Rock art in the stone age of Gobustan: an archaeologist’s view

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Abstract

Gobustan is home to a large group of archaeological sites and many thousands of rock images dating from the Upper Palaeolithic to the Middle Ages. Due to its extraordinary scientific and artistic significance, the Gobustan complex is included in the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage List. This paper focuses on rock images dating back to the Stone Age. An attempt is made to systematize petroglyphs, taking into account their types, artistic styles, techniques of their creation, and themes of the images. The author considers relative dating and correlation of the distinguished styles with Gobustan sites of various stages of the Stone Age. Based on the analysis, style 1 of the region’s petroglyphs is dated from the first half of the Upper Palaeolithic (no later than 25–24 kya). Style 2 is synchronized with Mesolithic sites, and styles 3a and 3b are dated, with a certain degree of conditionality, from the Neolithic and Chalcolithic.

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About the authors

Hizri A. Amirkhanov

Institute of Archaeology RAS

Author for correspondence.
Email: amirkhanov@rambler.ru
Russian Federation, Moscow

References

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2. Fig. 1. Gobustan. The cave shelter of Ana Zaga, stone 29 (fragment) (after Jafarzadeh, 1973). Palimpsest of images: A – natural appearance; Б – line of engraving of the image of a prehistoric bull with differently patinated fragments; B – superimposition of images of a man (highlighted in red) on the figure of a prehistoric bull (highlighted in blue). Photo by the author

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3. Fig. 2. Gobustan. The cave shelter of Ana Zaga, stone 31 (after Jafarzadeh, 1973): A – an image of a prehistoric bull in the Upper Palaeolithic style of Gobustan (style 1); below and to the right is an engraving of a horse (onager?) in the Neolithic (?) style 3a (photo by the author); Б – an image of a prehistoric bull (after Sigari, 2013) with an outline updated later, overlaid with an engraving of a horse in the Neolithic (?) style

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4. Fig. 3. Gobustan. The shelter of Oküzlar, stone 42 (after Jafarzadeh, 1973). “Renewed” images of prehistoric bulls. Photo by the author

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5. Fig. 4. Gobustan. Mount Kichikdash. The shelter of Gaya Arasi 2, stone 5 (after Jafarzadeh, 1973). Image of a bull in the Upper Palaeolithic style of Gobustan (style 1): A – natural appearance; Б – the same image, circled in red. Photo by the author

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6. Fig. 5. Gobustan. Stone 78 (after Jafarzadeh, 1973). Women’s images in style 3b

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