A new rock burial on Tepsey

Abstract

When documenting petroglyphs, researchers often have to deal with cases of damage to the rock surface on which the drawing were made. For various reasons, entire fragments of images may often get detached and lost, yet sometimes they can be found in the screes directly under the rock with drawings. When examining one of such screes of stones mixed with the soil washed up from the upper tiers of the rock mass in the Volchiy Log of Mount Tepsei (Krasnoturansky district of Krasnoyarsk Kray), a new rock burial was accidentally discovered: the skull was located on a stone slab, the anatomical nature of the bones was disturbed as they were mixed with soil and stone fractions; no accompanying grave goods were found. Due to recurrent exposure to drain water, the back of the skull had turned white, thinned and fell in. The skull was filled with soil. Some of the bones had been moved away by water or by animals: they were located at a distance from the tomb. The skull and bones had been covered with stone slabs, which were removed during the clearing. Experts from Novosibirsk used the radiocarbon method to discover the skull dating back to the late Middle Ages. This is the third rock tomb discovered in this microdistrict so far; in total, 22 rock burials have been discovered in the Khakass-Minusinsk basin, three of them were found next to the rocks with drawings, all three dating to the Middle Ages. It is not unlikely that a rite of burying in ancient sacred places existed in the Minusinsk Basin during that period of time: in any case, both Shalabolino Pisanitsa and Tepsei are the places where the tradition of honoring the mountains had developed in ancient times.