On Mount Kalbak-Tash there are rock carvings related to different periods of the ancient history of the Altai Mountains: from the Neolithic to the era of the ancient Turks. The main body of images is zoo - and anthropomorphic. Among the geometric drawings, there are so-called latticed figures dating back to the Eneolithic period (the end of the IV-III millennium BC). Two variants of interpretation of these figures proposed by archaeologists - as female anthropomorphic images and ritual buildings-complement each other.

Keywords: rock art, Gorny Altai, temple / stable, Mother Goddess, latticed figures, Eneolithic.

Introduction

The rock art monuments of Gorny Altai, represented by dozens of monumental complexes, are now widely known, deeply and comprehensively studied. There are three major stages in their research. The first one, descriptive, is represented by the works of scientists of the XIX century who discovered the rock carvings of Altai: G. O. Spassky, M. A. Brechinsky, N. M. Yadrintsev and others. The second stage (late XIX - mid XX centuries) was marked by the creation of the first classifications of Altai petroglyphic complexes by archaeologists (S. I. Rudenko, P. P. Khoroshnykh, etc.). The third period (the second half of the XX - beginning of the XXI century) is a period of active monographic research of Altai rock art, development of petroglyph typologies, study of image semantics, as evidenced by the works of A. I. Martynov, M. A. Devlet, V. D. Kubarev, E. A. Okladnikova and others. Since 2000, the number of publications devoted to the rock art monuments of Gorny Altai has increased rapidly. Among them are the works of V. D. Kubarev, D. V. Cheremisin, D. G. Savinov, E. M. Kilunovskaya, E. P. Matochkin and others.

The first information about petroglyphs on Mount Kalbak-Tash as one of the most striking and unique monuments of rock art not only in Altai, but in Eurasia as a whole was published by P. P. Khoroshikh [1947, 1949]. The monument was first studied by me in 1979 during field research in Gorny Altai as part of the petroglyphic group of the IIFF SB of the USSR Academy of Sciences. It is located on the Chuysky tract, 18 km from the village. Iodro (729 km from Novosibirsk). Two publications were devoted to the review of petroglyphs on Mount Kalbak-Tash [Okladnikova, 1981; Kubarev and Jacobson, 1996], and many well-known archaeologists addressed the description and interpretation of the latticed figures on this monument as a complex and multidimensional subject of rock art in the semiotic aspect [Novgorodova, 1979, 1984, 1989; Devlet, 1992 1996; Molodin and Cheremisin, 1995, 2002; Kubarev and Jacobson, 1996; Rusakova, 1997; Kubarev, 2000, 2002; Jacobson, Kubarev, Tseveendorj, 2001; Devlet M. A., Devlet E. G., 2005; Savinov, 2005; et al.].

The purpose of this paper is to review the interpretations of the lattice figures on Mount Kalbak - Tash as metaphors of the Eneolithic cult of the revival of life in the context of ideological dominants associated with the model of the world, the cult of mountains and the sacred geography of ancient Altai.

Kalbak-Tash is a multi-layered monument of rock art created by craftsmen from different countries.

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epochs: starting from the Neolithic era and up to the Turkic time. The repertoire of his subjects is diverse and is represented by three groups of images: zoomorphic, anthropomorphic and geometric. The most striking complexes of images appeared in the Late Neolithic, Eneolithic, and Bronze Age (Novgorodova, 1984; Kubarev and Matochkin, 1992; Kubarev, 2002, 2004, and 2007; Kubarev et al., 2005).

The presence of a palimpsest confirms that the drawings belong to different epochs. It can be assumed that drawings that are overlapped with other images belong to an earlier time. For example, in the composition on the vertical rock of the lower tier of Mount Kalbak-Tash, the image of a deer, made in the technique of solid knocking, overlaps a rectangular grid (see figure), which probably indicates a greater antiquity of the lattice figure. The same can be said about another composition of this tier, in which a bull is depicted on top of a lattice figure. Although archaeologists have suggested that the palimpsest may indicate not so much that the drawings belong to different epochs (i.e., they could have been created by artists of the same era, for example, the Bronze Age), but rather a special reverence for the place where they were created (Molodin and Cheremisin, 2002).

