Introduction

Altai is known for its unique archaeological sites, but a special place among them is occupied by numerous rock carvings. The location of petroglyphs along the ancient nomad trails and at high mountain passes through the snow-covered ridges of the Altai, their concentration in certain places once again confirms our hypothesis about the existence of open-air mountain "temples" in ancient times. Their dominant center was often a kind of animal "iconostasis", on which the largest images of different-sex animals were stamped (Fig. 1). A characteristic feature of such monuments is their location on elevated places, drawing drawings on the vertical planes of individual rocks that stand out in shape and are clearly visible from a long distance (Kubarev, 2001, p. 77]. At their base there are stone-paved areas, round and square-shaped layouts of boulders or shale slabs placed on the edge - "stone boxes". These structures were undoubtedly used for sacrifices and performing rituals in front of sacred, perhaps totemic, images of animals. One of these rare complexes, discovered by us in the 1970s. It is located near the village of Kosh-Agach, on the right bank of the Chagan-Burgazy river. It is noticeable on a single mountain Zhalgyz-Tobe, which stands out sharply in the southern part of the Chui steppe. The rocky sandstone remains of the mountain resemble a pyramid from afar with their triangular shape. However, when approaching the mountain from the south side, it is clearly noticeable that the rocks are not so uniform; they form a kind of amphitheater created by nature itself. Inside it, until recently, there was a modern winter house, well protected from wind and bad weather at any time of the year. Of course, this convenient place was chosen by nomads in all respects in ancient times, as evidenced by the fragments of ceramic dishes and Neolithic stone tools that we picked up around the mountain. Rock carvings, one ancient Turkic runic inscription, several stelae and ancient Bronze Age burials around the hill only confirm our assumption. A clear similarity of the Zhalgyz-Tobe complex is observed with the "amphitheater " and" iconostasis " in Turu-Alty (right bank of the Barburgazy River). The peculiarity of this unique mountain "temple" in the open air is even greater acoustic capabilities. Here, even a low speech uttered at the top of a mountain is amplified many times and can be clearly heard at its foot. It is logical to assume that such a natural phenomenon was noticed by ancient people and, perhaps, was used for some rituals or prayers associated with the widespread cult of mountains and individual peaks in Asia, which stand out for their unusual shape and their solitary location in a semi-desert area.

In the last decade, a small expedition has worked in the Altai and Mongolia, which, in addition to Russian scientists, included Mongolian and American colleagues. Within the framework of the Altai project, a systematic study of petroglyphs dating from the Neolithic era to the ethnographic time was conducted. Over the past years, several large rock art monuments have been discovered and examined.-

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Fig. 1. Rock composition with deer figures. Turu-Alty. Russian Altai.

It's a good idea. New visual materials allow us to address such a complex topic as the reconstruction of the beliefs and mythology of the oldest pastoralists of Central Asia.

Astral symbolism in the visual arts of ancient nomads

In the early Bronze Age in the Altai and Mongolia, artists (shamans or mediators?), depicting ordinary wild and domestic animals, often gave them sacred functions. For this purpose, a simple method of marking sacred animals was developed using various magical signs placed next to the images and directly related to astral symbolism and primitive magic. This combination, which resembles pictographic records, makes it possible in some cases to interpret narrative plots about rites and ritual actions that took place thousands of years ago quite satisfactorily, or even to come close to deciphering some mythological representations of the ancient population of the Altai Mountains.

Especially many sacred rock carvings appear in the Advanced Bronze Age and in the Early Bronze Age.

Fig. 2. Images of sun-horned animals. 1 - 6, 8, 10, 12- Tsagaan-Salaa / Baga-Oygur, 7-Shivet-Khairkhan, 11-Khar-Chuluu (Mongolian Altai); 9-Irbistu (Russian Altai).

3. Images of various animals with astral signs on their horns, torsos, and tails. 1-3, 11-Kalbak-Tash, 7, 16-Elangash (Russian Altai); 4, 5, 8 - 10, 12, 14, 18 - Tsagaan-Salaa / Baga-Oygur, 6, 17-Shivet-Khairkhan, 13, 15, 19,20 - Tsagaan-Gol (Mongolian Altai).

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4. Astral signs and symbols of various shapes. 1-8, 17-Tsagaan-Salaa/Baga-Oygur, 9, 12, 13, 18-Tsagaan-Gol, 10, 11, 15, 16-Khar-Salaa (Mongolian Altai); 14-Irbistu (Russian Altai).

