Shamhag-baisan as a sacral object of antiquity in the Oka river valley (western Buryatia)

In the course of the archeological surveys in 2012 on the territory of western Buryatiya a new site called Shamhag-Baisan was revealed. The object represents the conjoining of two elements: rock painting and stone setting in the form of an arrow, situated in such a way that the "point" directs approximately the position on the rock where petroglyph is located. Local population have been aware of the "arrow" even before the field works of 2012 year and named "Geser's Arrow", but the petrogliph remains unknown till this time. The painting is made by ochre; it is unshaded picture of a side-drawn big animal (bull or bison or elk). The stone setting is solid, well-backfilled and well-grass-covered. By reference to the analogies with petroglyphs of Western Transbaikal and Central Asia, the painting from Shamhag-Baisan site can be dated by the wide chronological diapason from the broze age till the Middle age. Judging by the extent of the setting's grass-covering it is hardly referred to the ethnographic modernity. More over the local population doesn't perceive it as a construction of the recent time, and associates it with the name of the epic hero. Besides this on the territory of the Sayany village and near it (Shamhag-baisan complex is in a one kilometer from this village) a burial ground of the Bronze Age consisted of several khereksurs (burial mounds) have been revealed. Sacrificial settings in the form of circles - rosaces or, sometimes, oblong stone "paths" are often recorded near such mounds. In the ancient time the arrow-shaped stone setting could be related with the burial ground in the Sayany village, which is destroyed partly by the village in present. Generally the rock painting and stone setting could be created and functioned in different chronological periods, being used jointly on the certain stage. The association between these two elements traces on the well-defined correspondence of the positions of the petroglyph and the "arrow's head". In the article the authors pay attention to the unordinary form of the setting and suggest the direct relationship between the arrow-shaped form of the construction and the fact that arrows' heads are often reported as sacrificial gifts on sanctuaries. The setting of this form in Shamhag-Baisan complex is regarded as symbolic reflection of such using arrows' heads and, from this point of view, takes over the semantic meaning which point is endued. Generally it is supposed a ritual-cultic character of this complex.

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