Case file · Folklore / legend
The mushroom-headed figures of Pegtymel
Petroglyphs on cliffs along the Pegtymel river in Chukotka show human figures with mushroom-shaped heads, linked by archaeologists to fly-agaric visions.
500 BCE · 69.90, 173.87 · status: account
The account
The carvings, roughly 2,000–3,000 years old, also show reindeer hunts and sea mammals. Chukchi and Koryak shamans used fly agaric into the 20th century.
The sceptical view
The dating and the fly-agaric reading are interpretations, though widely accepted.