Photo tour to Turgai geoglyphs.
The Turgai Trough is a territory outlined from the west by the spurs of the South Ural Mountains, from the east by the Kazakh Upland and by the spurs of the Ulutau Mountains, in the north the trough merges with the West Siberian Lowland, in the south it passes into the Shalkar-Teniz depression.
How to find Turgai geoglyphs.
The term "geoglyph" is a drawing created in relief on the ground. This concept began to be used to describe the giant drawings, lines and geometric shapes known as the Nazca geoglyphs of South America. Due to the lack of monuments in the archeology of the Eurasian steppes, similar to the Turgai sites, the authors originally used the term "geoglyph" to denote the huge man-made geometric figures of Turgai. As the data accumulated, the authors came to the conclusion that the term "geoglyph" does not reflect the essence of the Turgai objects and their functional purpose, and can be used in relation to these objects only conditionally, therefore the term "geometric earthworks" was used in the English-language work.
Turgai geoglyphs tourist information.
For the first time, information about the objects that later received the name "Torgai geoglyphs" was obtained at the general meeting of the Orenburg Scientific Archival Commission in 1909 in the report of B.A. Skalov, whose message is given in the work of I.A. Castanie "Antiquities of the Kyrgyz steppe and Orenburg region". Later, these objects did not attract the proper attention of researchers. The situation has changed at the present time, when aerial and space images have become publicly available. As a result of studying space images available in the Google Earth program, in 2007. D. Day found a number of geometric objects consisting of barrow-like mounds. Employees of the laboratory of archaeological research of Kostanay State University and the Turgai archaeological expedition carried out work on the discovery and fixation of this type of monuments.
Geoglyphs of Turgai - discovery and alleged origin.
Total for the period 2007-2016. 84 "geoglyphs" were found during the study of satellite images, 61 of them were visited and recorded in accordance with the method of field research. The objects under consideration are located relatively compactly within the Turgai trough at high points and have large (32-680 m) sizes and geometric shapes. The monuments were built from barrow-like mounds (59) and ramparts. "Geoglyphs" made of ramparts are represented by one type - "swastika".
Travel to Geoglyphs of Turgai.
In the group of "geoglyphs" built from mound-like embankments, the following are distinguished in shape: "line", "cross", "square", "ring". Archaeological excavations were undertaken on one of the embankments of the Ushtogai square (2007) and the Small Ashutasta cross (2013). In addition, the geophysical method was used at the facilities. A review of analogies, data from OSL and AMS analyzes make it possible to preliminarily classify the Turgai "geoglyphs" as ritual and sacred objects that existed in the period between the final Bronze Age and the first centuries of our era. At the moment there are no grounds for using such a term as "geoglyph", since it does not reflect the essence of the Turgai objects and their functional purpose. In our opinion, it would be more accurate to call these objects ritual complexes, since, most likely, they belong to the sacred sphere of man.
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