Tamgaly Petroglyphs
Fabulous, Fabulous, Fabulous!
This World Heritage site in the middle of nowhere in Southern Kazakhstan has the most amazing collection of petroglyphs I have ever seen. I doubted that they could be better than the ones we saw in Örnök, but they were, simply because of the vast variety of images and the stories many of them tell. According to the UNESCO website there are over 5,000 images in the vicinity and while we didn’t go beyond the central panels, we saw plenty. The images are supposed to be dated from 3,000 BCE up to the time of the Turks and Scythians, ca. 1-3rd centuries of the Common Era. The ones in the photo gallery are between 3,000 BCE and ca. 600 BCE. (at least that’s what the archeologist on site told us.)
Most of the time, finds like this are located by a shepherd or farmer. Not this site. The region was used by the military during the Soviet period, and they blasted their way through, destroying most of the flat paneled hillsides that were tapistried with Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Age images. Someone finally stopped them, but to a great extent the damage was already done. The large rocks that are now on the ground would still have been on the hillsides 60 years ago. The destruction didn’t stop then, however, as once the site was open to the public, more of the images disappeared. (For those of you who are familiar with the petroglyphs on Stansbury Island in the Great Salt Lake, you can understand this problem; twenty years ago those pictures were in perfect condition and one could walk up the hillside and follow first the zoological images, then the shaman with the sage growing out of the rock that looked like it was coming from his head, to the alien and geometric images close to the ritual circle at the top of the hill where the cows grazed. Today most of those images have been chipped away.:( ) To prevent further degradation, everyone who now visits the Tamgaly Petroglyphs main section must go with a guide. This is a very good move for a number of reasons, not just to protect the site, but so that the visitors actually look at the most remarkable images rather than just seeing panels of pictures and, not less important, that they pay attention to the vipers, copperheads and scorpions in the grass. Our guide told us that someone went off alone last week to look at some of the petroglyphs off to the east of the main section, in what appeared to be a good dozen kilometers away, and hasn’t been heard or seen since. This is hot high desert scrub grassland and it is easy to get dehydrated and confused without someone who knows the area.
The main section is set up so that one walks in a loop going from Neolithic, to Bronze to Iron Age pictures on one side, then crossing a fairly large patch of tall bushes that used to be used for wishing trees before the museum officials stopped the practice, and that are growing above a series of tombs, to the oldest panel in this section. This panel is really a story board with 12 people (supposedly representing the twelve months) moving towards the seven gods, including the sun and moon gods, in the center, and the ram for sacrifice at the far right side. The ritual may represent the renewal of the cycle of time based on supplication and sufficient offerings to the gods. The left side has the 12 figures and there are animals of the hunt with them, while the ram is clearly alone as the sacrifice on the far right. The sun god is depicted in the same way he was on the pictures on the opposite side of the loop. While the first part of the loop had pictures of hunting scenes, and of the shaman engaged in various ritual practices, and a multitude of individual images, this panel is unique in its complete narrative. The images are all directed towards, or facing, the West, and tower above the stone ritual circle at the bottom of the hill.
Towards the end of the loop are a few excavated Bronze Age tombs. What I found fascinating about these was that the women’s tombs had children with them and they were both in horizontal positions, while the men’s tombs (and they were near each other but in distinctly separate areas) were for sitting. The bodies (which were taken somewhere, I never understood the exact place) were found in a sitting, almost meditative position. One of the men’s tombs was supposed to have a petroglyph on the inside rock, but I really couldn’t see it even when it was pointed out to me. The stone cover to at least one of the tombs was still by the side, and it was easy to see how it would be a perfect seal for the rock box.
The Tamgaly Petroglyphs are not difficult to find. They are about 50km (on a lousy, but direct, road) off the main highway between Bishkek and Almaty, but only a few people actually make the journey there. We were told we were the first Americans this season, and the season started in May. They do have busloads of Japanese and Chinese tourists, however, as well as individual European travelers.
This was the last petroglyph site I am going to see in Central Asia. We have been very fortunate to find wonderful rock images in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and now Kazakhstan. I wish I could get to the ones behind Nanga Parbat, as they would add another layer of understanding, but the politics in Pakistan prevent me from getting there. Instead I will soon turn my attention back to temples and caves in Jammu and Kashmir; but before getting there, I have one more day to see the sites in Almaty, the former Russian Kazakh capital.