5. A wooden figure of a deer - the main decoration of a sacred headdress. Pazyryk culture. Ulandryk IV, mound 5. Russian Altai.

6. Wooden tips of the hryvnia in the form of bas-relief images of rams. Pazyryk culture. Barburgazy I, kurgan 18. Russian Altai.

7. A bronze hairpin decorated with a figure of a horse on a spherical stand. Pazyryk culture. Ulandryk IV, kurgan 2. Russian Altai.

the period of ancient nomads. In the Altai and Mongolia, these are mostly symbols in the form of disks, rings, and spirals, which are included in the context of large compositions with images of animals, or disks with rays on their horns, torsos, and tails (Fig. Exactly the same pictorial elements are present in small plastic from the Ulandryk and Yustyda mounds (Chui Steppe), but they are combined differently: the symbol of a luminary (sun or moon?) in the form of a disk, it is squeezed between the hooves of a flying deer (Fig. 5), represented by a bas-relief spiral inscribed in the thigh of a ram (Fig. 6), and a spherical stand for the figure of a heavenly horse, which served as an ornament for a metal female hairpin (Fig. 7). Symbolic connection of wooden figures of various animals with the sun and the celestial sphere it is further enhanced by coating these products with gold leaf. In our opinion, it is quite obvious that the image of the same mythological character on different materials required the use of completely different stylistic techniques and technical means. If in wooden products

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Figure 8. Images of paired horse figures on petroglyphs. 1-Kalbak-Tash (Russian Altai); 2,3 -Tsagaan-Salaa / Baga-Oygur (Mongolian Altai).

9. Images of winged horses on petroglyphs. 1, 2-Elangash (Russian Altai); 3-Shivet-Khairkhan (Mongolian Altai).

the sacred essence of zoomorphic images was indicated by various astral symbols on the animal's rump and gilding, while on the stone plane these symbols were depicted by embossing or engraving, and the opportunities for creative expression of the ancient artist were very limited. Nevertheless, for example, images of "heavenly" horses in the Altai petroglyphs are still found, although infrequently. You can point to one drawing in Kalbak-Tash, where balls with rays are shown on the tips of the raised tails of two horses (Figs. 8, 1), which give reason to consider the images sacred and sacred, since the characters belong to the celestial sphere is not in doubt. According to the petroglyphs of Elangash, two drawings are known (Figs. 9, 1, 2), where a sub-triangular protrusion is knocked out on the backs of horses, which is associated with the wing of a bird. A similar pattern is found in the petroglyphs of Mount Shivet-Khairkhan in the Mongolian Altai (Figs. 9, 3). However, the triangular protrusion on the back may also be an incomplete image of a rider. Among several dozens of horse figurines from the mounds of the Chui steppe, only one (from Ulandryk) has a slit for inserted wings (Fig. 10) [Kubarev, 1987, p. 108].

When comparing rock carvings with miniature wooden figures from the burials of the Pazyryk culture, another pattern was revealed: very often horses were depicted in pairs. Sometimes they are of different sexes (see Figures 8, 2, and 11), while in other cases they look exactly the same, without obvious signs of gender (see Figures 8, 3, and 12). Pairs of horse figures are also common for Katandinsky and Ulandryk images. A pair of realistic horse figurines were found in the Barburgaza mounds, one of which has an emphatic phallus (see Figure 11). Maybe in such paired images meant a stallion and a mare? Then it should be assumed that, according to the ideas of the ancient nomads, such a couple, who accompanied the deceased to the other world, had to graze there in the "eternal pasture" and bring new horses to the owner. This cult of heterosexual beings, or more precisely, the cult of fecundity (fertility), associated with the idea of a successful continuation of the human race and an increase in the number of livestock, originated in Siberia in the Neolithic, and has been preserved here until the ethnographic time (Okladnikov, 1955, pp. 305 - 306). Invariably repeated pairs of figures of people, elk, deer, horses and many other different-sex animals, sometimes even depicted in the copulation pose, are widely distributed in petroglyphs of Central Asia. In other cases, the paired figures of miniature horses presented in the Altai series are of the same type (see Figure 12). Such images should be considered as a manifestation or relic of the ancient cult of twins. So, in Indo-Iranian mythology, the twin Ashwins-the sons of the sun and the mare Ashwini-bring wealth and fertility to people. In the Rig Veda, twins are sometimes young men flying on a chariot, or wonderful horses (Ivanov, 1974, p. 107). Paired symbols reflecting the dualistic cosmogony and the cult of twins are familiar to the entire ancient world in various forms (texts) [Akishev, 1984, Table VII; Martynov, 1979, Table 48; etc.].-

