Gobustan / Azerbaijan

One of the views, depending on especially the chariot on this stone, suggests that petroglyphs are Indo-Persian. It argues that those figures were inspired by the scripts of classical Indian mythology. Other view suggests that they are of shamanic origin. This view, which is in minority, seems closer to us. Those petroglyphs express the shamanic rituals of Turco-Mongol nomadic communities. The first view states that groups coming from Iran decorated the walls with their mythology. In fact this view supports the prejudice that the nomadic community could not transform its own culture, faith and rituals into art. However, some of the scholars emphasize the similarities between the petroglyphs of Anastasia Indians in America and those of Saimaluu-Tash or others in Central Asia. The common tracks of the common shaman culture. First view suggests that the chariot stated the migration of Aryans through Central Asia. However in the Ancient Turkish cosmology, the Ursa Major is a chariot drawn by four deer and the driver is Time-God Ödlek. No one can say that nomadic people were not influenced by the Chinese and Indian mythology. In Indian Veda texts, Gods make cosmic journeys by chariots with horses. Moreover, the tombs of hakan or men from the managing class, who had been buried with their chariots in Altay kurgans, were discovered. Anyhow, the hakan of nomadic warriors sits on a throne with a chariot. On the other hand it should also be of concern that in Saimaluu-Tash the animals drawing the chariot were not horses but deer or some other surrealistic animal. Thus, this is a figuration closer to nomadic culture.A chariot drawn by two animals one of which is horned. As well as the types of animals are not clear, they were formed by the combination of two triangles on their ends. The triangle-like bodies in Saimaluu-Tash present us a cosmic journey. It reminds us the chariot driven by Time-God Ödlek and drawn by animals, in other words the Ursa Minor and Major star triangles. There are wild animals which cannot be identified of type and again a hunter on other parts of the stone.

Saimaluu-Tash

The location where there are decorated stones in Saimaluu-Tash Valley rises from 3 thousand meters up to an altitude of 3.5-4 thousand meters. The petroglyphs which were spread over a mountain in a hard to reach region are under snow for eight months of the year. That's why they were saved for thousands of years. In Saimaluu-Tash, which lays for seven kilometers in south to north direction, the amount of figures documented on 10 thousand stones is around 100 thousand. This is only the amount of visible petroglyphs that stayed above the earth. We cannot add up the countless rocks which were covered with fungus and lichens to those. The works on petroglyphs in Saimaluu-Tash were undertaken between 1991 and 2000. There was a two years delay in the works. This research was undertaken by International Institute for Central Asian Studies in Samarkand in very tough mountain conditions. Under cold, storm, rock floods. The initial report was published in 2001.
The sun-like wheels of the chariot are seen exceedingly in Saimaluu-Tash. It is sometimes thought that these wheels express the sun as they were drawn independently. It shows the expression of a cosmic journey from generation to generation.

The curves, snakes or the rivers, labyrinths. These symbols should be expressing the hallucinated journeys of the shaman. The map of nomadic soul or the shamanic soul. There is a sample of zigzags and glasses-like shapes on a rock in Saimaluu-Tash, in other words two worlds portrayed side by side which are joined by a straight line. We see in Andrzej Rozwadowski's work that, in Kyrgyzstan again, there was also another man-like figure with tails in Tamgaly beside the glasses-like figure which had expressed the transition to another world. Again in the same composition, another figure is engraved which express the mutation of man, his fragmentation, turning into dust, his transformation into another body. The animals drawn beside the zigzags or the double chamber also show that the transformation was made by the mediation of animals. The body of the man travels between bodies.

The wild animals seen on both sides of the zigzag or between the two zigzags are figures one might see in Saimaluu-Tash. According to Hoffman, zigzag which is also seen in petroglyphs of American Redskins show the way how the shaman achieves the power of healing the sick. According to David Lewis Williams however, the zigzags and spiral chambers also express the shaman in a passed out state and his phases. If we interpreted the zigzags as a symbol for power, then we may say that this power was expressed as an imitation of lightning. According to Jean-Paul Roux, Ancient Mongols believed in that lightning had been the tail of the sky dragon.
Kyrgyzstan mountains are a geography where nomadic Turks partially lived on their traditional lives. Saimaluu-Tash takes its name from the stones onto which the ancestors of this society or former residents of this geography engraved their faith. The scholars are divided into two on the matter that the figures on the stones were of Shamanic or Indo-Persian (settled) origins. Did the Aryans draw those figures or nomadic people of proto Turco-Mongol or proto Scythian? The petroglyphs seem very close to Shamanic culture and nomadic art.

There are thousands of types of galaxy figures in Saimaluu-Tash which express the worlds that are interconnected, and the connecting of those world couples to one another; and there are figures of the hook horned chamois travelling in this galaxy or of shamans on cosmic journey in chamois costumes.
Some scholars interpret these glasses-shaped figures as icons of the sun worshipping cult. The existence of Tengriism in nomadic Central Asian communities supports this view. On the other hand we achieve the idea of the transition to other worlds by mutation, as the drawings of circles were used with man figures in Tamgaly-Say petroglyphs.

