Petroglyphs of “Eastern” Appearance in the Kairakkol Mountains and the Aksu River Valley

The article is devoted to the publication of new monuments of rock art in the Kairakkol mountains and the Aksu river valley, located in the Aksu district of the Almaty region of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Geographically, the mountains are part of the Dzhungar Alatau system and are located in the eastern Semirechye. A description of three engravings and a group of three clusters of geometric signs is given. The drawings were discovered during exploration work in the vicinity of the Late Pazyryk burial ground of Tausamaly in 2020 and 2021 in the western spurs of the mountain Kairakkol, rocky outcrops of the Suuk plateau, and the mountain valley of the Aksu river. As a result of the area examination, it was possible to record a large number of petroglyphs dating back from the Bronze Age to the ethnographic time. Much of it definitely dates back to the early Iron Age and the Middle Ages. A large group of tamgas and tamga-like signs was found near the burial ground. Several petroglyphs stand out clearly among other petroglyphs, which have pictorial analogies in southern Siberia, eastern regions of Central Asia, and China. The list includes an anthropomorphic figure with a complex hairstyle or in a complex headdress, a rider about a two-horse, and a dragon. They are adjoined by three drawings, including geometric figures (simple lines, circular signs), knockouts of various types and shapes, holes, images of animals, and, in one case, a rider. They form complex compositions of ideogrammatic nature. A comparative historical analysis of the drawings shows the cultural ties of their creators with the nomads of Altai, the Minusinsk Basin, and, possibly, with the tribes of Northern China. The drawings are tentatively dated to the end of the 1st millennium BC or the border of two eras.