Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 46 (2) 2018   DOI: 10.17746/1563-0110.2018.46.2.060-067

Annotation:  Excavations at Darvagchay-Zaliv-4: An Early Paleolithic Site in Dagestan Argillite Artifacts and Final Pleistocene to Middle Holocene Cultural Links Across the Vitim River B Late Krotovo (Cherno-Ozerye) Burials with Casting Molds from Tartas-1, Baraba Forest-Steppe The Andronovo Age Women’s Costume, Based on Finds from Maytan, Central Kazakhstan Textile Decoration and Patterns on the Andronovo Vessels: Possible Reconstructions A Study of Bronze Age Ceramics from the Forest Zone of Eastern Europe: What Does the Term “Fatyanovo Petroglyphs of Zanskar, India: Findings of the 2016 Season Offerings of Hunnic-type Artifacts in Stone Enclosures at Altynkazgan, the Eastern Caspian Region Old Turkic Stone Enclosures at Kyzyl-Shin, Southeastern Altai New Data on Iron-Smelting Sites in the Kuektanar and Turgun Valleys, Southeastern Altai The Technology of Manufacturing Glass Beads at Gnezdovo, Smolensk Region Mongol Warriors of the Jochi Ulus at the Karasuyr Cemetery, Ulytau, Central Kazakhstan Silver Vessels of the Golden Horde Era from the Middle Ob Basin The Cemetery at Fort Umrevinsky, in the Upper Ob Basin Remains of Brown Bear (Ursus arctos L.) from the Kaninskaya Cave Sanctuary in the Northern Urals Animal Bones in Ritual Accumulations at Monkys Uriy Manifestation of Worldviews in Traditional Narratives: Reconstruction of Global Tendencies in the Sp   

Petroglyphs of Zanskar, India: Findings of the 2016 Season

N.V. Polosmak¹, M.A. Shah², and L.P. Kundo¹

¹Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Pr. Akademika Lavrentieva 17, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia

²Centre of Central Asian Studies, University of Kashmir, Hazratbal, Srinagar-190006, Jammu & Kashmir, India

This article introduces new petroglyphs found in 2016 by the Russian-Indian expedition in Zanskar, India. For the first time in this region, we discovered images unilaterally pecked out on small rectangular plates at abandoned Buddhist sanctuaries. Unlike tens of thousands of famous images from Ladakh and Zanskar, these are examples of mobile art, i.e. they could be moved from one place to another. They show scenes of fighting wild yaks, a hunter on horseback accompanied by a dog, and a Buddhist stupa. Especially interesting are several kindred scenes reproducing fights between male yaks, which occur in the fall, during the rut. The images realistically and accurately convey a tense atmosphere of rivalry. The image of a horse is unusual. The animal is decorated with a breast tassel and a head plume or sheathed forelock, marking the horseman’s high rank and setting the representation apart from other known images of horses in the petroglyphic art of Ladakh and Zanskar. Very important is the archaic type of stupa, before which the yaks are fighting. It provides one of the clues for dating the whole composition, since such types of stupa were built from the 1st century BC onwards. It is proposed that the newly found petroglyphs represent a hitherto unknown tradition of using small, specially prepared stone plates.

Keywords: Zanskar, Tibet, petroglyphs, wild yaks, horseman, stupa