Images of latticed figures, in particular in Mongolia, are dated by archaeologists to the Eneolithic (Novgorodova, 1984, p. 40-57; Devlet M. A., Devlet E. G., 2005, p. 138-144). On this basis, their appearance on the rocky outcrops of Mount Kalbak-Tash should relate to the end of the IV-beginning of the II century BC. At that time, the appearance of the Neolithic culture of the taiga hunters of Gorny Altai underwent changes under the influence of the Neolithic and Eneolithic cultures of the southern regions of Eurasia and Central Asia, which also affected rock art. Images of a bear and a bull (Uzungur petroglyphs) were used as a metaphor for the confrontation between hunting (taiga) and pastoral (steppe, Afanasyev) cultures (Sher, 1980; Cheremisin, 2000, p.55).

Following V. I. Molodin and D. V. Cheremisin [Molodin, 1996; Cheremisin, 2000, pp. 5-7; Molodin and Cheremisin, 2002, p. 62], it can be assumed that the changes in the repertoire of Altai rock art and its stylistics are the result of the mutual influence of Eneolithic and Paleometallic cultures that spread to the south of Siberia from the southern regions of Siberia. regions of Eurasia (Middle East, Caucasus), Central Asia. "If this is true, then we can outline the ways of moving to the south of Gorny Altai and further to Xinjiang-carriers of the visual traditions of the Paleometallic era. While routes are traced along the valleys of high-mountain rivers (Chuya, Kucherla, Jazatoru), i.e. along those rivers that connect the high-mountain steppe and taiga valleys, trodden by the first pastoralists of Altai, these traditional paths were used by generations of nomads of the high-mountain zone, who followed natural corridors - river valleys through traditional ferries and passes, marking significant places with rock carvings"[Molodin and Cheremisin, 2002, p. 62]. Archaeologists who studied the culture of the ancient nomads of Altai, as well as the search for the origins of the Scythian animal style at the end of the II-I millennium BC, in the middle of the XX century. It has been convincingly proved that this style also emerged under the influence of Middle Eastern art (Artamonov, 1968; Chlenova, 1971).

Changes in the rock art of the Altai Mountains during the Eneolithic and Paleometallic periods, compared with the Neolithic, were reflected in the appearance of new subjects (lattice figures, images of animals with geometric ornaments, bulls with lyre-shaped horns, astral symbolism, etc.) and drawing techniques, reducing the size of images of people and animals, etc.

Typology and interpretation of grid shapes

Many images of rock carvings on Mount Kalbak-Tash were easily deciphered, while the interpretation of the latticed figures is ambiguous. According to their formal and stylistic features and semantic load, they can be attributed to both anthropomorphic and geometric subjects.

The geometric appearance of the lattice figures on Mount Kalbak-Tash is a feature that per-

Grid shapes of the third type. Mount Kalbak-Tash.

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the howl attracts attention [Okladnikova, 1990, p. 56]. D. G. Savinov wrote: "One of the most striking motifs of rock art in Gorny Altai and Mongolia is geometrized ("latticed") images of female figures in luxurious robes with raised hands, next to which there are drawings of ungulates and some structures similar to light frame buildings. In some cases, such images form entire expanded compositions. They are most fully represented in the Kalbak-Tash petroglyphs" [2005, p. 219].

Most of the latticed figures are found on the horizontal surfaces of the northwestern slope of Mount Kalbak-Tash. The images differ in shape only in details, preserving the overall compositional structure, in which the following components can be distinguished: rectangular or close to triangular outlines; the division of the lower and middle parts of the internal space by vertical parallel (in one case zigzag) lines; two branches-processes (resembling the forks of ancient "viziers", gnomons) in the upper part of the image. parts of the structure (Stafeev and Tomilin, 2006); rounded completion of the upper middle process located between them; triangle in the lower part of the structure; "fringe" along the perimeter.

Formal and stylistic analysis of images allowed us to distinguish three main types of lattice figures. The first category includes two-tiered tower-like structures with two spurs in the upper part, the second - triangular lattice figures with "fringe" around the perimeter, and the third - rectangular lattices, often compositionally correlated with images of animals (see figure).

