Search of rock representations in northwestern Mongolia

In 2019, the Russian-Mongolian Archaeological Team of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the SB RAS and Institute of Archaeology of the MAS conducted research of rock art in Northwestern Mongolia. This field project was intended for studying petroglyphs at the known sites and searching for new rock representations. The sites of Tsagan-Salaa and Baga-Oygur were surveyed and archaeological survey in the valley of the Khara Dzhamat River was conducted. The known and newly discovered images of the earliest layer of Altai petroglyphs were studied. These petroglyphs are distinguished by the specific Kalguty style which was widespread at the sites of the Russian and Mongolian Altai. A series of palimpsests where the earliestfigures of horses of the Kalguty style were covered by the petroglyphs of the Bronze Age is of great interest. For the first time in the Mongolian Altai, rock paintings made by crimson paint (oblique crosses and parallel lines) were discovered on the Tsagan Ereg Mount. A number of petroglyphs from the Bronze Age to paleoethnographic period were recorded on both banks of the Khara Dzhamat River valley, including animal representations, Bronze Age chariots, Early Scythian stylized deer, and hunting scenes. An assemblage of petroglyphs of the “Chemurchek type” with animal and human figures probably belonging to the same local shrine was discovered on the right bank of the Baga-Oygur River. This site could have been associated with the Chemurchek culture of the Central Asian Bronze Age.