Back

Selected ressource details

-
Back

The oldest Representations of Hallucinogenic Mushrooms in the world (Sahara Desert, 9000 - 7000 B.P.)


Pages: 69 - 78

Abstract

The idea that the use of hollucinogens should be a source of inspiration for some forms of prehistoric rack art is not a new one. After a brief examination of instances of such art, this article intends to focus its attention on a group of rock paintings in the Sahara Desert, the works of pre-neolithic Early Gatherers, in which mushrooms effigies are represented repeatedly. The polychromic scenes of harvest, adoration and the offering of mushrooms, and large masked "gods" covered with mushrooms, not to mention other significant details, lead us to suppose we are dealing with an ancient hallucinogenic mushroom cult. What is remarkable about these ethnomycologicol works, produced 7,000 - 9,000 years ago, is that they could indeed reflect the most ancient human culture as yet documented in which the ritual use of hallucinogenic mushrooms is explicitly represented. (As the fathers of modern ethno-mycology and in particular R. Gordon Wasson) imagined, this Saharian testimony shows thot the use of hallucinogens goes back to the Paleolithic Period and that their use always takes place within contexts and rituals of a mysticoreligious nature.