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Nei Feitu and Jueti appears in ancient Chinese myths, borrowed, apparently, from the general Indo-European circle of ideas about wonderful heavenly horses (Yuan Ke, 1965, p.225, 246). The cult of twins among cattle breeders can be traced in the Kazakh heroic epic, where it is reported about the sacrifice of horses born of twins [Koblandy-Batyr, 1975, p. 260]. The motif of twins in the form of paired horse heads is reflected in many visual monuments of the peoples of Eurasia, which, due to their large number, cannot even be mentioned here.

In the collection of Altai horse figurines, there are also single specimens that are directly related to the cult of the sky and luminaries. Horses are depicted on a spherical base, symbolizing the radiant sun. Their strong connection with the sanctuary is further enhanced by the gold that completely covered the images. Here it is appropriate to recall the epithets of ancient written sources: "golden horses", "horses of the color of dawn" (cit. by: [Belenitsky, 1948, p. 163]). In the sacred hymns of the Avesta, the sun is called bystrokonny. This explains why the deer stones and Kereksurs of Central Asia, also semantically associated with the cult of the sky and the sun, sacrificed horses. Horses and massagetae were also sacrificed to the sun (Herodotus, 1972, p. 79). Several horse figurines with crest-shaped bases shaped like half a moon were found in Altai burials. They crowned the headdress of the buried and were completely wrapped in gold leaf. That is, these miniature figures capture the idea of the ancient nomads of Altai about the heavenly golden horse, shining like the sun and moon. This version is not contradicted by the interpretation of the crest-shaped bases as images of the bird's head - another symbol of the celestial sphere. But more specifically, this idea is embodied in a pair of horse figures from Barburgaza (see Figure 11). On their torsos are carved solar-lunar signs, indicating that they are heavenly horses. Similar images of horses with sun symbols on their rump can be found on the Oglakhta petroglyphs [Vyatkina, 1961, Figures 1-3].O. S. Sovetova, calling them "marked", describes in great detail the style of images, decoration and origin of Tatar "painted" horses [2005, p. 36-45]. The circle of space horses described also includes a unique pair depicted in the Kalbak-Tasha petroglyphs, with manes and tails decorated in the form of sun rays (see Figs. 8, 1).

Saks of Semirechye, according to A. K. Akishev, identified the horse with the image of the sun: "The four Issyk horses are a quadriga. In the Indo-Iranian myths, the Sun and the entire Cosmos appeared as a chariot" [1984, p. 33]. Images of mythical winged cats-

10. Wooden figures of horses with holes for inserted ears and horns in the head and a slit for inserted wings in the back (shown by the arrow). Pazyryk culture. Ulandryk IV, Kurgan. 3. Russian Altai.

Fig. 11. Wooden paired figures of horses (different sexes) with astral markings on the rump and front leg. Pazyryk culture. Barburgazy I, kurgan 18. Russian Altai.

12. Wooden paired figures of the same type of horses (motif of twins). Pazyryk culture. Ulandryk IV. Kurgan 2. Russian Altai.

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13. The plot "Taming of the heavenly bulls". A copy of the petroglyph on micalent paper. Har Salaa. Mongolian Altai.

They are found in petroglyphs of Central Asia (Bernshtam, 1949, p. 130) and the Minusinsk Basin (Chlenova, 1981, Figures 4-6). Researchers agree that the appearance of such drawings in Siberia was facilitated by legendary information about the horses of Ferghana and Tokharistan, which, according to legend, originated from the mating of mares from the royal herd with unusual winged horses living in a cave high in the mountains [Bichurin, 1950, p.285].

The decorative canon, or the so-called Altai animal style, developed in the era of ancient nomads, is especially characteristic of the images of deer on the petroglyphs of Shivet - Khairkhan, another unique monument of rock art in the Mongolian Altai. Deer figures are the most numerous here. And this is quite understandable, because the deer has always been one of the most important images of Indo-Iranian and Turkic-Mongolian mythology. Its cosmic essence is easily determined: petroglyphs on the horns of individual deer depict the same ancient solar symbol-a disk with rays (see Figs. 2, 3-9). In other drawings, deer torsos are filled with geometric shapes - squares, triangles, and ovals with a dot or even a deep hole in the middle (see Figures 3, 6, and 7). Similar signs are also associated with astral symbolism. In other pictorial versions of the mythical sun deer, this symbol looks somewhat different: in the form of an oblique cross, a circle (see Figures 3, 8, 9), a rhombus, an F-shaped figure placed on the head, between the horns, or even on the animal's back.

