Subject Compositions in Tuvan Rock Art

Abstract

Currently, we know of more than seventy locations of rock art in Tuva, with more than one thousand petroglyphs. Those sites are dispersed throughout the different districts of Tuva, but are mostly confined to the river valleys. We have managed to create a typology of petroglyphs in Tuva and arrange them in chronological sequence. The most ancient samples of rock art refer to Eneolythic (engraved or painted animal figures with massive, large bodies, disproportionate to their heads and limbs). The next layer is the Early bronze age, when the Okunevo culture was distributed across the territories of the Sayan-Altay upland. [...]