Древняя живопись грота Шахты в аспекте развитития методики исследования (по архивным материалам В. А. Ранова и современным данным)

Abstract

The article discusses the rock images of the Shakhty rock shelter. The authors’ archival research in 2021 and 2022 revealed field diaries, photographs and colour photo slides of V. A. Ranov, who was the first to find the site, in the archive of A. Donish Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnography of National Academy of Sciences of Tajikistan. The combination of evidence obtained from these sources, and a modern examination of panels with images, made it possible to shed light on the method of recording the murals of the rock shelter in 1958. The rerecording of these images in 2019 and DStretch colour filtering of the obtained photographs made it possible to refine the contours and details of some images that are important for the attribution and subsequent interpretation of individual images. The authors assume that murals of the Shakhty rock shelter were not all created at the same time, as suggested by V. A. Ranov, dating them from the Mesolithic — early Neolithic. The presence of paint of different shades, varying degree of preservation of the shelter murals, numerous palimpsests and refined details of the images on the rock give the grounds suggest different times of their creation. Based on the results of modern research, the images of the Shakhty rock shelter can be dated from the Mesolithic to the Bronze Age.