Sacred objects of Antiquity of Pavlodar region

Ancient Sacred Sites and Artefacts of Pavlodar region

The history of the emergence of sacred objicts goes back to deep antiquiry and is associated with the develoment of the worldview of ancient societies. In Pavlodar Priirtyshye one of the most vivid evidences of sacral representations of the most vivid evidences of sacral representations of ancient people is cave paintings and petroglyphs, known in Bayanaul, Maysky and Ekibastuz districts.

Images of people, a bull, a deer, a horse and other animals that, according to scientists, personify totemism, cults of the sun, fertility and hunting can be seen on stone engravings of the Olenti river, Akbidaiyk tract and Dravert's grotto contain preserved ocher anthropomorphic images reflecting shamanistic views of archaic societies before religions appeared.

One of the evidences of the animal cuil is a fragment of a stone sculpture in the form of an elk head found on the site of Stone Age hunters near Lake Penki in Zhelexinka district. Zoomorphic products, possibly of cult importance, were also found during the excavation of the Shiderty 3 site.

The funerary monuments of the Stone Age reflect the ideas of people about the afterlife. Burials of fire worshipers,which were made according to the cremation rite, were found in one of the oldest Zhelezinka neolithic cemetries on the territory of Kazakhstan. Weapons and household items were placed in the graves with the dead. Beads-amulets served as a protection against evil spirits. They were also found in Zhelezinka cementry and the burial of "Shidertinsky man".

The sun worship and the belief in the cleansing power of fire are further developed in the culture of the pastoralist and steelworkers of the Bronze Age. The solar symbolism is pronounced in the rock art, art castings, and ceremics decor. The cult of the sun and fire is reflected in the burial rite and shrines with stone menhirs.

Religius views that were developed during the Bronze Age were further transforming in the Scythian-Saka time. That period in Priirtyshye is characterized by an interesting type of sanctuary representing real temples in the open air. Planigraphically, they consist of a stone ornamentions, which can be up to several hundred meters long, go eastwards. Due to their peculiar form, such archeological monuments are called tumulus with ridges.

One of the outsanding sacred sites of this type is the Saka tumulus located in a picturesque tract on the east shore of Lake Toraighyr in Bayanaul district. It can be clearly seen from a height that the ancient graves are stretched out in a chain from the foot of the mountains in the northeastern direction and consist of burial stone and earthen mounds and ornamentations. In the very center of the ancient cemetery there is a sacred area in the form of the ruins of an ancient sanctuary with stone structures.

During the excavations, sacred menhirs with the image of the sun, argali and the so-called "deer stone" with half-erased deer figures and an incomplete image of a tiger were found here.

Another type of cult-memorial complexes of the Altyn Tobe - Golden Reidge cementry located in Zhelezinka district near the vellage of Zhanazhuldyz. Here it was possible to study the remains of a burned ancient temple which was a complex structure made logs and ground and inside of which there was found a stone altar and ritual food.

In the era of the Middle Ages, Pavlodar Priirtyshye was a part of the ancient Turkic nomadic world, after the collapse of whinch, in the 9-11 centuries the political center of the Kimek Kaganate was located on the banks of the Irtysh. At that time, Tengrianism was widespread among the population of Priirtyshye along with penetration of Manichaesm, Islam and Buddhism.

Sacred monuments of that period are represented by stone sculptures. According to scholars, stone balbals in the form of male and female sculptures could be images of the divinities of the ancient Turkic pantheon and the spirits of especially revered ancestors - the aruakhs. During the excavation of such objiects, archaelogists find traces of sacrifices confirming the functioning of the complexes with sculptures as ancient shrines.

In the 13 century steppe Priiryshye became a part of the Ulus of Jochi - the Golden Horde. By the bedinning of the 14 century, Islam became the state religion in the Golden Horde, which later became the determining factor in the development of the spiritual culture of nomads. In the steppes of Kazakhstan, the tradition of bulding baked brick dome-shaped mausoleums (mausoleum-kumbez) on the graves of especially revered state and religious firgures was widely spread. Some significant sacred sites like the mausoleums of Knoja Ahmed Yasawi, Alsh Khan, Jochi Khan, Abat Baitak have survived to this day, but the majority of such artefacts have been lost.

In recent decades Kazakh archaeologists have discovered the ruins of mausoleums in Western and Central Kazakhstan. The remains of mosques and madresahs were studied in Otrar and Sauran on the sites of ancient towns of Southern Kazakhstan. Among the newly discovered objicts in Pavlodar Priirtyshye is a unique monument of steppe Muslim architecture known in scientific literature under the name "Kabal-Gasun - Kalbasun Tower", which was the tomb of the steppe rulers.

Besides the "Kalbasun tower" located in the Irtysh valley, a large sacrel center of the medival nomads of Saryarka Steppes was opened by Pavlodar archeologistists on the shores of Lake Aulikol, 60 km. north-west of Ekibastuz. As a result of excavations lasting many years, a necropolis of the 14-15 centuries established in the period of prosperity of the Golden Horde and functioned until the time of the appearance of the Kazakh Khanate was studied there.

In the sacreal part of the Auliekol necropolis, the remains of two mausoleum-kumbezes were studied. The first mausoleum of 19x12 meters in plan had a rectangular shape; the entrance of which was oriented to the south and was divided into two rooms inside. The first room, ziarathana, was intended for players and commemoration of the depatred. It had an octahedral shape in plan and was located under the dome in the central part of the structure. The second room, gurkhana, was intended for the burials of the nomadic elite.

The walls and the dome were richly decorated with terracotta tiles and carved bricks. Among the architectural decor, there are samples with fragments of Arabic script, floral and geometric patterns. A special place among the artefacts belongs to the found in the gurkhana of the mausoleum bundle of expensive fabric, with gold embroidered images of deer, flowers, symbols of faith and a freagment of a gold arabographic inscription denoting the title of a medieval ruler "Sultan Veracius".

The findings made in the second mausoleum speak of the remarkable and high sacred status of burials in the excavation of the family tomb, was found a burial site with a brick tombstone around and inside of which, under lime plaster - ganch, as well as in different places of brick ornamentations there were dozens of silver coins minted during the rule of the khans of the Golden Horde. Near the burial, remains of a sacrifice in the form of bones of small cattle were found.

It is obvious that coins and sacrifices emphasize the special significance of the buried person who had a sacred status - aulie. The mausoleum's architecture with a beautifully decorated portal and a dome covered with blue glazing attracts attention.

The construction of complex cultmemorial structures, such as kumbez of Auliekol, underlines the spiceal role of Islam in the life of medieval nomads, who, besides their spiritual, religious and educational functions, contribute to the spread of writing and knowledge about the surrounding world in the steppes of Priirtyshye.

With the spread of Islam, ancient cults gradually disappeared, new sacred spaces appeared, and a unique nomad worldview combining the treditional spiritual heritage of the Great Steppe with ritual practice, philosophy and depth of Islam was forming.