Stone star chart: forgotten Eneolithic monument in Kara-Khodja stow

Abstract

The article describes a gallery of ancient petroglyphs preserved on a horizontal slab of Sarmatian limestone in the Kara-Khoja stow in the Crimean Plain, on the eastern periphery of the Tarkhankut elevated plain, nine kilometers north of the village Voikovo. The exposed section of the rock with petroglyphs has an area of 60 square meters. The first and only mention of this monument in the scientific literature goes back to 1978. Among more than 150 petroglyphs, cups, rings, half rings, spirals, single and double grooves and various combinations of such signs can be recognized. In total, the authors have recognized 14 basic types of figures. The system of signs on the Kara-Khoja rock is grouped around the central, largest cup of 25 cm in diameter, with a round rim with a small cup. It is assumed that the ancient technology of drilling stone by rotating a wooden stake with an abrasive was used to create the cups. In some cases, combinations of cups could be recognized as those close in outlines to the asterisms such as Corona Borealis, Boötes, Serpent (in the constellation of Ophiuchus), Scorpius, Libra, Virgo, Ursa Major, Canes Venatici. The Kara-Khoja petroglyphs have much in common with a number of other European monuments of the Eneolithic era, designated as "cup and ring marks", but they definitely differ from them by the absence of a series of concentric circles around the cups, the absence of short double "rays" at the cups and by an abundance of extended, rectilinear and slightly curved, multidirectional and often intersecting grooves.

Keywords

• сrimea
• kara-khodja stow
• cup and ring marks