Okunev statues at mount Uitag, Khakassia

This article presents two new steles discovered in 2021 during rescue archaeological works in Askizsky District of the Republic of Khakassia. Both steles were parts of Tagar funerary enclosures. One is a slab of Devonian sandstone with an anthropomorphic mask on the broad side. It was adjacent to the southern wall of the enclosure of Skalnaya-6 mound 1. Only the outline of the head in the chin region is preserved, as well as the mouth, modeled as a depression, and three transverse lines between the nose and the mouth. The other stele, made of red sandstone, bears a human-like profile in the lower part, carved on the rib and extending to lateral sides. This stele, unusually well preserved, belonged to the northern wall of the enclosure of Uitag-3 mound 5. We describe and interpret this laconic realistic image of a "male shaman” wearing a three-eyed animal mask and a high headgear. The two Uitag slabs differ in the placement of the face (on a broad side in one case, and on the lateral sides in the other). However, the pecking technique and the way facial features were rendered are the same. The general stylistic manner allows us to attribute both artifacts to a single cultural and chronological horizon-Early Okunev. None of the sculptures has exact matches, but in terms of style, composition, and semantics they resemble those with realistic relief images extending from one side of the slab to another. The fragment of the statue from Uitag-3 mound 5 is the earliest, realistic, and possibly standard representation of a mask.