The Apkashev site in the Oglakhty complex of rock art sites (field research of 2022)

This article presents some results of field research by the author done in 2022 at a rock art site at the coastal rocks of the Oglakhty Mountain Range in Khakassia, in the area of periodic flooding by the Krasnoyarsk Reservoir. The site is known as the Apkashev rock art site (from the name of the settlement). For the first time, it was studied by N.L. Chlenova in 1958. She later published some of the petroglyphs (horses with decorated bodies and depictions of cauldrons), which caused great interest among scholars. Unfortunately, the location of the site remained unknown; some scholars including the author of this article have made occasional attempts to find it. It gradually became clear that the Apkashev petroglyphs were at the coastal cliffs and were probably underwater. In the spring of 2019, during the seasonal recession of the water level, some panels became visible, including those with the images published by N.L. Chlenova. This established the exact location of the site which contained not only the compositions published by N.L. Chlenova. The site logically fit our new indexing system developed both for well-known (due to the work by A.V. Adrianov and Y.A. Sher before the flooding) and recently discovered rock art sites at the coastal cliffs of Oglakhty. They were indexed as Oglakhty Bereg I-IV, while the Apkashev site, as located downstream, was indexed as Oglakhty Bereg V. In 2022, the water level in the reservoir was low not only in the spring, as usual, but also in the summer and autumn. This made it possible to thoroughly document the part of the site which was above water. In total, 23 surfaces (about 80 figures) were photographed in this field season. The materials obtained make it possible to formulate a preliminary conclusion that the petroglyphs of this site belong to the Tagar culture (Scythian period) and the Xiongnu-Xianbei period.