Abstract:
One of the oldest traditional arts in the world, which has lasted for thousands of years, is the rock art. The rocky face of the mountains seems to be the first painting canvas on which our antediluvian ancestors tried to record their artful works. Although other methods of recording the works of art were available to primate humans, they became obsolete over time due to the deficiency of the dialyzed materials used. There are different opinions attributing a thorough chronology to these types of ancient paintings. Although in many areas, these motifs are dated to the Paleolithic period, in different parts of Iran, similarities in terms of subject and style can be perceived between these motifs and motifs presented on the pottery samples each one relating to the different cultural periods. Perhaps we can deal with the chronology of the patterns by the comparative approach. The study of these ancient motifs has been given a special attention in the world for several decades, but in Iran, the comprehensive studies have not been done yet and generally the majority of the presentations only include the descriptive collections of the motifs. The preceding researches demonstrate that the art of pictograph can be seen in the most parts of Iran, especially on the Zagros and the Central Plateau. In the Fars province, due to its geographical location in the South Zagros, rock art has been identified and introduced from different regions, including petroglyphs and pictographs. In the present research, studying the Bakhtegan county of Fars province, we identified some of the pictographic instances, and in this article we try to introduce their patterns. The present study prepared by the field and library study methods to document, classify, and attribute a relative chronology of the patterns based on the comparative approach. The studied motifs are of the color-painting type embracing the human, animal, plant and the symbolic motifs.