In my early works devoted to the publication of materials on Mount Kalbak-Tash [Okladnikova, 1981, 1986, 1990], I suggested four possible interpretations of this largely mysterious subject of rock art in Gorny Altai: a female image; a log structure - a temple/stable; a corral or trap net; and a travois. The latter version appeared after consultation with ethnographers*, who suggested that the latticed figures of the first type could be images of vehicles used to transport heavy loads. In the course of further research, I rejected it.

To date, two directions in the field of interpretation of the semantics of rock art monuments have crystallized:

1) disclosure of their content through comparison with mythological subjects. The founders of this tradition were V. I. Ravdonikas, K. D. Laushkin, M. D. Khlobystina, Ya. A. Sher and others.;

2) explanation of drawings as images "real, existing in reality... characters, as well as their corresponding attributes used during ritual actions" [Savinov, 2005, p. 219]. This area is still insufficiently developed.

One of the first approaches to interpreting the semantics of petroglyphs of the Sayan-Altai highlands and Kalbak-Tash Mountain was summarized by D. G. Savinov: "Based on the materials of petroglyphic monuments of the Sayan-Altai Highlands, we can distinguish a number of such images representing the ritual sphere of existence, which are conventionally divided into three groups: 1) ritual buildings; 2) statuary images; 3) ritual objects" [Ibid.]. He pointed out that there are two main ways to interpret the lattice figures on Mount Kalbak-Tash: as anthropomorphic, statuesque objects and as ritual buildings. The author himself was inclined to the second option. Interpretation of latticed figures as images of ancestral mothers (on the Chuluut River, Mongolia) [Novgorodova, 1984, Figures 14, 16-18; pp. 46-49; 1989, p. 103] or ancestral mothers [Devlet, 1992, pp. 30-32; Savinov, 2005, pp. 219-220] is backed up:

- a description of such figures on the Chuluut River by E. A. Novgorodova with a central process with a diamond-shaped completion in the upper part of the figures (which is interpreted as a head); arc-shaped processes resembling arms raised to the sky; a wide rectangular lower part with vertical rows of stripes (interpreted as a skirt); a triangular sign in the upper part of the "skirt" (female external sexual organ) [1984, p. 46-49]. On the Chuluut River, according to E. A. Novgorodova, paired figures (probably male and female) were depicted, captured at the time of performing a ritual dance;

- semiotic analysis of latticed figures on petroglyphs of the Altai, Middle Yenisei, and Tuva (Khemchik River, Bizhiktig-Khaya) with the use of a wide range of analogies (rock art monuments of Dagestan (Kotovich, 1976), Knossos Palace on Crete, Valkamonica in Northern Italy, etc.), carried out by M. A. and E. G. Devlet [2005, p. 148-154];

- interpretation as female figures in general terms similar in style and form to the images on petroglyphs of the middle (Rusakova, 1997) and upper (Bizhiktig-Khaya) (Devlet, 1996, p. 3; Devlet M. A., Devlet E. G., 2005, p. 148-154) Yenisei, Altai (Kalbak-Tash Mountain [Kubarev, 2002, pp. 75-78; Jacobson, Kubarev, Tseveendorj, 2001, fi g. 587, 664, 891], Green Lake [Matochkin, 2004, 2005, 2006]).

In the Bronze Age petroglyphs of Southern Siberia and Central Asia, there are images of dwellings, as she wrote

* Communication by E. A. Alekseenko (Leningrad, 1986).

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M. A. Devlet, were recorded "in the Sayan canyon of the Yenisei River at the Mughur-Sargol Bronze Age sanctuary [Devlet, 1976, 1980], one rock art was found on the right bank of the Yenisei River at the foot of Mount Aldy-Mozaga [Devlet M. A., 1998]. Similar petroglyphs are known in the Altai in Elangash [Okladnikov, Okladnikova, Zaporizhskaya et al., 1980, Table 64; Okladnikova, 1984, Table 41, 7], and in Central Asia at the Saimaly-Tash sanctuary [Martynov, Maryashev, Abetekov, 1992, Figures 3, 5-7; Maryashev, Potapov, 1993, p. 136, fig. 2a, b], in Mongolia in the Salkhind area [Sanzhmyatav, 1995, Tables 70, 191], in Inner Mongolia in the Yinshan Mountains [Gai Shanlin, 1986, il. 1418]" [2002, pp. 41-42]. The images of dwellings mentioned by M. A. Devlet were distinguished by their planar nature. Nevertheless, the architectural tradition of the Bronze Age of Khakassia and, probably, neighboring regions, including Altai, knew the log cabin technology [Savinov, 1991, 1996, 1998]. Images of buildings similar to the Yakut urasa painted with paint (At-Daban) [Okladnikov and Zaporozhskaya, 1972, p. 119, Table 13, Fig. 2; p. 123, tab. 17], as well as the log buildings depicted on the Boyar scribble (Devlet, 1976), were preserved on Mount Kalbak-Tash (Kubarev, 2004).

