The ancient arts of Siberia

Photo by Yluyana Potilitsina
Photo by Yluyana Potilitsina

In the year of 2016 the nature reserve «Khakassky» got the grant of the Russian Geographical Society on the implementation of the project «The study and preservation of the objects of ancient rock art (Oglahtinsky backbone of the Republic of Khakassia)». Within the frames of this project there were made copies of rare petroglyphs from Krasnoyarsk reservoir flood zone.

The mountain range Oglakhty is located in Khakassia. The banks of the Yenisei in that district are dotted with the petroglyphs, belonging to different epochs, aged from 6000 to 300 years. A few decades ago, after forming Krasnoyarsk reservoir, an impressive amount of natural and archeological monuments went under, and hundreds of petroglyphs were destroyed. There are a lot of petroglyphs in the eastern part of the massif, which are located at the water's edge. All of them are in danger, as the water erodes the lower tiers of rocks, and someday the figures submitted by the ancestors will be lost forever.

The historians and archaeologists from Kemerovo have been researching the coastal line of the ridge during several months. The unique technology of copying was first used in Khakassia by the scientists under the leadership of the author of the project Elena Miklashevich, that was done in order to save the samples of rock art. As the result there were received 11 ultra-precise, durable and lightweight copies of petroglyphs.

«The project is a multi-faceted, the casting is the smallest part of it. Besides the copies there was collected the massif database, an album. Having worked in Khakassia for more than 25 years, we can see the dynamics of the destruction of archaeological sites and we are able to imagine, how richly it looked 5000 years ago, - Elena Miklashevich says. – The attempts to save the petroglyphs began long ago. In the early twentieth century, an archaeologist, anthropologist and essayist Alexander Adrianov performed more than 100 estampazhes of endangered cave paintings of the «Oglakhty» array, which are being stored in the Kuntskamera in St. Petersburg.

You can see the copies of rare petroglyphs at the exhibition «The ancient art of the mountain massif «Oglakhty» in the Khakassia National Museum of Local History in Abakan. The exhibition will run until the 15th of January, 2017.