Prehistoric Paintings in the Keçe Cave (Kahramanmaraş-Elbistan)

Year 2019, Issue: 22, 11 - 24, 11.10.2019

İrfan Deniz Yaman

Abstract

The Keçe Cave is located about 40 km north
of the district of Kahramanmaraş/Elbistan. One
of the most important features of this cave is
that it contains traces of life belonging to different
archaeological periods. The Paleolithic
chipped-stone tools and other archaeological
data uncovered around the cave revealed
that this cave was a place where excavations
should be carried out. The paintings found on
the interior walls of one of the small caves are
of great significance. All of these images are
made by painting technique, and they describe
a life story. There are various figures of human
depictions, symbols, and signs in the paintings
between the dotted bands. The color of
the paint used in the paintings usually belongs
to different shades of red, which is in shades
of ocher. A small number of paintings feature
different colors similar to purple and black. In
this study, firstly the Keçe Cave will be mentioned,
and then the emergence and types of
the concept of art will be explained. Secondly,
examples of the paintings identified in Anatolia
will be mentioned. In the last section, the general
features of the pictures in Keçe Cave will
be explained.

Keywords

Keçe Cave, Painting, Prehistoric Art, Elbistan Kahramanmaraş

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