Hakloot

Tamgaly 2

Went to visit Tamgaly, the UNESCO World Heritage Site near Almaty for the second time. The first time was in August 2007. This time it was Spring.

I decided to return to Tamgaly for a second time to have more pictures taken of the petroglyphs and under different lighting and with different camera conditions than the first time around. It was clear that Spring probably is the best time to visit the area. The vast openness and rolling hills and green pastures look like a giant golf course as a result of the lush green that sprouted after winter.

One of the carvings Tamgaly is famous for is the one with the human with a sun-like head and more than a dozen dancers at its feet. Yet there are many more carvings from the early Bronze Age up to the Middle Ages. They are all very stylized and in good condition. I will upload my new pictures to the Tamgaly Gallery on this website. It’s always difficult to take pictures of these rock carvings particularly in strong sun light. In this case I have found the use of a polarizing filter most effective to enhance the contrast.

A number of quite remarkable stone graves were discovered and opened at Tamgaly. The are dug out graves lines with slabs of rock some of with are carved, to prevent the grave from collapsing. These graves can be noticed in may paces in Kazakhstan as little overgrown mounds which at closer inspection will reveal that the overgrowth is hiding a mound of rocks piled on top of each other. Many locations with rock carvings also have these type of graves in the neighborhood and they typically are near little streams or rivers as if to connote that the river is the path to the after life, similar to the Styx in Greek mythology.

Spring was clearly in full swing. We saw plenty of herds populated with newly born offspring. Horses were enjoying the pools of water with their foals before it will all dry up this summer. Cows were grazing with their calves and the herds of sheep had plenty of lamb eagerly looking for their moms. No better and more abundance of examples of Spring as the start of a new cycle of life.

While there were no trees to be seen anywhere in the distance of the vast steppe we see quite a number of birds. A pair of white golden ducks but also plenty of green and brown feathered birds. As I’m not an ornithologist I had no idea what kind of bird it was.

Our luck was really to witness a game of kokpar. While we were driving away from Tamgaly, we saw a large crowd of men on horses in the open field at the first hamlet near Tamgaly. As we got closer we saw that a fierce competition was happening between two groups of riders who were trying to fight for a headless goat carcass and land it behind a line on the ground in the distance. The team that lands it across the goal line of the opposite team wins. The melee of horses and riders can be fierce and it shows the strength and stamina of the riders when they are carrying off a heavy goat carcass in one hand while steering the horse with the other and being pursued.