The definition of latticed figures as images of primitive architectural structures, chums or log cabins can be expanded by using ethnographic materials: "Although petroglyphs to some extent convey the structural and planigraphic features of ancient buildings, it is often difficult to attribute rock carvings of residential structures to one or another class or type of traditional dwellings, which are identified by ethnographers. Their differences were found depending on the natural environment, type of economy, origin or ethnic identity, as well as ethnic contacts [Sokolova, 1998, pp. 6-7]. A. A. Popov distinguished three classes of traditional Siberian buildings: above - ground and semi-underground, pile structures, and underground ones [Popov, 1961]. According to the typology of Z. P. Sokolova, there are four such classes: frame, log, frame-log, and frameless (Sokolova, 1998). In each class of traditional dwellings, researchers distinguish subclasses" [Devlet, 2002, p. 42]. For example, the Kurei chum salmon preserved until the end of the 19th century the features of the Sayan reindeer culture, the oldest in Siberia, as V. G. Bogoraz wrote, and they built special wooden sheds to keep the deer. In fact, such a barn was a log structure with a gable roof and two doors - animals could pass through it. The logs of the log house protruded at the corners, and if you draw a quick sketch of such a shed, they will look like a "fringe" on the rectangular lattice figures on Mount Kalbak-Tash. In the ethnographic literature, the opinion has been established that such a method of conducting reindeer husbandry is a later phenomenon. However, petroglyphs on Mount Kalbak-Tash and similar monuments of the Sayan-Altai region, such as Boyarskaya Pisanitsa (horse rider on a deer), indicate the antiquity of Sayan reindeer husbandry and the connections of this region with the Near and Middle East in the first millennium BC (Savinov, 2003, p. 47).

In the rock art of Mongolia (Chuluut River), female figures made in the same manner as the lattice figures on Mount Kalbak-Tash are depicted surrounded by animals (Kubarev, 2000) . E. A. Novgorodova wrote: "A few meters away from the masked stone, a slab was found with a seemingly simple and clear image of spotted bulls. This is how we identified these figures in our field diaries. And in the distance we find the silhouette of an animal with a mottled skin - it has the body of a bull, and horns... a deer. It became obvious that we were looking at bulls disguised as sika deer-ongons, which, according to ancient beliefs, were the receptacle of ancestral souls. So totem images and masks of a bear, a Mother deer with symbols of the endless race, and bulls in deer skins with deer horns were lined up in one sacred row" [1979, p. 23].

Lattice figures of the first and second types have paired three-petaled processes in the upper part, which proponents of the "anthropomorphic" interpretation interpreted as hands with three fingers. If we compare the triangular lattice figures with images of real huts or hunting plagues, as well as with ancient wedding huts of the Altai people of the XIX century, then these appendages can be interpreted as mystical "lightning rods" that save from evil spirits that, according to the beliefs of the Altai people and their northern neighbors, the Yakuts, constantly hover over the dwelling and try to penetrate inside. Such" lightning rods " were three birch branches stuck into the smoke hole. Similar devices were recorded by ethnographers and the Yakut Urasa.

Two approaches to the interpretation of the lattice figures on Mount Kalbak-Tash do not contradict, but complement each other. The combination of lattice figures and images of wild and domestic animals (for example, hobbled) in one composition embodies archaic ideas about deities-masters of nature, who at the initial stage of the formation of these ideas (Eneolithic - early stages of the Paleometallic era) were endowed with female features.

