Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 46 (1) 2018   DOI: 10.17746/1563-0110.2018.46.1.059-065

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An Old Turkic Statue from Borili, Ulytau Hills, Central Kazakhstan:
Issues in Interpretation

L.N. Ermolenko¹, A.I. Soloviev², and Zh.K. Kurmankulov³

¹Kemerovo State University, Krasnaya 6, Kemerovo, 650043, Russia

²Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Pr. Akademika Lavrentieva 17, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia

³A.K. Margulan Institute of Archaeology, Committee of Science of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Pr. Dostyk 44, Almaty, 050010, Republic of Kazakhstan

We describe an unusual Old Turkic statue from Borili (Ulytau, Central Kazakhstan), distinguished by a peculiar position of the hands and holding an unusual object––a battle axe instead of a vessel. Stylistic features and possible prototypes among actual battle axes suggest that the statue dates to the 7th to early 8th centuries AD. The composition attests to the sculptor’s familiarity with Sogdian/Iranian art and with that of China. Several interpretations of the statue are possible. The standard version regarding Old Turkic statues erected near stone enclosures is that they represent divine chiefs––patrons of a specific group of the population. Certain details carved on the statue indicate an early origin of the image. It is also possible that such statues are semantically similar to those of guardians placed along the “path of the spirits” near tombs of members of the Chinese royal elite.

Keywords: Old Turks, statues, Central Kazakhstan, Sogdian art, China, “path of the spirits”, bladed weapons