of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography SB RAS, and of the design of the Shira’s local history Museum (Shira village, Khakassia); as well as the author of the design, illustrations, sketches of cave paintings to the books of A. P. Okladnikov and V. E. Larichev.

At the first stage of his life, V. I. Zhalkovskii was a student and performer of drawings for archaeologists, at the second — their assistant and almost co-author, and at the third — an independent, original scientist and artist. The main scientific achievement of Zhalkovskii is the development of “paleometrology” — a method for metric deciphering of cave paintings, ancient plates and perforated batons.

V. I. Zhalkovskii proceeded from the fact, that in terms of preliterate writing and prenumerical mathematics knowledges were fixed by means of “petroglyph writing”. And in order to understand the essence of the objects of ancient art, it is necessary to read it from the standpoint of paleometrology. The ancestor needed astronomy in order to predict, anticipate the future and harmonize the actions of the tribe with the cosmic world order.