Tanbaly
Tas: The Ancient Steppe’s Gallery
Tanbaly
Tas is a vast open-air art gallery featuring more than 2,500 engravings on rock
faces, most of which date back to the late Bronze Age. They offer a window into
an ancient steppe civilisation.
Kazakhstan,
the ninth largest country in the world, has six UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Three of these are transnational, shared with neighbouring countries. Among the
remaining three are the petroglyphs at Tanbaly Tas, about 170 km north of
Almaty.
We
visited Tanbaly Tas recently. It was a four-hour bus ride from Almaty with a
short break. It’s not a popular spot despite its heritage status; there are few
adequate signages, and the site is often conflated with Tamgaly, another
location of historical and archaeological importance. Tanbaly Tas is a vast,
scrawny landscape, not exactly pleasing to the eye. In the middle of nowhere
stood a compact sand-coloured, single-storied building topped by a bluish-green
cupola—the visitor’s centre-cum-museum.
At
the visitor’s centre, we learned that the petroglyphs and other monuments were
discovered by archaeologist Maksimova in 1957. Further excavations and study
continued between 1970 and 1990. Another 14 years passed before the site was
inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2004. The Tanbaly complex covers
petroglyphs, burial mounds, and religious altars spanning a vast period—from
the Bronze Age (14th–13th centuries BCE) to the 19th–20th centuries CE.
The
engravings mostly depict animals, hunting scenes, dancing warriors, war
chariots, camel carts, and, most notably, “sun-headed figures.” The visitor’s
centre is a good primer on what to expect in the field.
We
stepped out to explore the vast barrenness. A guide from the museum accompanied
us, as per the mandatory protocol. It was an overcast and windy day. The first
thing to greet us was a goalpost-like archway framing nothingness. Tanbaly
Tas in small print could be discerned on the bar. A solitary horse grazed
in the distance.
Our
first stop was at a burial ground dating from the 13th century BCE. The dead
were buried in a foetal position with their heads turned west. Ceramic vessels
and bronze jewellery were found in the graves.
We
then went ahead and visited four out of the five groups of petroglyphs. Getting
close to the engravings wasn’t easy. It required climbing up and down rocky
slopes—more a test of agility than stamina. Pictogram warnings of snakes and
spiders were sprinkled across the landscape. The contrast between the
engravings and the parent rock wasn’t always easy to discern. At certain
angles, the sunlight washed out the details. Ironically, some engravings were
clearer in phone photographs than to the naked eye.
Petroglyphs
are images, symbols, or designs carved into the surface of rocks. Etymology:
From Greek petra (rock) + glyphein (to carve). Unlike
pictographs, which are painted onto rock using pigments, petroglyphs are
engraved—created by removing part of the rock surface with tools made of harder
stone, metal, or bone. For example, the images at the Bhimbetka Rock Shelters
in Madhya Pradesh are pictographs.
The
anthropomorphic figures of humans with radiant sun-like heads intrigued me the
most. They were the most enigmatic of all the engravings. Were they priests
participating in rituals? Personifications of the sun that governed life on the
steppes? Or guardians watching over the living? Many questions filled my mind.
One
group of petroglyphs was closed for restoration. A board crisply explained why:
micro-vibrations from visitors’ footsteps could destabilise the precariously
balanced rocks.
Why
did our ancestors create these petroglyphs? Unlike pictographs painted inside
caves to shield pigments from weathering, petroglyphs are carved out in the
open—a bold statement. They are like our modern-day graffiti. The petroglyphs
at Tanbaly Tas are at an elevation, positioned like a billboard, obviously
requiring great effort to carve. Maybe they were placed there for the
supernatural forces to see from a distance? Or maybe they were territorial
markers? Or perhaps classroom boards to teach the young?
Tanbaly
Tas is not everyone’s cup of tea. It is for those willing to travel seven or
eight hours just to spend a couple of hours wandering through an arid
landscape, trying to understand the hopes and fears of people from the steppe several
hundreds of years ago.
On
the long return bus ride, my mind grappled with a larger question: why did
petroglyphs and pictographs across geographies and millennia portray the same
themes—animals, hunting, reproduction, sacrifice? Across ages, human hopes and
fears have remained constant: food and fertility. They still are today.
As
the steppe rolled past my window, I felt that the Tanbaly stones hadn’t just
survived time—they had survived forgetfulness.
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