The article deals with two rare archaeological sites of the Bronze Age discovered in the territory of the Altai Republic. Detailed descriptions, photos, and drawings of the statues are provided. The paper analyzes the style of images on the monument, identifies similar analogues in Central Asia. A very promising direction, in the author's opinion, is the comparison of the Kyzyl-Dzhar and Nizhneinegen sculptures with anthropomorphic objects of fine plastic of the Bronze Age, known from random finds from the Altai and Kazakhstan. Based on the published materials, issues related to the semantics, chronology and cultural affiliation of other monumental monuments of Altai are considered.
Key words: sculptures, Bronze Age, disguise, Altai, small plastic.
Altai is very rich in a variety of archaeological sites; each field season brings archaeologists discoveries. This was also the case in the autumn of 2005: during the survey of the Nij River Valley. Inegen (a left tributary of the Katun) about 8 km from its mouth, the Gorno-Altaian archaeologist L. M. Chevalkov discovered a small sculpture of the "Okunev type" (Fig. 1). He also tentatively attributed the image to the ancient Turkic era [2004, p.175]*.
The statue is located on the left bank of the Lower River. Inegenya near the cattle station Kyzyk-Telan. Coordinates of the monument: 50°21 ' 28 "N, 86°37' 05 " E, height 990 m above sea level. Judging by the strongly blackened stone mounds located nearby (a funeral and memorial complex of the Bronze Age ?). the statue probably occupies the place of the original installation and is oriented with the front part towards the ZSZ. But the final conclusion can be made only after the excavation. The statue is made on a dark gray slate slab, its dimensions are 72x49x10-12 cm. In the upper part, a person's face is embossed on a narrow end face in the technique of shallow relief. On one broad face of the slab there are seven silhouetted figures of goats, dogs (?) and several cup depr ...
Read more