NEW ROCK ART SITE AT THE RIVERSIDE CLIFFS IN THE OGLAKHTY MOUNTAINS (KHAKASIA)

Abstract

Th e article presents the results of investigation of the rock art site discovered in 2014 on riverside rocks in the Oglakhty mountain range (Republic of Khakasia, left bank of the Yenisei River). One of the largest rock art complexes of the Minusinsk Basin is located in these mountains; the best known in archaeology are the tremendous concentrations of petroglyphs which were located on coastal cliff s before they were fl ooded by the reservoir of the Krasnoyarsk hydroelectric power station. Most of them are irretrievably lost, but some are still preserved and becoming relatively accessible in periods of lower water level. In the process of searching for and redocumenting the petroglyphs at the locations already known (Oglakhty I and II according to Ya. A. Sher’s inventory) new decorated panels have been revealed, and not only in the fl ooded levels, but also on inaccessible rocks above the highest water level. Th is new location is situated upstream from the known ones, within the southernmost section of the riverside cliff s. Several years of regular inspections of this section from a boat at various water levels and with binoculars made it possible to fi nd and document 24 panels, containing about 50 complete and partially preserved fi gures of wild animals (elk, red deer, roe deer, aurochs, arkhar, horse and others). Several stylistic groups of images are distinguished; almost all of them have analogies at known sites, which allows us to confi dently attribute them as a whole to the earliest phase of Minusinsk Basin rock art which undoubtedly predates the Bronze Age, although the specifi c period of its existence has not yet been determined.

Keywords

• rock art
• earliest stratum
• documenting
• flooded petroglyphs
• minusinsk basin
• oglakhty