The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti: The Chaunskaya Region, Russia

172 Pages·2015·6.115 MB·English

by  Richard L. Bland

The Enigmatic
Dr Margarita Kiry’ak is one of the foremost archaeologists of far Northeast Asia
(Chukotka). She has been conducting archaeological research in Chukotka for more
than 30 years, during which time she has published four books in Russia, Great
K
Britain, and the U.S., and 115 scholarly articles in Russia, the U.S., Italy, and Korea.
ir World of Ancient
Dr. Kir’yak says of the present book: ‘The monograph is devoted to small forms of ’y
a
engraving on stone. It summarizes the archaeological material obtained during the k
course of excavations at the Rauchuvagytgyn I site (dated to 2500 years ago) in
northern Chukotka. The book analyzes the content and semantics of the pictorial Graffiti
resources, and ethnic identification is made. The interpretive part of the study raises

issues of an ideological character and brings one closer to the inaccessible realm of
ideas and concepts of the ancients.’ This well-illustrated book is directed primarily
toward archaeologists, ethnographers, historians, and fine art experts but will also be
Rock Art in Chukotka
of interest to a broad range of readers.
T The Chaunskaya Region,
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Archaeopress Archaeology www.archaeopress.com
Kiryak cover.indd 1 24/11/2015 15:31:22
Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
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276 Banbury Road
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ISBN 978 1 78491 188 1
ISBN 978 1 78491 189 8 (e-Pdf)
© Archaeopress and M Kir’yak 2015
Translation © R L Bland
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Contents
Translator’s Introduction �������������������������������������������������������������������������������v
Preface ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������vii
Introduction ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������1
1. Graphics of Small Form as an Object of Research .....................................................1
2. Physiographic Characteristics of the Research Area ..................................................8
3. A Brief History of Archaeological Study in the Chaunskaya District .................11
Chapter I �����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������17
Cultural-Chronological Characteristics of the Archaeological Complex of the
Rauchuvagytgyn I Site ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������17
1. Assemblage of Household Tools ..................................................................................17
2. Assemblage of Graphic Miniatures .............................................................................23
Chapter II ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������49
The Semantic Interpretation of the Graffiti ��������������������������������������������������49
1. Perceptions of the World Model ..................................................................................50
2. Mushroom Theme in Graffiti Subjects ......................................................................58
2a. Symbolism of Mushroom-Like Images ...............................................................62
2b. Functional Use of Amanita Mushrooms............................................................62
3. The Phallic Motif in the Graffiti Subjects .................................................................65
4. The Tree Motif in Graffiti Subjects .............................................................................69
Chapter III ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������76
Ethnic Identification of the Ymyyakhtakh Culture ����������������������������������������76
Conclusion �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������112
Postscript ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������113
Bibliography ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������114
Appendix ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������132
i
List of Figures and Tables
Photo 1. Glens in the vicinity of Lake Rauchuvagytgyn. ..................................................................9
Photo 2. Panorama of the lake. .....................................................................................................10
Photo 3. Ice cover in the mouth area of the Rauchua River. .........................................................10
Photo 4. Morainal hills surrounding Lake Rauchuvagytgyn. ..........................................................11
Photo 5. Our camp in the valley with the Rauchuvagytgyn I site. .................................................12
Photo 6. Wild reindeer in the valley with the Rauchuvagytgyn I site. ...........................................13
Photo 7. Flowers at the Rauchuvagytgyn site................................................................................14
Photo 8. Flowers in the vicinity of the site. ...................................................................................15
Photo 9. Modern surface arrangement of stones in the valley. ....................................................15
Photo 10. Hearth at Locus 1 (a) and at Locus 2 (b). .......................................................................18
Photo 11. The stone at the dwelling in Locus 2 before stripping the sod. ....................................18
Photo 12. Stone from the dwelling in Locus 2 after stripping the sod. .........................................19
Photo 13. Fishing trophies. ...........................................................................................................22
Figure 1. Map of Chukotka. .........................................................................................................132
Figure 2. Copy of a map with the location of Lake Rauchuvagytgyn. ..........................................133
Figure 3. Arrangement of early sites in the coastal zone of Lake Rauchuvagytgyn. ....................134
Figure 4. Plan (after taking up the sod) and profile of the excavation at the Rauchuvagytgyn I
site (Locus 1): 1—point, 2—scraper, 3—knife, 4—burin, 5—graver, 6—blank, 7—burin spall, 8—
indeterminate artifact, 9—combination tool, 10—abrader, 11—adze, 12—adze-like tool, 13—jaw
bone of a reindeer, 14—lamellar flake, 15—retouched flake, 16—fragment of a slate slab, 17—
graffiti, 18—gizzard stones from a duck, 19—ceramics, 20—notched tool, 21—knife-like blade,
22—fragment of reindeer bone, 23—flake, 24—microflake, 25—nodule, 26—carbon spot, 27—
stones. .........................................................................................................................................135
Figure 5. Plan (after removal of the sod) and profile of the excavation at the Rauchuvagytgyn I site
(Locus 2). For standard designations see Figure 4. ......................................................................136
Figure 6. Stone inventory of the site (Loci 1 and 2): 1–4—artifacts from knife-like blades; 5, 6, 9—
burins; 7—ribbed blade; .............................................................................................................137
