Bronze Age petroglyphs discovered in Siberia

More than 100 new rock paintings, some featuring mythical monsters, have been discovered at the Shalabolino rock art site on the Tuba river, southern Siberia, Alexander Zaika, chief of the Russian Geographical Society’s expedition, told TASS on Tuesday.

One of the newly discovered petroglyphs [Credit: Sibnovosti]

The expedition has examined the entire three-kilometre massif around the site to discover about 300 flat surfaces with pieces of ochre rock paintings made with the use of knockout, engraving and wiping techniques. The newest finds include more than 30 such surfaces with over 100 Stone Age petroglyphs.

"Along animals, humans in boats, on skis and mounted on horses, scenes of hunting, war and rituals, the petroglyphs depict mythical predators, a kind of composite characters featuring traits of wolves, bears, panthers and wild boars. Such drawings are dated to a period around the second millennium B.C.," Zaika said, adding that the newly-discovered rock drawings are preliminarily attributed to the Okunev culture, a Bronze Age culture in southern Siberia.

Ancient rock drawings in Siberia [Credit: © Vladimir Baikalsky/TASS]

Among the paintings are anthropomorphic face masks with horns and fangs and other animal traits. He said that these masks could reflect the day-and-night, good-and-evil mythology of that period.

The Shalabolino rock art site, located 35 kilometers west of the town of Kuargino, takes its name from the nearby village of Sahalabolino. Drawings dating from the New Stone Age to the Early Middle Ages cover the right side of a steep rock on the bank of the Tuba river.

Source: TASS [September 14, 2018]