Petroglyphs

Issyk-Kul Open Air museum In Cholpon-Ata is the most accessible and visitable part of North Issyk-Kul accumulation of the petroglyphs.
    The petroglyphs were carved and painted onto the surface of some-granite and granitoid boulders that have been burnt black or brown by strong sunlight over thousands of years. The drawings were carved using metal or stone tools. The sizes of stones vary from 0,3m to 3,0m.
    The first information about the petroglyphs of the Cholpon-Ata site was published in historical iterature at the end of the XIX century (Bartold V.V. and others).
    That site was gigantic temple under open sky, which occupied western part of modern Cholpon-Ata town, and where ancient people worshipped to celestial bodies and did sacraments and mysteries. The rock paintings took an important sacramental role in realizing rituals. They were some kind of virtual sacrifice and prayer, printed on the stone. Alongside with the petroglyphs, there are stone circles, perhaps an ancient kin sacred sites with an interesting natural phenomena - geomagnetic propitious fields. There are some grounds for suppositions, that big stone circles (some tens meters in diameter) used as astronomy observatories.
    Issyk-Kul petroglyphs are unique in many aspects. First, because of artistic realism of the images, many rock drawings belong to masterpieces of Saka-Scythian animal style art. Secondly, the sizes of some petroglyphs are more than one meter which is really rare. At third, many scenes and subjects are original, typical only for North Issyk-Kul petroglyphs. At forth, a technique of making some paintings, for example a relief image of deer, fulfilled with the usage as natural prominences of the stone. The central petroglyph in low part of the museum is an embodiment of all unique features. There is a flock of rock goats (teke or ibex). The figures of ibexes, perhaps the biggest in Central Asia presented with unusual expression that allows attributing this petroglyph to outstanding masterpiece Saka-Scythian animal style of art. The figures of hunters and tame-breeding bars (snow leopards) during penned hunt are one the background of the rock painting. This kind of driving off hunt existed in Ancient Egypt, where hunters used cheetah in hunting of antelope. By tie way, there is a petroglyph with images of hunting dynamically leopards in the museum. This petroglyph has not analogies in Central Asia.
    Single and double images of deer, which embody mythical image mother-deer, so much widespread in Altai, Semirechie, and South Siberia, are very interesting. One of kyrgyz tribes was called Bugu ( in direct translation -red deer). Yet one century ago Bugu tribe honored mother-deer as their totem and ancestor.
    Numerous images of Bactrian camel with riders and cameleers prove an existence north way of Great Silk Road yet in Saka- Usun epoch (VIII century B.C. - V century A.D.). The archaeological finds of coins from different states also confirms that the Great Silk Road passed through Issyk-Kul. A succession of art and painting traditions remains in Coins (shell) modern Kyrgyz folklore art. For example, many patterns inside animals with sacramental meanings are used in modern Kyrgyz wool carpets. North Issyk-Kul rock paintings are both important source about Kyrgyzstan's history and culture, and world heritage - an evidence art capability our ancestors.