| Research Abstract |
Rock engravings from Fugoppe Cave in Yoichi-cho, Hokkaido, is one of the precious prehistoric art works in Japan, but they had not been investigated well just until these days. In our research, firstly, we took protographs of the rock surface where engravings could be, for the prepare of our following investigation. While we gave up the direct rasing of works because of the fragile condition of the rock surface, we raised indirectly the works on the base of photographs, observing details of figures munutely. In result, considerably we could revise the drawings of works attached to the archaeological report which was published in 1970. In the art historical research, the starting point is the drawing which each investigator made, and our drawing should be basis of every following study. Meanwhile, the dating of the engravings and situating of the artists, which were our initiate purpose of research, have been suspended for too many materials to be investigated.
Another problem is the presence of the plaster models which copied the engravings when the archaeologists excavated the site. We also investigated the plaster models, which are very rare in the world, deposited now in the Hokkaido Historical Museum of Sapporo. The plaster models were not accompanied with documents, so that we had to compare the models with the engravings, and finally we could almost give the entire picture of these materials. Here, we have two sort of materials which are not different almost each other, that is, the plaster models and original engravings in situ which are not so weathered since the plaster models were made.
Now, how can we distinguish the two? In conclusion, as much as we can investigate the original works, we must take them as our first materials, meanwhile we can evaluate the plaster models as unique materials in the history of research, though we ourselves will not take them our object of research.
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