Figure 7. Stone and bone inventory of the site (Loci 1–3): 1, 3—points; 2—point with bone
foreshaft; 4—point of antler; 5, 6—knives; 7—fragment of ceramics. .......................................138
Figure 8. Stone and bone inventory of the site (Loci 1–3): 1–4, 7—points; 5—burin; 6—fragment of
a knife-like blade, 8—knife. .........................................................................................................139
Figure 9. Stone and bone inventory of the site (Loci 1–3): 1—core, 2—fragment of a bone handle,
3—polisher, 4—mattock (bone). .................................................................................................140
Figure 10. Stone inventory of the site (Locus 1): 1–3—knives. ...................................................141
Figure 11. Stone inventory of the site (Loci 2 and 4): 1–6—knives. ............................................141
Figure 12. Stone inventory of the site (Loci 1–3): 1–7—micro-scrapers......................................142
Figure 13. Stone inventory of the site (Loci 1–3): 1–4—adze-like tools. .....................................142
Figure 14. Stone inventory of the site (Loci 1–3): 1–12—burins. ................................................143
Figure 15. Stone inventory of the site (Loci 1 and 2): 1—abrader, 2—polisher. ..........................144
Figure 16. Stone inventory of the site (Loci 2–4): 1, 2—fragments of knife blades; 3—scraper; 4—
spall; 5, 6—burins; 7—figured artifact; 8—fragment of ceramics. ..............................................145
Figure 17. Stone inventory of the site (Loci 2 and 3):1–6, 9, 10—points; 7, 8—knives; 11—sinker;
12—ornithozoomorphic image on a slab. ...................................................................................146
Figure 19. Figured artifacts (Loci 2 and 3): 1—mask, 2—polyiconic figure. ................................147
Figure 20. Ceramics (Loci 1 and 2). ..............................................................................................147
Figure 18. Spherical pebble with pecked image of a bird (Locus 3). ...........................................147
Figure 21. Ceramics (Loci 3 and 4). ..............................................................................................148
Figure 23. Complex composition with design contained in an oval. ...........................................148
Figure 22. Image of a dwelling. ...................................................................................................148
Figure 24. Graffiti with ‘mushroom’ design. ................................................................................149
Figure 27. Image of a two-stepped structure. .............................................................................149
Figure 25. Multi-tiered stepped composition. .............................................................................149
Figure 26. Stepped composition of incomplete form. .................................................................149
Figure 29. Fragment of graffiti with an image of the upper part of multi-stepped structure with
linear anthropomorphic images. .................................................................................................150
Figure 30. Three-tiered composition with an image of a ‘dwelling.’ ...........................................150
Figure 28. Image of a composite two-stepped structure. ...........................................................150
Figure 31. Image of a figure in the form of a truncated pyramid. ...............................................151
Figure 32. Image of an arrow in a complex composition.............................................................151
Figure 34. Image of ladder-like figures. .......................................................................................152
Figure 35. L-shaped figures in a complex composition (reverse of Figure 34). ...........................152
Figure 33. Linear images with the observance of symmetry. ......................................................152
Figure 36. Ladder-like figure on a stone knife. ............................................................................153
Figure 38. Complex composition with shaded figures.................................................................153
Figure 37. Composition with a shaded triangle. ..........................................................................153
Figure 39. Fragments with linear images: a—photo, b—drawing. ..............................................154
Figure 40. Graffiti with a chain of four rectangles. ......................................................................154
Figure 41. Graffiti (fragment?) with a chain of two rectangles. ...................................................155
Figure 43. Fragments of slabs with engraved H-like symbol: a—photo, b—drawing. .................155
Figure 42. Fragments of graffiti with zigzag-like figures and slanting cross. ................................155
Figure 44. Graffiti with an image of geometric figures. ...............................................................155
Figure 45. Composition with an image of a tree. ........................................................................156
Figure 47. Image of a dwelling-like structure. .............................................................................156
Figure 46. Composition with an image of a ladder-like figure and a shaded triangle. ................156
Figure 48. Fragment of graffiti with a bored hole. ......................................................................156
Figure 49. Fragment of graffiti with an image of straight and arc-like lines. ...............................157
Figure 51. Bas-relief image with an H-shaped symbol. ...............................................................157
Figure 52. Fragment of graffiti with rounded (ground) edge: a—photo, ....................................157
Figure 50. Fragment of graffiti with a zoomorphic image in a complex composition. ................157
Figure 53. Image of a mushroom ................................................................................................158
Figure 55. Image of anthropomorphic figures with mushrooms in the Pegtymel’ petroglyphs
(Chukotka) (a), and a sculpture of a human-mushroom from Guatemala (b). ............................158
Figure 54. Photo of an ossuary from Turkmenistan with an image of a mushroom ...................158
(after A. A. Burkhanov). ...............................................................................................................158
Figure 56. Image of anthropozoomorphic figures (petroglyph, Algeria). ....................................159
Figure 57. Table with tamgi-like symbols (based on materials of graffiti from the Rauchuvagytgyn I
site). .............................................................................................................................................159
Figure 59. Fragments of graffiti from the Rauchuvagytgyn I site with chaotic linear images. .....160
Figure 58. Image on birch bark (Yakutia). ....................................................................................160

