The Endless Prayer

The Virgin Orans is one of the main iconographic canons of the Virgin Mary, representing her with her arms raised and spread out. The term ‘orans’ is a late Latin borrowing meaning ‘praying’. This image has deep roots going back to the Mother Goddess, a figure revered across various cultures in the world since the Paleolithic period. Archeologists have found many figures of this ancient deity with raised hands. These figures, praying for the happiness of their families, were made of various materials, including bone, stone, and clay, and they appeared as images on dishes, jewelry and, of course, as carvings or paintings on the walls of caves and rocks.

But the Mother Goddess was not the only one painted in this pose. The figures of people with their hands raised to the sky is one of the most widespread and recognizable images in the world.

The man from Aiuke and Jolbarys, dating back to the Early Bronze Age, about 4,000 years ago, is carved on the oxidized surface of a stone and is shown with his hands raised. Not far from it, on the neighboring rocks, are several other similar scenes.

One of them shows a group of people praying, a posture known in archeology as the orans pose. Interestingly, in ancient Mesopotamia, pilgrims would make figures in this pose and place them in temples to symbolically ensure that they continued to ‘pray’ for the person who placed them there.

It is not known for sure what the characters carved into the rocks by the shaman-artists represent. Could they be portraits of specific people making requests to the gods? Or are they ritual assistants replacing someone in a religious position? But for at least 4,000 years, the little men of Aiuke and Jolbarys have been praying for peace and prosperity—for the sun to always shine, for rain to fall, for herds of animals to multiply, and for children to be born. It is a comforting thought that their prayers are still protecting us, the current inhabitants of Earth, from all kinds of disasters.