In Mongolia, as in the Altai, many images of animals are accompanied by contour circles and embossed disks - the signs of the sun and moon. In the figures, they are placed both inside the ring formed by the horns of bulls (Fig. 13), and above it (see Fig.. 3, 11 - 13, 15). In some cases, the horns are embossed in the form of solid oval disks, over which a number of large dots are clearly purposefully applied, and in one of them 14 dashes-rays depart from such a disk (see Figs. 2, 11). Solar signs can be seen in the ends of tails made in the form of a circle with a dot in the center (see Fig. 3, 19, 20), or spherical, sometimes clearly hypertrophied dimensions (see Fig. 3, 13). Symbols of the sun and moon can be seen in the decorative design (rounded, semilunar, cross-shaped and star-shaped figures) of bull bodies (see Figs. 3, 1-5). Such signs are a kind of code-key that allows you to determine the cosmic, possibly lunar-solar, semantics of individual images of bulls.

Formally, the exact similarity with the solar-lunar signs (a circle with an inscribed cross or a dot in the center) can be seen in the wheels of a single-axle cart depicted on the petroglyphs of Baga-Uygur. Similar astral signs are often found in the Altai in the form of single drawings (see Fig. 4, 1, 3, 5, 6), and at the Tsagaan-Gol location, they are reproduced once in a paired form (see Figs. 4, 9). Their variations are when in the center of one or both circles a deep hole with rays radiating from it was cut out, found in the valleys of the Khar-Salaa and Tsagaan-Gol rivers (see Figs. 4, 10, 18); moreover, in the latter case, one of the signs has a zoomorphic appearance: it was knocked out instead of the head of a very schematic figure of some animal. It is logical to see symbols of the moon and sun in such drawings, but this is difficult to prove, if only because the wheels of Bronze Age carts were depicted in the same way (see Figures 4, 17).

Perhaps astral signs include cup-shaped depressions on the rock surface in the Tsagaan Gola Valley, which are organically combined with the goat figure and the traditional graphic symbol of the sun - a circle with rays and a dot in the center (see Figs. 4, 13). A similar image of the sun, but already made with a solid dot pattern.

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14. Images of bulls and astral sign in the form of a cross. Pass to the Tsagaan Gola valley. Mongolian Altai.

15. Images of a ram and bull with astral signs on their horns. Baga-Oygur (Mongolian Altai).

Figure 16. Anthropomorphic solar creatures with heads or headdresses (?) various shapes. 1 - 8, 11 - Цагаан-Салаа/Бага-Ойгур, 9,10 - Цагаан-Гол (Монгольский Алтай).

found at the same location on a separate stone (see figs. 4, 4).

Rare magical signs in the Mongolian Altai include a cross (see Figures 4, 7, 14) and an oval disk with a short strip extending downwards. The latter is still known in the singular form in the Baga-Uygur petroglyphs (see Figures 4, 8), but in Har-Yamaa we previously discovered and then published symbols of exactly the same form by D. Tseveendorzh [1999, p.131]. Similar signs, but in a reduced form, adorn two hemispheres above the head of a ram and the horns of a bull in the drawings of Baga-Uygur (Fig. 15). It is clear that these two drawings should also be included in the group of images of sacred animals marked with solar symbols. The considered sign may have a similar meaning to another one - a rounded disk connected by a line to a disk of smaller diameter (see Figs. 4, 11). The presence of this symbol behind the bull figure again informs about the sacred choice of the animal, its dedication to the higher solar gods. We should mention two more unusual signs that we found in the Har Salaa valley. One of them is a pair of embossed cup-shaped depressions connected by a sinuous line, the other is a circle with a short sub-triangular protrusion in the lower part (see Fig. 4, 15, 16). If the second sign is located between two images of horses and can be defined as a symbol of the sun and the heavenly element, then the first one is not accompanied by other drawings that allow you to reveal its semantics. But by analogy with the" spectacled " signs that are widely distributed in the petroglyphs of Karatau, Tamgaly, and Dzungaria, it can also be considered one of the most important astral symbols of the early Bronze Age. The meaning of such signs and their combinations was revealed during the study of the Saimala-Tash rock carvings (Martynov, Maryashev, and Abetekov, 1992, figures 128-132).

