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I visited the Tamgaly-Tas petroglyph site on the banks of the Ili River at the beginning of a two-day trip to the Altyn-Emel National Park. Here follows a quote from an article entitled Kazakhstan: The Petroglyph Site of Tamgaly-Tas, in the book Heritage at Risk: “The stones of Tamgaly-Tas were engraved by the Oirat-Djungar (or Kalmyk) people who were Western Mongol tribes converted to Tibetan Lamaist Tantric Buddhism in the 16th century…. Read More
I first read about the Tamgaly Petroglyphs, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, in a book on the Bronze Age archaeology of the Scythian Nomads called Kurgans, ritual sites, and settlements — Edited by Jeannine Davis-Kimball Visiting that site was the main purpose of my trip to Kazakhstan, and it wasn’t easy to reach. No tours or tourists were interested in such a place, so I had to hire my own driver to get… Read More
September 2015 Petroglyphs – this form of rock art is found all over Central Asia. On a recent expedition to Spiti, in Northern India, the archaeologist John Vincent Bellezza focused on documenting 24 rock art sites, and I highly recommend reading his detailed explanations of the meaning of various types of rock carvings. READ MORE…
(1977)
THE ARDENT ENTHUSIAST 