​Petroglyphs "Tanbalytas"

 

Petroglyphs "Tanbalytas" are located at the mouth of the Terekty gorge in the western part of the SNNP. Several hundred petroglyphs consist of nomadic drawings from different periods, but older images dating back to the 2nd millennium BC have also been found. (Bronze Age). These include images of wheels, goats. The figure of a horse probably also belongs to the Bronze Age, but the image was updated in a later period. On the rocks of Terekta there are figures of deer, goats and argali, made in the "animal style". The deer is drawn very carefully, especially the antlers, the open mouth is visible. The deer is depicted standing on the tips of its hooves, a well-known image in nomadic art. In the era of nomads, it was pleasant to depict only 2 legs of animals, in contrast to older and later medieval drawings, when all 4 legs are shown in animal figures.
Medieval images of the Terekty gorge are represented by a rider, several people on foot and goats. A separate block depicts several drawings of the new ethnographic time. A hunting scene for a mountain goat and several individual figures of animals are presented. On the hunting scene, it can be seen that a man is shooting at a goat with a gun on a bipod, such a weapon has appeared in Kazakhstan since the middle of the 17th century. 2 km. further up the gorge there is another group of drawings of deer and wild boar. The drawings were carved in the early Iron Age. The location of the petroglyphs at the mouth of the gorge is not accidental: below, on the floodplain terraces and along the banks of the dry river, there are burial grounds from the Early Iron Age to the Usun time. In the 1st millennium BC. This area was densely populated by nomads. According to the materials of excavations, these cemeteries were dated to the 1st millennium BC. - the beginning of AD up to the 4th century BC