Discoveries of the Tausamal archaeological team in 2023
17 Aug 2023
In the field season of 2023, within the framework of the grant project "Study of the archaeological complex of the Hunno-Sarmatian era of Tausamaly in Eastern Zhetysu" (headed by Yarygin S.A.), planned research on the territory of the archaeological complex of Tausamaly was continued. Archaeological exploration has begun in the Kairakkol and Karakungei mountains in the Aksu and Sarkan districts of the Zhetysu region.
At the archaeological complex, an excavation was laid at mound No. 45 and reconnaissance excavations at the settlement of the same name. According to the preliminary results of the research, the mound of the kurgan can be attributed to a new type of structures that have not previously been found at the burial ground. In plan, the object has an irregular trapezoidal shape, elongated along the northwest-southeast line. The dimensions along the central axes are 12.8 × 14 m. It is composed of rounded river boulders. An oval altar, 2.27 × 1.38 m in size, is located 3.2 m southwest of the base of the mound. 0.5 m laying out in one row.
Within the framework of the burial ground, in the same chain with the object under study, there is a barrow with a trapezoidal, similarly oriented outer fence, as well as barrows with strings of balbals of various shapes and lengths. Similar mounds find analogies in the monuments of the end of the 1st millennium BC. east of Zhetysu.
According to the results of archaeological exploration, three new accumulations of petroglyphs have been identified dating from the late Bronze Age to the early Middle Ages. The repertoire of petroglyphs includes images of mountain goats and argali, deer, horses and riders, scenes of hunting and battles. As part of the clusters, signs and marks are fixed. Exploration work has shown that the range of tamgas and tamga-like signs can be expanded to the eastern slopes of the Karakungei ridge and upstream along the Aksu River to the south of the accumulation of signs and tamgas near the Tausamaly burial ground. New tamgas are paired and triple images, which are located mainly separately in relation to other petroglyphs. They are based on a combination of one or more circular signs with various diacritical elements. Among the listed rock carvings, Kazakh tamgas of the new time were also found on the Suuk plateau.