Ideas about the female deity of fertility are immanent in the Neolithic, Eneolithic and Early Bronze cultures of Southwestern Eurasia (Tripoli culture, Chatal-Huyuk, archaic Greece, for example, the paintings of the Knossos Palace [Devlet M. A., Devlet E. G.,

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2005, p. 142]). As a result of the "innovative" influence of the ideas of the Neolithic revolution, they could have penetrated into Central and Central Asia, to the south of Siberia. They were reflected in the mythological views of the ancient Altai Turks (the goddess Umai) [Krol, 2008]. Images of the female deity-the progenitor mother-were discovered in the monuments of the Bronze Age of Khakassia.

The idea of a female temple is associated with the idea of" places of storage of the souls of the dead "and" fences-temples "on petroglyphs of Tuva, Mongolia, and Transbaikalia, where the dots represent" units of the gene pool " of the genus (Savinov, 2005, p.220). Therefore, the interpretation of latticed figures as images of objects of material culture (pen, temple/stable) is probably associated not only with the hunting of forest animals and their subsequent revival by the mother-ancestor of all things, but also with the reproduction/reincarnation of domestic animals.

In the cultures of Eurasia of the Eneolithic, Bronze and Turkic periods, a semantic connection is traced between geometric and anthropomorphic subjects of rock art: images of a pen (trap net), a temple/stable and a female figure can be considered in the context of ideas about the female deity of fertility. One of the distinctive features of this image was its organic connection with the animal world. In rock art, it is emphasized by plot and composition. Many features of external similarity between the anthropomorphic images on the Chuluut River and the lattice figures on Mount Kalbak-Tash suggest that the drawings on Mount Kalbak-Tash reproduce a complex set of ideas that express ideas not only about the female deity - the Great Mother of Nature, but also about the place where she was worshipped. Such a place can be a barn temple or, for example, a log structure erected near Mount Kalbak-Tash or on the rock sanctuary itself, associated with the cult of mountains. The image of the Great Mother, and in a later version of the guardian goddess of the hearth (for example, the Turkic goddess Umai), as well as the image of the goddess of fertility of the Middle East, was associated with the idea of reincarnation, the revival of wildlife, the well-being of people and livestock.

A. Leroy-Guran, A. Marshak, A. P. Okladnikov and other researchers of the Paleolithic rock art monuments of Western Europe and Central Asia believed that the engraved images of animals, birds, as well as abstract symbols on rock surfaces and objects in the Late Paleolithic era were associated with the idea of cyclical natural processes, with the calculation of the time of onset of specific seasons of the year [Leroi-Gourhan, 1955, p. 158-164; Marshack, 1972, p. 248; Okladnikov, 1967]. Astronomical observations were also made to identify natural cycles. In Altai, observation platforms on rocks with drawings could also be used for this purpose. For example, the horizontal plates of the middle tier of Mount Kalbak-Tash offer a beautiful panoramic view of the entire valley of the Chuya River.

Ethnographic materials indicate that rock sanctuaries with drawings were directly related to producing magic, and were also associated with seasonal rituals aimed at stimulating the producing forces of nature. Kalbak-Tash Mountain, separated from the mountain range that runs along the bank of the Chuya River, resembles the ziggurats of the Middle East. As M. A. Devlet pointed out, " in the rock art of antiquity, we must assume that the images of dwellings represented not real, but surreal structures: dwellings of the inhabitants of the Upper World - ancestral spirits, deities, etc. This circumstance does not deprive them of their value as a valuable historical source. Such dwellings of the celestials, etc., reflected the design features of real buildings" [2002, p. 42].

It is possible that an architectural structure vaguely resembling the White Temple of Uruk was erected on the relatively flat top of Mount Kalbak-Tash in the Eneolithic period. It could have been a log cabin. As you know, the White Temple of Uruk, which was thought to be the place where the sky god Anu descended, was a ziggurat that reproduced the mountain. Written sources say that, according to mythological tradition, the god Anu followed a long staircase to the main temple to attend the divine service in honor of the festival of renewal of nature. It is also known that the earliest ancient Egyptian temples were built on platforms. Their walls were usually covered with reeds. Such temples were genetically related in design and function to the stables that were built from reeds according to the Middle Eastern tradition. This idea is suggested by some images of reed temples-stables on the seals of the Ancient East. For example, a seal found in Kafai shows a stable temple, which in its external outline resembles the lattice figures of the first type on Mount Kalbak-Tash. The similarity between the drawings can be traced in the rows of parallel straight lines that transmit the reed stalks (print), and vertical lines in the lower part of the lattice figures (petroglyph); equally transmitted protruding vertically upward rounded (print) and diamond-shaped (petroglyph) parts of the structure; the image of two standards directed in different directions (print) and processes with three branches (petroglyph) in the upper part.

