The “Jack of cards” ancient Turkic sculpture from north-western Mongolia

Among the ancient Turkic sculptures presented in the Central Museum of Bayan-Ulga aymak of Mongolia, there is a particular sculpture discovered by Mongolian archeologists in Tsengel somon (Khooh-Bulag territory). It was part of a typical ancient Turkic memorial structure: a rectangular enclosure from flat vertical slabs and a line of balbal stones from the eastern side. This sculpture is notable due to a very particular feature: having two heads on the opposite ends of one slab. Essentially, it is two sculptures carved from one slab of stone, much like a jack of cards. In 1999, D. Bayar and D. Erdenebaatar have published a rather approximate sketch of this statue in "Stone Sculptures of Mongolian Altay". According to the authors, the sculptors had begun carving one statue, abandoned it and carved a new image on the opposite end. A closer look at the statue confirms this assumption: the head, which was carvedfirst remained unfinished. The most likely cause is the irreparable damage to the statue’s face at the early stages of carving. The second attempt proved to be more successful, resulting in a canonical 7th-8th centuries sculpture with a drinking vessel, a weapon, and a kaptargak on the belt. The only other similar sculpture was found in the neighboring Ubsunur aymak by Y.S. Khudyakov in 1987. In that case, the unfinished head at the abandoned end of the slab shows no signs of damage. However, as the head of the fully-finished sculpture on the other end is missing, the exact reason for carving the slab from the other end is unclear. One possible explanation is a chronological gap between the sculptures carved from the different ends of the slab. At the same time, one cannot rule out the possibility of ancient Turkic "jacks of cards" serving some semantic purpose.