Found the largest petroglyphs in the Altai
In Ongudai district of the Altai Republic, archaeologists found a three-meter cave drawing of a deer. At the moment, found the image of the largest petroglyphs in the Altai. About the discovery reported on the website of the Agency for cultural and historical heritage of the Altai Republic.
Petroglyphs, the most numerous and widespread species of the monuments of ancient art of the Altai. Today in the Altai recorded 172 group of petroglyphs. These include images that are made in the technique of knocking out (direct blows or use of instruments intermediary), engraving, carving, polishing and also performed with the combination of these techniques as contour and silhouette. Images with a silhouette filling sometimes called intaglios.
The subjects of the Altai petroglyphs are divided into five groups: image ungulates (deer, elk, moose, bulls, camels, wild ass, deer, sheep, goats and boars); the predators (tigers, wolves and foxes); images of birds (eagles, vultures, bustards, roosters, swans, geese and ducks); image of fish (whitefish); images of fantastic creatures (zooantropomorfnogo).
The image of a deer engraved to the height of about two meters in the rock near the village Maly Yaloman.
Next to him, the Agency found several images of humans and, presumably, the tiger.
Considering the stylistic features and a visual assessment of the technology of patterning, archaeologists have attributed a date to the middle of I Millennium BC. Dating drawings more specifically it will be possible after conducting a technical analysis — the study of traces left by tools that the picture was taken.
In the middle of the first Millennium BC the territory of Altai was inhabited by early nomads, primarily from the Pazyryk archaeological culture. There are several hypotheses of anagenesis Altai culture of the iron age. Some researchers believe that they appeared due to the development of the material culture of the autochthonous population of the region, others that they were formed due to the invasion of nomads from the steppes to the North of the Chinese border. Also some elements of the material culture of the Sakas in ancient Kazakhstan find analogies in the Pazyryk culture in the Altai mountains.
So, a recent study of remains from the burial ground of the Altai Scythian time, AK-ALAKHA-3 shows that those buried were the bearers of mitochondrial haplogroup C arose in the territory between the Caspian sea and lake Baikal, about 60 thousand years ago and Y-chromosomal haplogroup N-P43, carriers of which lived on the territory of Sayan 4 500 — 10 000 years ago. Another study shows that two residents of this region in the middle of the first Millennium BC were the bearers of Y-chromosome haplogroup R1a, who are in southern Siberia, believed to be from South Asia.
To date the largest in size in the Altai was considered the rock carvings in Turochaksky district “Turochaksky petroglyphs”. Drawings ochre situated on two rocky banks of the river Biya, forming in some places awnings and eaves. This is one of the few complexes of the Altai petroglyphs, made in the technique of painting.
Elizaveta Vlasova