On the seal from Kafae around the temple-stable, bulls are depicted. They are shown as if coming out of the

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birthplace-the temple-stable. The very idea of connecting the reproduction of animal stock with the place of birth - a stable identical to the temple-was associated with the ideas of the fertility deity, the mistress of the temple/stable, among cattle breeders of the Middle East of the Eneolithic and Bronze Age. The lattice figures on Mount Kalbak Tash are also surrounded by animal images. On the horizontal slabs of the north-western slope, images of deer are adjacent to lattice figures. On the vertical surface of the southwestern slope, a large image of a deer, made in the style of Neolithic art, overlaps a lattice figure, and their mutual arrangement is the same as on the rock surface of the Kuyus grotto [Okladnikova, 1984, p. 73, Table 9, Fig. 1] and the walls of the Lyasco and Font-de-Gaume caves [Leroi-Gourhan, 1955, p. 443], i.e., it is possible that the lattice figure is an image of a trap net or " pen " (Okladnikov, 1967, p. 123). Accordingly, we can assume that they are also depicted on the horizontal planes of the north-western slope. Thus, these latticed figures can be interpreted as images not only of ritual buildings( temples), the distant analogues of which go back to the Middle Eastern prototypes-temples-stables, but also of trap nets or" pens " for animals. The time of their appearance is Late Neolithic (judging by the overlapping Late Neolithic images of deer).

D. G. Savinov pointed out the syncretic character of the image of latticed figures on Mount Kalbak-Tash: "... such latticed figures represent " tower-type structures, probably they were images of the places where the ancestral mothers stayed... mothers of animals" [Okladnikova, 1995, p. 223]. ...Some images of female figures clearly "evolve" from an anthropomorphic appearance to the similarity of a two-tiered and even conical building... Contamination of the "woman-house" is known in the Middle Eastern pictorial tradition - these are huts for the birth, or rather, the reincarnation of animals. The name of the female deity has also been preserved, which was not depicted itself, but was represented as "The Lady of the hut for birth" - Ninhursag (Smirnov, 2002, p. 64-67). This analogy is given by E. A. Okladnikova [Okladnikova, 1995, p. 61]. In some cases, the images of "woman-house" show pentagonal lattice figures (so-called "shields"), the same as on the Mongolian-Trans-Baikal type olennye stones, where they are sometimes provided with additional realities or are located in the middle of multi-figure compositions... This suggests that their content is more capacious than just weapons items (places for storing the souls of the dead?)."[2005, p. 219-220].

A woman as a symbol of fertility in Paleolithic cave art (Western Europe) [Okladnikov, 1967; p. 73-80; Abramova, 2002, p. 38], the Great goddess and mother-ancestor in agricultural cultures (Chatal-Huyuk) [Mellaart, 1967], the mother goddess Umai (Altai) [Krol, 2008, p. 147-148], the mother deer of cattle-breeding tribes of Central Asia and Southern Siberia (Novgorodova, 1979; 1984, fig. 18; 1989, p. 103) are inextricably linked with the idea of the beast. In Paleolithic art, the theme "woman and the beast" is the leading theme. In the Eneolithic temples of Chatal-Huyuk, the woman and the beast (the bull as a symbol of the masculine principle) represent a semantic unity [Sher, 2008, pp. 28-30].

Since rocks and boulders with petroglyphs were places that were especially revered by the ancient population of Altai, where the patron deities of people and animals were worshipped, as almost all researchers wrote about, it can be assumed that the lattice images on Mount Kalbak - Tash expressed an abstract idea of a syncretic nature. This idea accumulated images of a ritual building (temple/stable/cattle pen) and the goddess of fertility. The latticed figure may have been in some cases (Kuyus grotto, third-type lattices on Mount Kalbak-Tash) an image of a trap-trap like a hunting fence (Okladnikov, 1967, p. 123; Savinov, 2003, 2005).