In contrast to the numerous animal figures marked with astral signs, anthropomorphic images of solar deities are extremely rare in Altai (Fig. They are very sketchy

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and even, one might say, primitive. The main feature that distinguishes them from images of ordinary people is a contour or silhouette head (headdress?). exaggerated dimensions. Sometimes a halo of rays or a series of dots is shown around it. The gender of the fantastic creatures is not entirely clear, but at least two figures are definitely male, judging by the presence of a phallus (Figures 16, 4, 10). In a completely different manner, the "walking" sun is depicted in a miniature single rock art in the Tsagaan Gola Valley. Under the rounded disk, the ancient artist showed two legs, but not a person, but a bird (Figs. 16, 9). So we are presented with a new image for the petroglyphs of Altai, now an ornithomophore image of a lunar or solar deity.

Identical graphic solar-lunar symbols, as well as scenes with sun-horned animals and a "walking" solar deity, are known from other Altai rock art monuments [Okladnikov et al., 1979, Tables 7, 4; 29, 1 et al.; Kubarev and Jacobson, 1996, figs. 132, 284, 467, 508 616 et al.], in petroglyphs of Mongolia [Okladnikov, 1980, p. 68; Tseveendorzhidr., 2004, Figures 55, 211, 314 et al.], Kazakhstan [Maryashev and Goryachev, 1998, Figures 2, 11, 17, 63] , and Central Asia [Martynov, Maryashev, Abetekov,1992, fig. 12, 20, 49 - 54, 67 Similar solar signs are found in the rock carvings of Tuva. They are also placed next to animal images and often in combination with masked faces dating back to the Bronze Age (Devlet, 1998, pl. 11, 32; 14, 37; 15, 20]. Cart and chariot wheels, horses, and other animals in Bronze Age petroglyphs in Northern China are also marked with solar signs (Gai Shanglin, 1989, Figures 231, 253, 259, 304, etc.). It is necessary to recall the numerous "sun-headed" zooantro-pomorphic images in polychrome paintings and engravings of the Karakol culture of Altai. Found in closed burial complexes, they helped to clarify the creation time and semantics of some characters of the Tamgaly and Saimala-Tasha petroglyphs [Martynov, Maryashev, Abetekov, 1992, p. 28] and were a kind of cultural and chronological reference point, which allowed us to date similar subjects in the Altai rock art relatively accurately [Kubarev, 1992, 1993].

Semantics of plots and reconstruction of mythological representations

A unique illustration of the astral myth about the origin of the sun, moon and stars is the image of a fantastic deer in the Tsagaan-Salaa petroglyphs in the Mongolian Altai (see Fig. 2, 8). On its horns, above the back and on the tail, five "golden" stars are depicted in one row, each of them has seven or nine rays. The multiplicity of luminaries (possibly associated with the sun and moon) in this story makes us recall the Altaic myth about the brightest stars of Uchmyigak - "Three maralukhs" (constellation Orion), who ascended to the sky from the hunter who pursued them. The solar cycle of Mongolian myths is also associated with the celestial archer Erkhi-mergen, who "shot down extra luminaries" (Neklyudov, 1992, p. 172). In our opinion, a reliable fragment of the cosmogonic myth is also reproduced on the petroglyphs of Irbistu, an ancient pictorial complex recently discovered in the Kosh-Agach district of the Altai Republic (Kubarev et al., 2002). This rock miniature includes an image of a bull and a solar sign in the form of a bowl-shaped depression framed by seven rays (see Figs. 4, 14). There are three rounded spots on the bull's body, which can be interpreted as a drawing of the constellation Orion, a well-known astral symbol of many peoples of Eurasia [Potanin, 1883; Neklyudov, 1992; Eroshkin, 2002; et al.]*. Zoomorphic images with a similar iconic inscription are also found on other Altai petroglyphs (Oroktoi (Karban) on the Katun River [Okladnikova, 1984, Tables 25, 5], the right bank of the Chaganka River [Labetsky, 2000, Fig. 1]). They, like the drawing in Irbistu, date back to the Early Bronze Age.

An even more vivid illustration confirming the mythological character of individual animal images is a small, but very easy, in our opinion, decipherable plot of a petroglyph in the valley of the Tsagaan Gol river. On the opposite sides of one stone, one figure of a goat or ram is carved (see Figs. 4, 12). On the northern face, the horns are shown as a solid circular disk (moon?), and on the southern face-as an arc with short rays reaching to the animal's back (rising sun?). For greater persuasiveness and unmistakable perception of the solar image, the ancient artist additionally knocked out a small disk with 13 rays in front of the animal's horns - another symbol of the sun.

