Recently, a team of archaeologists from the Institute of History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IIMK RAS), and LLC Krasnoyarsk Geoarchaeology have discovered a Bull Geoglyph during excavations near the village of Khondergey in the south-west of the Republic of Tuva, close to Russia’s border with Mongolia.
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| The Bull Geoglyph of Siberia (Image credit: Daily Mail) |
The Bull Geoglyph was part of an Early Bronze Era in a southern Siberian burial site more than 4,000 years ago, making it 1,000 years older than England’s chalk-cut Uffington White Horse, and twice as old as the Nazca Lines in Peru.
According to Wikipedia, a geoglyph is a large design or motif (generally longer than 4 metres) produced on the ground by durable elements of the landscape, such as stones, stone fragments, gravel, or earth. Geoglyphs are generally a type of land art, and sometimes rock art. A hill figure is created on a slope, so that it can be seen from a distance. There are 2 form of geoglyph:
1. Positive Geoglyph is formed by the arrangement and alignment of materials on the ground in a manner akin to petroforms.
2. Negative Geoglyph is formed by removing part of the natural ground surface to create differently coloured or textured ground in a manner akin to petroglyphs.
The newly found animal geoglyph, which measures 10 feet tall by 13 feet long, is formed from carefully arranged pebbles and sandstone. Unfortunately, this Bull Geoglyph has only partially survived due to road construction in the 1940’s which destroying the head and torso, leaving only the backside of the bull with the hind legs and a tail.
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| Pebble and sandstone bull 3 by 4 metres is the first animal geoglyph found in this part of Central Asia. Pictures: Institute of the history of Material Culture, Russian Academy of Sciences (Image credit: The Siberian Times) |
Marina Kilunovskaya, head of Tuva Archaeological Expedition said petroglyphs, or rock carvings, of bulls have been discovered in Tuva and the surrounding regions before but this is the first animal geoglyph found in this part of Central Asia. A geoglyph in the form of an animal figure is a unique phenomenon.
Members of the expedition hope that the unique bull will be preserved as part of a protected site.
References:
- https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-10050107/10-foot-tall-Bronze-Age-geoglyph-bull-Russia-2-000-years-older-Nazca-lines.html
- https://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/bull-geoglyph-twice-as-old-as-nazca-lines-chile-and-predating-uffington-horse-uk-discovered-in-siberia/
- https://www.heritagedaily.com/2021/09/bull-geoglyph-discovered-in-southern-siberia/141527
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoglyph
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