Petroglyphs within the Archaeological Landscape of Arpauzen

Description

The Archaeological Landscape of Arpauzen is situated in the foothills of the eastern slope of Prisyrdarya Karatau Mountains. It is located in 30 km west from the station of Sholakkorgan (centre of the district) and 3 km south-west from the village of Abai.

Arpauzen is a complex of around 130 archaeological sites (20 ancient settlements, more than 80 burial grounds and 30 concentrations of petroglyphs) covering the area of 37,5 km and dated by the period from the Bronze Age to the beginning of the XX century.

The property includes more than 5000 petroglyphs or rock carvings in total, which is the largest and the brightest concentration of petroglyphs in the Southern Kazakhstan. The earliest petroglyphs correspond to the first half of the second millennia BC. The style of the rock carvings of the Late Bronze Age is similar to those from the Zhetysu Region (for example the chariots pulled by horses and bulls).

Justification of Outstanding Universal Value

The property represents an important testimony of the cultural and daily life of the people inhabiting and crossing the local steppe and semi-desert areas during the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age. Their stylistic analysis compared with the other rock carving sites gives the information on the centres of formation and the ways of diffusion of the pastoralist culture of the steppe and on their exchanges with the sedentary centres on the south.

The Outstanding Universal Value of Arpauzen consists of the indivisible composition of the rock carvings that gives the information on the genesis and formation of the local cultures, each of which inherited something from the previous periods.

Criterion (ii): Arpauzen is a bright visual example of interchange between the communities occupying the areas of the steppe on the north and Central Asian Region on the south. One of the series of the rock carvings of Arpauzen includes the similar images of the animals (camels, horses and bulls) to those from the western part of the Saryarka Uplands (Baikonur and Terekty-Aulie). They represent the process of movement of the Andronovo tribes from Central Kazakhstan towards the south and the oases of Central Asia in the middle of the II century BC.

Criterion (iii): Arpauzen is a unique manifestation of the cultural traditions of the Central Asian communities of the past. The main characters of the most ancient petroglyphs are the Bactrian camels and kulans followed by the horses, bucks, wild boars, goats, dogs and birds with the long legs. Among them, there are also anthropomorphous characters (hunters and warriors), as well as the four-wheel chariots pulled by horses and camels. The drawings of the men and animals were elegantly made in the way to reproduce the three-dimensional models on the two-dimensional surface. It makes them look unnatural in comparison to other rock carving sites of the region and requires the need to search the similarity with other ancient cultures of the Central Asian and neighbouring territories.

Statements of authenticity and/or integrity

Authenticity

Arpauzen demonstrates a high level of authenticity. From the general point of view, the local archaeological landscape and its component archaeological sites (including the petroglyphs) remained in the good state of conservation. However, the detailed studies of the site at the beginning of the 2000s have shown the traces of intentional detachment of the rocks and the rock carvings made in the near past. The traces of previous archaeological interventions are almost invisible in the general landscape. The absence of the modern auto-roads and major economic activities on the territory of the property also positively contribute to the state of the authenticity of its landscape.

As a result, Arpauzen conserved the historical authenticity of its cultural and archaeological landscape as the manifestation of the rock carving art tradition, and its historical role of the cult centre for local communities.

Integrity

The main element that manifests the integrity of Arpauzen is the composition of the petroglyphs from the different historical periods from the Early Bronze Age to Middle Ages and even to the beginning of the XX century. Together with other archaeological components, they form a single cultural complex. Recently started studies of the property have shown numerous rock carvings of different periods that provide the information on daily life and the perception of the world by the local communities.

Such natural forms of the negative impact as erosion, penetration of the water in the rocks and layering of the natural ground represent the main danger for the state of integrity of the site. These factors are aggravated by the harsh continental climate and a very high range of temperature drops. At the same time, the uncontrolled visits and graffiti-making represent the highest anthropogenic danger for the integrity of the site.

Comparison with other similar properties

On the national level Arpauzen is going to be compared with three other rock carving properties simultaneously proposed for the inclusion and remaining in the Tentative World Heritage List of the Republic of Kazakhstan (petroglyphs within the archaeological landscapes of Eshkiolmes, Kulzhabasy and Sauyskandyk), as well as with one national rock carving property already inscribed in the World Heritage List in 2004 (Petroglyphs within the Archaeological Landscape of Tamgaly). All of them are located on the territory of two geographic areas: Zhetysu (Eshkiolmes, Kulzhabasy and Tamgaly) and southern Kazakhstan (Arpauzen and Sauyskandyk).

All five previously-mentioned petroglyphs sites on the territory of the Republic of Kazakhstan (Arpauzen, Eshkiolmes, Kulzhabasy, Tamgaly and Sauyskandyk) demonstrate numerous similarities: the same vegetation, and wild and domesticated animals (apart from the Bactrian camels more characteristic to the southern Kazakhstan); belonging of the rock carvings to the same long period of time from the Early Iron Age to the beginning of the XX century; the same complex of various archaeological sites (burial grounds, ancient settlements and ancient traditional dwellings) on the same area as the petroglyphs; and the same interpretation of the properties as the sacral and cult areas by the local communities of the past. In this way, all of them are the exceptional testimonies of the disappeared civilizations and cultures that generally left very few written sources on them, which makes them conform to the criterion (iii).

However, the territories of Arpauzen and Sauyskandyk were historically situated on the borders of the steppe regions of central Kazakhstan populated by the nomadic communities and the agricultural regions of Central Asia occupied by the sedentary communities. As the result, these cultural heritage sites demonstrate the evolution of interchanges between the local nomadic and sedentary communities with a very different tangible culture, which makes them both conform also to the criterion (ii).

In summary, all five reviewed petroglyph sites can be theoretically combined into one serial property of the rock art sites under the criterion (iii). As the Tentative World Heritage Lists of other Central Asian countries also includes several petroglyph sites (for example Saimaly-Tash on the territory of Kyrgyz Republic, and Sarmishsay on the territory of the Republic of Uzbekistan), the international decision making and scientific community can eventually consider a serial transnational nomination of the Central Asian rock art for World Heritage List.

On the international level, typologically the most resembling site to Arpauzen and other rock carving sites of Kazakhstan is the Petroglyphic Complexes of the Mongolian Altai inscribed in the World Heritage List in 2011 under the criterion (iii).

As Arpauzen, the Mongolian petroglyph complexes are also located in the isolated areas, represent the remains of cultural traditions of a long period of time and were used for the funerary and ritual purposes by the later communities. However, in the case of Mongolian property, the earliest rock carvings were dated by the period of Late Pleistocene. It means that it is much older than Arpauzen and other rock art sites of Kazakhstan. It explains the difference of the vegetation and the wildlife shown on the petroglyphs (for example the presence of the mammoths, rhinoceros, and ostriches on the Petroglyphic Complexes of the Mongolian Altai). Finally, the compared site wasn’t inscribed in the List under the criterion № (ii), as it wasn’t situated on the territory of constant exchange between the sedentary and nomadic communities as Arpauzen.

At the end of this short comparative analysis, it is worth to mention that all mentioned rock carving sites in Kazakhstan, Central Asian countries and Mongolia are potentially exposed to the same negative natural and anthropogenic impacts. As for the natural negative impacts, it is the soil erosion, water penetration and layering of the natural ground all coming from the fact that these properties are situated in the countries with the continental climate and serious daily and periodical changes of temperature. As for the anthropogenic negative impacts, the highest danger for the petroglyphs represents the uncontrolled tourists and site visitors that can seriously damage the historical rock carvings by leaving their signatures on top of them.