The mythological load of individual images in the petroglyphs of the Mongolian Altai can be judged from one very interesting scene that we discovered in the middle reaches of the Khar-Salaa River. Without analyzing it as a whole, let's pay attention to the large bull figure with lyre-shaped horns, which smoothly turn into the full-face figure of a woman (Fig. 17). An unusual and original pictorial technique, first noted in the petroglyphs of Altai, WHO-

* For more information on the mythological motif of space hunting, see [Berezkin, 2005].

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it is possible, demonstrates the direct connection of the heavenly bull with the female deity. This new contamination brings to mind an article by V. V. Ivanov, who wrote that on sacred "bulls there is a (visible or invisible) sign of their belonging to the deity" [1991]. And you can't help but wonder if this is the deity depicted in the drawing in question. Archaeological traces of the sacred bull cult have been found in many ancient pastoral cultures, and the bull as the incarnation of god on earth was already known in the ancient Iranian mythological tradition of the III-II millennium BC. Probably, at this time or somewhat later, images of divine bulls marked with magic signs appeared in the Altai petroglyphs.

In terms of semantic reconstruction, another composition is interesting (Har-Salaa VI), where a bull literally lifted a man on its horns. The latter is depicted with his legs spread wide and his arms raised up (Fig. 18), in one hand he holds a shepherd's stick or staff. The figure is male (shown as a phallus), unlike the one above, which is also shown on the bull's horns. So, we need to offer a different interpretation of the plot. To do this, it is necessary, as in the first case, to attract data from world mythology. So, in the archaic ancient Iranian myth, the battle and murder of the primeval hero Ahriman is described, in Greek mythology-the Cretan minotaur Theseus. "Such myths could be connected with the ritual competition with a bull and the sacrifice of a sacred bull" [Ibid.]. Probably, in the scene under consideration, the climax of a similar ritual action is captured. Although it is far from Ancient Greece to the Altai, such a comparison is quite acceptable, since the images of mythical bulls are the earliest on the petroglyphs of Khar-Salaa. They date back to the time when the first Indo-Iranians migrated with their herds to the Altai Mountains and steppes. Prototahars were called by K. Yettmar people of Caucasian appearance, whose mummies were found in the Gumugou burial ground (Northwestern Xinjiang). He believed that they migrated to this region around 1500 BC, and compared the well-preserved headdresses (felt caps with a plume of bird feathers) with the feathered heads of" sun-headed " creatures in the paintings and engravings of the Karakol culture of Altai (Jettmar, 1998, abb. 6, 7; Kubarev,1998). 1988, fig. 18].

The plot of coitus, or the so-called sacred marriage scene, is very often found in petroglyphs of the Mongolian Altai. For example, in Har Salaa VII, in a small composition with images of wild goats and deer, the central and significant element is the scene of coitus (Fig. 19). It is easy to determine the sex of coitus.-

Figure 1-7. Image of a bull with horns stylized to resemble the figure of a woman. Har Salaa. Mongolian Altai.

18. The story "Fight with the bull". Har Salaa. Mongolian Altai.

19. The scene of the "sacred marriage". Har Salaa. Mongolian Altai.

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20. A multi-story composition: "goddess" with a bull, a duel of warriors, a defeated giant, etc. Har-Salaa. Mongolian Altai.

vokuplyayushchikhsya. The male contour figure with legs bent at the knees shows the phallus and testicles; the silhouette figure of a woman has a rounded stomach (a sign of pregnancy?), hands support her legs widely spread. In the scene there is another character-an archer shooting at a goat In the drawing, you can see that the head of the copulating man is connected to the bow, and the hand is directed to the goat's back. This simple technique provides a direct connection between all participants in the ritual or mythological scene, in which the cult of fertility (fecundity) and the "benevolence" of successful hunting are synthesized. It is interesting that these" records", or pictograms, which may convey archaic ideas about the intimate relations of hunters with the mistress of the forest or mountains in order to ensure a rich fishery, were preserved among the peoples of Siberia until ethnographic time [Potapov, 1991, pp. 181-182]. Another similar coitus scene is located not far from the composition under consideration. Here, the figures of people are too sketchy, but they are also easy to identify a man (by the presence of a phallus) and a woman (legs spread wide), who probably holds a goat by the leg. In the petroglyphs of Central Asia, in coitus scenes, images of animals, usually goats and bulls, which served as symbols of fertility and fertility, are often accompanied by female figures. Ancient nomads sincerely believed that the fertility of animals can be magically transmitted to a woman at the mysterious moment of conception.

