Zarautsoy Rock Paintings

Discovery

Zarautsoy is a gorge in the Kohitang mountains, a south-western spur of the Hisor Range, in Sherobod District about 100 km from Termez. A hunter, I. F. Lamayev, found the paintings in 1939 and told G. V. Parfyonov, director of the Surkhandarya regional museum, who studied and described them in detail in 1940–1945. A. Yu. Roginskaya, who took part in that work, published a book in 1950; A. A. Formozov studied the site in 1964, followed by other scholars. The gorge now lies within the Surkhan State Nature Reserve.

The paintings

The images are painted in red ochre over a limestone crust in rock overhangs, niches and small grottoes. Three groups of compositions are distinguished, all linked to hunting magic: hunters disguised as birds stalking wild bulls, a gazelle hunt with one animal struck by an arrow or dart, and a hunt for markhor-like goats. Animals are shown realistically in profile, people schematically in bell-shaped garments, some with bird heads. Between the hunters and the bull are tailed humanoid figures, perhaps mythical “masters of the animals” helping the hunt.

Everything is painted in a single medium, natural ochre in several shades, and the figures are 4–20 cm long. Scholars disagree on the date, but depictions of bows and domesticated dogs point to the Mesolithic or Neolithic rather than the Palaeolithic. There are later drawings too, and inscriptions in Arabic.