Tamgas and Petroglyphs in the Kayrakkol and Karakungey Mountains (based on research materials 2022–2023)

Abstract

The article presents the results of field research in South-Eastern Kazakhstan in 2022–2023. The authors introduce into scientific discourse information about seven locations of rock carvings with tamgas. Fifteen signs and the petroglyphs that accompany them are being published. The drawings are found on open vertical and horizontal planes of large and small rocky outcrops, on the tops of the southern, southwestern and southeastern slopes of the Kairakkol and Karakungey mountains. The rock carvings were made using two main techniques: picketing and surface carving. Sectors with tamgas are part of large clusters of petroglyphs of different periods, but at the same time they are located separately from other drawings. In one case, a similar sector was discovered on rocky planes located at a distance from placers of rock carvings. Figurative images are represented mainly by geometric symbols and their combinations. Diacritics – dots, lines, arcs and curls. The majority are tamgas, which find indirect analogies in the signs of the nomads of the Northern Black Sea region, Ustyurt, Southern Kazakhstan, Southern Siberia and Mongolia at the turn of eras. Among the petroglyphs that accompany the signs, there are images of snake-like and dragon-like figures, silhouette and outline figures of animals, some of which are made in an openwork manner. A new series of tamgas, identified in Eastern Semirechye, shows broad ethnocultural connections, the originality of the region’s population in the Hunno-Sarmatian period and the migration routes of nomads along the Dzungarian Alatau mountain system.