Abstract
The paper provides a detailed and, in fact, the fi rst system analysis of the engraved images on stone slabs from the Tas-Khazaa burial ground in southern Khakassia (the early stage of the Okunev culture, circa 25th –23rd centuries BC). There are individual geometric fi gures (squares and rectangles) among them, which are interpreted as images of religious buildings – a kind of “Houses of Spirits”, and numerous anthropomorphous fi gures, which are interpreted as images of spirits, “deities” or souls of the dead (?). Primary classifi cation of these images was carried out with the selection of three groups of characters, that differ in their movement patterns, postures and attributes, but connected by the stylistic unity of the drawings: conditionally “fl ying” (souls of the dead?), “dancing” (performing the rites) fi gures and individual zooanthropomorphic images – “walking” fi gures (mascoids). It is suggested that they belong to different categories in the hierarchy of deifi ed (sacral) characters who accompanied a deceased into the other world. Following N.V. Leontyev and E.B. Vadetskaya, the characteristics of the Tas-Khazaa style as a separate stratum in the development of the Okunev fi gurative tradition were defi ned and concretized. The images of the Tas-Khazaa style were briefl y reviewed on other examples of graphic activity on the Yenisei (rock paintings, stone sculptures, drawings on ceramics). The involvement of the images of the Tas-Khazaa style in the further development of the Okunev art is traced, but not from the standpoint of the evolution of style, but as one of its structural components. The painted and engraved images on the walls of stone boxes from the Karakol burial in the Gorny Altai, other images from the Karakol culture are used as an analogy for them, as well as more northern (drawings on ceramics from the Samus’ IV settlement) and more southern (in Tuva – petroglyphs of Mugur-Sargol etc.) parallels. On this basis, it can be concluded that there is a single cultural and historical community and the works of the Tas- Khazaa style were typical of it.
Keywords
Okunev culture, engraved images, ritual buildings, rite, anthropomorphous images, style, community.
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