Painted Images of Mount Tepsei

The article considers painted images of Tepsei, which is one of the petroglyphic complexes of the Minusa basin. The images are found on the riverside rocks of Mount Tepsei at the Tepsei I site. The images are hard to see due to their poor preservation. All the discovered panels with painted images have natural cornices that protect the panels from surface water flows and calcite incrustation. The latter make the images hard to see, on the one hand, and make a conservation layer to prevent the images from discoloration, shedding, and pigment washout. These observations, concentration of the images on a confined part of the slope and uninterpreted spots of pigment on some of the panels make us to think that, at some ancient times, there were many more painted figures on the Tepsei cliffs, and they were lost as time went by. During the investigation, we used non-contact methods of documenting based on photography and digital image post-processing. Due to the overlapping of some painted images with ancient carved ones, we are able to attribute some of the painted figures. Similar overlapping cases are rare in the Minusa basin and in South Siberia, which makes them particularly valuable for the replenishment of the source base of earliest rock art images on this territory. Attributing some images is hard for today. The stylistic analysis along with the analysis of pigment maps also gives some basis for the relative chronology of the paintings. Most of the documented images are self-sufficient ochre paintings. There are some animal-style figures: aurochs, a deer, some zoomorphic images that are hard to be taxonomically defined. There is possibly one anthropomorphic figure with a bow in his hands. There is a carved zoomorphic figure with traces of ochre in the carving. On three other panels with the earliest stratum, there are just some relics of pigment. On one of the panels, there is an ochre relic documented only along the contour of the carved image, which tells that the carving was made over the painted image. We consider the findings presented to be an evidence of a broad usage of the painting technique in antiquity that widen the source base of pre-written South Siberian peoples' history.

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