In Tamgaly-Say petroglyphs of Kazakhstan which were published in Atlas before, the man-like figures that express some bizarre creatures draw attention. Perhaps the figures of Tamgaly-Say which remind the bizarre men in Saimaluu-Tash may be understood to some extent by the theory of collective subconscious, the archetypes theory of C.G. Jung; may be explained by comparing them to costumes in Shamanic dances that might still be ongoing and that are even seen in Anatolia. These figures might not be considered as just a bunch of images. They even might be giving the hints of animal-like secrets in the soul of man that modern psychology is getting difficulties in understanding it completely. Perhaps these figures may be a description of instinctive sources of human nature which the evolutionist psychology gets close to some extent. It may be describing the other souls of man, wildish, remained under shadow, coming from beyond millions of years that the rationale tried to keep away for two centuries. American Indians, Siberian Shamans, even the Australian Aborigines behaved as if they had known the path to this secret part in man. They sought the other mysterious self that scratched the man from inside. Perhaps Central Asian petroglyphs are the story of search ritual of nomadic society for its other self which was engraved onto granites for thousands of years, drawn across the wind in the cold crests of mountains.

Decorations expressing affairs of man with the opposite sex, the same sex, himself and with the universe. The figure in the middle should be describing a sexual contact. The man having a tail in the first figure is like an expression of a celestial journey the shaman body goes to by the mediation of animal body. And in the final figure, the man-shaped tailed creature opened its hands up to the sky. The expressions of sexual contact, some of which are orgy compositions, seen on many of the rocks in Saimaluu-Tash, may be interpreted as a search for abundance. They may be reflecting the wish for regaining their hunt animals after the loss of cattle due to a great drought. The ones who interpret the petroglyphs of American Redskins say that they were started to be drawn after a geological drought which occurred 3 thousand-4 thousand years ago.

The Fergana Valley reaching Mount Khan-Tengri is a region where one might frequently see sun-headed figures in petroglyphs. However one might also see sun-headed figures among the pictures of Altays. It seems more credible to explain these figures as Shamanic trance journeys. Because there are tailed ones among the sun-headed man figures especially in Tamgaly-Say. It might be understood from these figures that the man transformed into an animal body and set on to a celestial journey, to another world, and reached the sun. And the existence of animals like the deer or the chamois in sun-headed man figures supports the understanding of that manner. The transformation into animal body, the state of trance and celestial journey. The anthropomorphic (man-shaped) shapes seen in Redskin petroglyphs in the south of Utah are interpreted as an expression of the shamanic state of trance, of a hallucinated journey (Schaafsma, Archeology of Horseshoe). It looks similar with what the hallucinated images of sun-headeds in Saimaluu or Tamgaly and Mexican Huichol Redskins reflect. Likewise, there are similar compositions between the figures on Altay shaman drums and some of the petroglyphs in Tamgaly-Say. Perhaps, especially Tengriism of Ancient Turks should be included in this Shamanic theory. By coincidence, Saimaluu-Tash is a valley in Mount Khan-Tengri. Tengri means the sky in the language of Ancient Turks. Beyond that, a state named Göktürk was founded in Central Asia. The faith of Ancient Turks was perhaps a religious phase of their Shamanic faith which lasted for more than tens of thousands of years. Historian of mythology and theology Mircea Eliade lists it in order as follows: The supreme God of Mongols is named "Tengri" and means the "Sky". The Buryats used to name it "Tengri", the Volga Tatars "Tengere", the Beltirs "Tingir", the Yakut "Tangara" and the Chuvash "Tura". The Cheremi call the celestial God as "Jume" meaning the "Sky". The Ostyaks and Voguls rather called it "Num ture" which is elevated and sitting high above "Türem" where as in the Ostyaks of Irtysh, who were in far south, the name of the celestial God was "Sänke" (good sanke) which was derived from the words lighted, bright, shining. The locations of petroglyphs in Saimaluu-Tash and Central Asia are high mountains. The geographies where the earth is close to the sky. Just like the sun being the source of power and the shaman and steppe emperors taking their power from it, the mountains are icons of power with their verticality. There were no hordes of Turkish or Mongol origin that did not have a sacred mountain. The Kyrgyz also used to experience the Islamic sacrifice practice in Saimaluu-Tash up until recently. It should be stated that the Tien Shan Mountains (Mount Khan-Tengri) is a Chinese word meaning the God and the sky. And Roux states that Mount Khan-Tengri was regarded as very sacred by the Ancient Mongols (Hiung-nu). The name survived till our present. There is also a legend in the Altay Turks which was characterized in petroglyphs: "Once there was neither the Moon nor the Sun. Men used to keep flying in the air. While flying they also spread light..."
The figures decorating granite rocks were engraved in a centimeter and two millimeters deep. Another characteristic of the figures is that none of the petroglyphs were made onto another. The nomadic society, for thousands of years, decorated different figures, some did different icons with different techniques for many generations, but every one of them used his own rock or a distinct rock surface. This portrait on the rock might be regarded as a shaman map. A river, perhaps a path, animals, animal-like creatures and a simple drawing of cosmic journey visible only to shamans. Sun-headed men are amongst the oldest expression of Tengriism.

Özcan Yüksek