In terms of semantic decryption, another composition is very interesting, full of drawings.

In it, two warriors with spears confront each other, but the main role is played by a massive bull and a woman (Figure 20). There is no doubt that this is a woman: braids, long-skirted clothing and a high mitre-shaped headdress are shown. In one hand, she holds a rein that goes to the bull's face, in the other-some object in the form of a stick or staff, the opposite end of it is clutched in the man's hand. However, this object can also be directly related to the male figure, since another man has a similar "tool", whose image is only half preserved. The woman's legs are hidden under the hem of her clothing and directly adjoin the large silhouette of a goat. On the back of the bull, a rectangular pack is engraved in separate lines, and on it a woman with long braids. Behind the bull is depicted a man armed with a dagger and bow in a crescent-shaped headdress. At the very bottom of the stage, or rather, in the foreground, lies an unarmed giant, who is shot with a bow by a man in a crescent-shaped headdress. The composition is unique in that it can be traced pictorial fragments of at least four myths, in the most general terms conveying the texts of Indo-European mythology. The first and most important theme is the sacred connection of the goddess with the heavenly bull, the second plot is a ritual competition with the bull and its sacrifice, the third and fourth fragments are devoted to the duel of cultural heroes and the myth of giants. By the way, the lying giant depicted at the very bottom of the composition could also be a divine hero, from whose body the world was created. "These views go back to ancient times.

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A huge number of peoples have myths according to which the universe was formed from the body of the original giant, hero or deity. The orphic hymns of the ancient Greeks described the creation of the world from the body of Zeus. Among the Persians, this role was played by Ormuzd, among the Finns by Ilmatar, among the Tibetans by the mother goddess Klumo, and among the ancient Chinese by the titan Pan-gu" (Evsyukov and Komissarov, 1985, p. 91).

Especially impressive are the multi-figure compositions in Har Salaa VIII, where the main and significant figures are bulls, around which all events unfold according to the mythological scenario. Some of them are made in the so-called decorative style, while others are made in contour and silhouette techniques. Often these are paired pieces, sometimes opposing, located one after the other or one above the other. Several images of bulls are relatively large (from 120 to 200 cm in length), which also emphasizes the exclusivity and choice of these animals in relation to others. At first glance, there is nothing supernatural or mythical in the drawings. So, for example, one of the scenes (Fig. 21) seems rather banal and everyday: a woman leads two bulls to a small dwelling (a rectangular figure with a square protrusion in the upper part), inside which two small figures of people (children?) are easily distinguished. But the shape of the horns forming an almost perfect circle, additional, non-functional decorative elements in the form of a series of circles on the chest of bulls and an ornament of crossed lines on the torso of one of them - all this is directly related to ideograms associated with graphic symbols of the sky. They also provide the basis for attributing the plot to a mythological narrative, allowing us to consider the depicted bulls as sacred and sacred animals. "In the ancient Mesopotamia, in Central Asia of the 3rd - 2nd millennium BC, in the ancient Iranian and ancient Indian traditions, the Bull is primarily an image of the lunar deity. In Iranian mythology, the month is called "Ox having a seed"; in Sumer and Akkad, the moon god is Sin... "(Ivanov, 1991).

In another composition, made on the horizontal plane of a rock outcrop, there is the largest bull figure in Har Salaa (Fig. 22). To its large moon-like horns on top when-

21. The plot "A woman and heavenly bulls". Har Salaa. Mongolian Altai.

Figure 22. Multi-plot composition: "goddess" with a bull, murder-sacrifice of a heavenly bull and duel of the hero with a giant. Har Salaa. Mongolian Altai.

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23. East view of the location of the Har-Chuluu petroglyphs. In the foreground are images of sun-horned bulls, in the background - the sacred mountain Shivet-Khairkhan. Mongolian Altai.

