UPPER PALEOLITHIC DECORATED CAVES AS A SANCTUARY: SOME CRITERIA OF SELECTION

The term “sanctuary” is widely used in relation to the Upper Paleolithic caves with images. The paper shows how the properties of karsts cavities can serve as criteria for the selection of these objects as sacred places by people of the Ice Age and which major sense organs it is connected with. These elements are proved to give the underground cave space the signs of what constructs the collective sacred space and what Mircea Eliade called hierophany. The images in the caves are solely reinforcing the idea of sacredness of the Paleolithic sanctuary.