Ladder Symbolism: Morphology and Meaning with Special Reference to Rock-Art India Ajit Kumar Department of Archaeology, University of Kerala, Kariavattom 695581, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India (Email:ajitkumarku@gmail.com) Introduction Symbols, myths and images are the essence of spiritual life. Many of these symbols have hoary antiquity. Deriving the true meaning of these symbols and interpreting it is an arduous task and to do so one has to look behind their current veil and cross refer them between religious text, rituals and figured monuments and semi-veiled allusions. The ladder is one such common symbol found from varied contexts of time and space. The ladder is a generally used as prop or a means to ascend heights. It generally has two vertical struts and a series of horizontal rungs. It has been found depicted from prehistoric to modern time. The earliest occurrences are possibly as pictographs and petroglyphs in rock art. They are also noticed in historic monuments and in other mediums like paintings, pottery etc. No attempt has been undertaken to study the morphology and meaning of this symbol in rock art. During the present study, it was observed that, the ladder motif has its occurrences in religious belief and practices of nearly all religion and essentially associated with death rituals or as symbolic prop to gain ascendancy to heaven. Many ancient beliefs carry opinion that, the heaven was much closer to the earth and ascensions was possible from a mountain, ladder or through a tree, clouds, cart, boat or feet or by using sun rays possibly represented in art as arrows. Due to some uncertain calamity the connectivity and proximity with between heaven and earth was lost. Some attribute it to the ‘tree of Liana’ being cut or the mountain touching the sky getting flattened. Special members like shamans it is believed continued to move between the heaven and earth or between human and spirit world using props like ladder, cord, clouds, trees etc (Eliade 1957 59). The belief of a mountain/hill and ladder as a possible means or prop to gain access to heaven possibly dates back to prehistoric period. The earliest prehistoric symbolic representation of the ladder as a petroglyph, possibly reflecting this belief comes from a hill to the west side of Winnemucca Lake sub- basin, Nevada. These petroglyphs according to latest researches are dated between 14.8 and 13.2 ka (between 14,800 and 13,200 and 11, 3000 and 10,500 years ago) (Benson, et al. 2013). The ladder petroglyphs are carved right on top of the hills in various forms as an apparent mode or symbol to convey/denote/gain access to heaven (Fig.1). There are many other sites in Nevada where ladder, rakes, concentric circle, grids etc are common motifs. These motifs are generally located in uninhabited spots and appear to have been created by special practitioners like shamans and have parallels throughout