Kalbak-Tash II — Yaloman Chuya Bluff Petroglyphs
Калбак-Таш II · Kalbak-Tash Yaloman · Second Kalbak-Tash
Neolithic to Turkic·Afanasievo, Andronovo, Scythian-Pazyryk, Turkic·🇷🇺 Altai Republic, Ongudaysky District, Chuya River, 715th km Chuy Trakt, Russia
About
About Kalbak-Tash II — Yaloman Chuya Bluff Petroglyphs
8189), on the left bank of the Chuya above Yaloman village. The 40-m slate bluff exposes ~3000 petroglyphs from Neolithic (4th millennium BCE) to Old Turkic (8th c. CE) — rounded-peak capitals, elk, stylised human figures with mushroom heads, Bronze Age chariots and Turkic runes — pecked into chlorite schist. Distinct from main Kalbak-Tash, Yaloman bluff has the celebrated 'Deer Mother' Afanasievo elk genealogy panel and a continuous 'tamga alley' of 87 Turkic clan marks, forming the Altai's longest clan genealogy rock.
Recorded by Kubarev and Jacobson, now within Chuya highway buffer, visited via riverside trail.
Why it mattersGorny Altai longest Stratified sequence from Afanasievo to Turkic with best elk-mother panel, Altai-Neolithic to Steppe Empire corridor.
Open questions
Mysteries & theories
Mysteries
- 01Mushroom-head anthropomorph identification
- 02Tamga clan genealogy matching
Theories
- 01Chuya trade-route ritual marking
- 02Ancestral deer-cult sanctuary reused by Turkic clans
Theories are interpretations, not findings. The seal above tells you how much scholarly weight the place carries.
History
How it came to be
- Built
- c.4000 BCE–800 CE
- Period
- Neolithic to Turkic
- Culture
- Afanasievo, Andronovo, Scythian-Pazyryk, Turkic
- Builders
- Gorny Altai hunters and Chuya pastoralists
- Purpose
- River-terrace ritual marking along Chuya corridor linking Mongolia to Katun
- Abandoned
- c.800 CE
- Rediscovered
- 1920s Anokhin; 1980 Kubarev survey; 2011 Okladnikova latticed study
- Excavation
- Partially excavated
c.3000 BCE
Afanasievo elk-mother carving
c.1500 BCE
Andronovo chariot layer
700 CE
Turkic tamga alley completion
On the ground
Structures & features
50.4080° N · 86.8150° E · 780 m · 2 mapped features
Gallery