24. Plot "Space hunting of predators for sun-horned moose". Цагаан-Гол. Mongolian Altai.

a contour circle pops up, which is undoubtedly related to the solar-lunar symbols that allow you to" bring " the bull's figure closer to the celestial sphere. A rein is stretched out to the bull's face, which is held by a woman (?) wearing a high headdress. The content of the scene and the iconography of the characters resemble a composition that was previously considered and is similar in design, where at least four mythological plots are presented. In this scene, there are three of them: a fight with a giant (upper left), the connection of a female deity with a celestial (lunar) bull, a competition with a bull and its sacrifice. In the last plot, four "tailed" warriors take part with spears aimed at the bull's chest, stomach, back, and one (the figure is located inside the ring-shaped horns), shooting a bow at its head.

This article presents not all the plots of Mongolian petroglyphs that can be correlated with specific mythological texts, but even those that are considered are surprisingly close to the Altaic ones. These rock art monuments are brought together by their compositional structure, identical characters, and mythological content of the scenes. In Elangash, Irbistu and Kalbak-Tash there are dozens of expressive multi-figure compositions, the main role of which is played by celestial bulls, syncretic magical deer, female deities, warriors armed with spears and clubs. In some stories, men accompany (guard?)women with their wives. bulls, women, and children; in others, they fight among themselves or even engage in battle with giants (Kubarev, 1987; Kubarev and Jacobson, 1996, fig. 132, 150, 284, 449, 451 - 459 ets.]. Thus, the Mongolian-Altaic petroglyphs of the Bronze Age are undoubtedly close In the cultural and chronological aspect, they are a full-fledged historical source that allows us to reliably reconstruct the religious and mythological ideas of the oldest pastoralists and hunters of Central Asia.

However, some compositions in the petroglyphs of the Mongolian Altai may illustrate ancient rituals or rites associated with annual sacrifices to gods, spirits, or animals.

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owners of mountains and forests. A sacred place where such rites were performed in ancient times could be picturesque rocks, called by the locals Har-Chuluu-lit. Black Stones (fig. 23). According to our calculations, the total number of drawings (scenes and individual images), including previously unknown petroglyphs, is at least 250. They are mainly located on the south - facing planes of rocks and individual stones (Fig. 24). At the very top of the ridge, on the horizontal plane of a giant block, apparently left during the glacier's progress down the Tsagaan Gola Valley, the first drawings were made already in the Bronze Age. This is an image of a dagger, a large figure of a deer and a bowl-shaped depression. Much later, figures of goats and a hunter were carved on top of them. If we try to decipher the contents of the first, more ancient layer of drawings,we will see a concise pictogram. It can be "read" in approximately the following sequence:: 1) a deer - a sacrificial animal; 2) a dagger - a tool for performing the rite; 3) a bowl - shaped depression-a "vessel" for the blood of the sacrificial animal. This interpretation of the possible use of bowl-shaped depressions, often located on horizontal planes, is not new. A. P. Okladnikov also suggested a similar purpose for a series of holes on Mongolian petroglyphs [1983, p. 33]. He believed that " it was necessary to provide abundant prey by magical means, to force the beast to voluntarily meet the desires and will of the hunter, to become his victim, to feed his sacrificial flesh and blood to hungry, hungry people. It was equally important to look into the future, which threatened the torment of hunger and even starvation, to ensure the fertility of the animals... and to reproduce, to increase with the help of sacred rituals not only the number of animals, but also the strength of the human community itself, which is opposed to the forces of nature and hostile human groups" [Okladnikov, 1980, p.97].

Conclusion

Ancient shrines with rock carvings, known and recently discovered in Central Asia, functioned for many millennia and belonged to hunters and pastoralists. The predominance of hunting scenes, images of the main game animals and armed people, apparently, indicates regular rituals and magical rituals, which are seen as a certain worldview. It gave the sun and the cosmos the ability to reproduce dead people and killed animals. For example, the ritual action reflected in the compositions on the sacred "altar"located at the eastern foot of Mount Shivet-Khairkhan directly indicates that ancient man always took care of lost relatives and killed animals, trying to be an active participant in the rite of" resurrection-birth " of both. This secluded and mysterious sanctuary was also a place of sun worship and supplication to evil and good spirits, on whose actions, as the ancients believed, the well-being of the entire community, family and individual depended.

Some scientists see petroglyphs as an inexhaustible source of information about the mythological ideas of ancient tribes, while others believe that they reflect only real historical events or information about hunting and economic life. A compromise solution to this problem is seen in the laconic but very capacious conclusion of A. P. Okladnikov: "For such a distant time, there can be no question of purely everyday art or purely mythological creativity. Both of them were undoubtedly interconnected, in a certain synthetic complex" [1980, p. 76].

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The article was submitted to the Editorial Board on 06.03.06.

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