Translator’s Introduction
This book was originally published as Zagadochnyi mir drevnikh grafitti
(Magadan: Kordis, 2012).
A number of words, particularly names, have to be brought into English from
Russian. How is this done? Every translation, and particularly from Russian to
English, has the problem of finding a suitable form of transliteration. None of
the three systems available (U.S. Board of Geographic Names [BGN], Library of
Congress [LOC], or ‘Linguistic’ system [Ling]) was felt to be entirely adequate.
I have therefore created my own system. In this I use some of the BGN system
with a slightly modified version of the LOC. For example, the Russian ‘e’ (‘ye’ of
BGN) is written as ‘e,’ following LOC. The Russian ‘ë’ is also written as ‘e’ (not
as ‘yo’), following Ling. The Russian ‘э’ is written as ‘e,’ following BGN. Both
the Russian ‘и’ and the ‘й’ are transliterated as ‘i,’ unlike any of the three systems.
The Russian ‘ю’ and ‘я’ are written as ‘yu’ and ‘ya’ respectively, following
the BGN. The Russian soft sign, which is often dropped in transliterations or
replaced with an ‘i,’ is retained here as an apostrophe, following BGN. In this
case, I transliterate the archaeologist’s name Кирьяк as ‘Kir’yak’ rather than
‘Kiryak’ or ‘Kiriyak’ or even ‘Kirijak’—forms that can be found in the literature.
I have also settled, as much as possible, on one ending for words, as the English
language dictates, rather than providing the appropriate ending (masculine,
feminine, neuter, plural/nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental,
prepositional) that can occur in Russian. And having 24 possible grammatical
endings is not the end of it. In the masculine nominative, for a name ending in
‘-sky’ there are at least five possible endings that can be found in English (‘-sky,’
‘-skiy,’ ‘-skij,’ ‘-skii,’ ‘-ski’). In addition, there are aberrant spellings that have
been accepted in the literature. For example, Wrangell instead of the Russian
Vrangel’ has already been adopted in English. Some names are ‘semi-formalized’
in English. For names that do not have an accepted English form I have used my
system above for transliterating. All this in no way exhausts the possibilities and
problems the translator faces, but rather it provides a notion of the difficulties
attendant upon any translation project.
Why do I not pick one system or another? All three systems (BGN, LOC, and
Linguistic) use diacritics, or something similar, making library searches difficult.
The BGN uses an umlauted e (ë); the Linguistic system uses a number of
diacritics, such as č, š, ž, and others; and the LOC, most problematic, uses an arc
between some pairs of letters, such as t͡s, i͡a, and i͡u. All the letters in my system
are standard Roman letters that can be typed into library search engines.
v
The term ‘graffiti’ in this work tends to refer to those items that contain examples
of intentional marking by humans, without implying that the markings were done
illicitly.
I hope the explanation of my method will aid the reader, especially if he or she
should want to go back from English to Cyrillic, and I apologize to all whose
names I have unintentionally ‘corrupted.’
I would like to thank Anna Gokhman for reviewing the translation for
mistranslations and Nan Coppock for helping with all aspects of the translation.
Most of all I must thank Dr Margarita Aleksandrovna Kir’yak (Dikova) for
permitting her important work to be published in English.
vi
Preface
The idea of a monographic description of a most interesting site arose in 2011 as a
consequence of monitoring the territories lying around Lake Rauchuvagytgyn in
northern Chukotka, 30 years after its discovery. The uniqueness of this historical
monument consists of the material complex of a site containing a representative
block of graphic miniatures on slate slabs, small pebbles, and lamellar stones.
In the assemblage of representational artifacts, as if on a mosaic canvas, before
us appears an enigmatic spiritual world of the ancient occupants of these places,
a world forever gone and lost for us. Recognizing that to hear their voices, even
through an attempt at ‘reading’ these stone documents, is impossible, I tried to
understand the expanse of their spiritual interests, relying on the inexhaustible
heritage of traditional cultures.
I am grateful to the traveling companions of the field trip of 2011, Nikolai Korav’e
and Ivan Vukvukai, for the outstanding photographs depicting the legendary lake
and its vicinity. I express deep gratitude to a staff member of the Laboratory of
Interdisciplinary Study of Chukotka V. N. Nuvano for aid in the technical design
of this monograph.
M. A. Kir’yak (Dikova)
vii