The development of the "woman-house" or "woman-temple" contamination as a place of animal reincarnation made it possible to use the very concept of "contamination" in its direct meaning (Lat. contāminātio - contact). Contamination was understood as the emergence of a new form or expression or its new meaning by crossing, combining elements of several ideas related in meaning. In the case of analyzing the semantics of lattice figures on Mount Kalbak-Tash, the following ideas became so close in meaning: a woman, the revival of life (animals), a temple, a sacred landscape.

Taking into account the experience of extended interpretation of the semantics of lattice figures based on drawing on a wide range of sources (primitive art, mythology, Middle Eastern culture, new discoveries in the field of rock art in the Altai Mountains), we can consider these images in the context of the concept of sacred landscape, which is supported by E. A. Novgorodova [1979], L. S. Marsadolov [1992, 2007], V. D. Kubarev [Jacobson, Kubarev, Tseveendorj, 2001], V. I. Larichev [Larichev et al., 2004], Ya. A. Sher [2008], D. G. Savinov [2008; Sanctuaries..., 2000], etc. Kalbak-Tash Mountain, along with the Kuyus grotto, as well as individual peaks on the rocky terraces of the Elangash River valley (Okladnikova, 1986, p. 98) and other petroglyphic monuments of Altai, is one of the most important poons-

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the sacred geography of Gorny Altai, which had the status of a model of the universe, was revered as a place of residence of first female (Eneolithic), then male (Bronze Age and subsequent epochs) deities responsible for the fertility of people and animals, the revival of nature.

List of literature

Abramova Z. A. "About a woman with a reindeer" / / Primeval archeology: Man and Art. Novosibirsk: Izd-vo IAET SB RAS, 2002, pp. 32-39.

Artamonov M. I. Treasures of the Scythian Mounds, Moscow; Nauka Publ., 1968, 30 p.

Devlet M. A. Bolshaya Boyarskaya pisanitsa, Moscow: Nauka Publ., 1976, 124 p.

Devlet M. A. Ancient anthropomorphic images of Southern Siberia and Central Asia. Novosibirsk: Publishing House of IAET SB RAS, 1992, 246 p. (Rock drawings of Eurasia).

Devlet M. A. Petroglyphs of the Yenisei: History of study (XVIII-early XX centuries). - Moscow: Nauka, 1996. - 249 p.

Devlet M. A. Images of bronze age dwellings in the rock art of Central Asia // Primitive Archaeology: Man and Art. Novosibirsk: Izd-vo IAET SB RAS, 2002, pp. 41-47.

Devlet M. A., Devlet E. G. Mifi v kamne [Myths in stone], Moscow: Aleteya Publ., 2005, 472 p.

Kotovich V. M. Drevneyshie pisanitsy gornogo Dagestan [Ancient Writings of mountain Dagestan]. Moscow: Nauka Publ., 1976, 186 p. (in Russian)

Krol G. G. Eniseyskaya boginya-mater [The Yenisei goddess-mother]. Kemerovo: Kuzbassizdat Publ., 2008, pp. 147-155.

Kubarev V. D. Mythological plot "the woman and the beast" and its evolution in the petroglyphs of Altai / / Problems of archeology, Ethnography, anthropology of Siberia and adjacent territories. Novosibirsk: Publishing House of IAET SB RAS, 2000, pp. 312-317.

Kubarev V. D. Rock art of Altai. Gorno-Altaisk: AKIN RA Publ., 2002, 124 p. (in Russian)

Kubarev V. D. Zhilishcha drevnykh kochevnikov v petroglyphs Mongolskogo Altay [Dwellings of ancient nomads in the petroglyphs of the Mongolian Altai]. Barnaul: Alt. State University Publ., 2004, pp. 63-68.

Kubarev V. D. Kalbak-Tash II: Monument of rock art of Altai // Problems of archeology, ethnography, anthropology of Siberia and adjacent territories: (materials of the Annual session of the IAET SB RAS 2007). - Novosibirsk: Publishing House of the IAET SB RAS, 2007. - Vol. 13, part 1. - p. 282 - 287.

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