Although still relatively little known in the west, a sea of scholarship n the Russian language exists that is devoted to the ancient monuments, rock art sanctuaries and pictorial traditions of Eurasia. The Journal ‘Archaeology & Anthropology of Eurasia’ is one of the few existing windows onto this fascinating world in the English language.

With this material, the challenges for the editor are many: reference material in the English language is almost non-existent; terminology is sometimes confusing: scenes of predator and prey often occur in English translations rendered by a non-native speaker as ‘scenes of torture,’ whereas the correct expression is ‘predation scenes’. And yet images of ‘deer standing on tiptoe’ and ‘tigers biting their own tails’ is quite correct.

Reading about these monuments, especially rock art sanctuaries in Eurasia, it is impossible to remain unmoved by the sadness of the cultural tragedy taking place - despite the weighty scholarship on the subject, there are few preservation systems in place, and with the rapid development of unmanaged tourism, especially in the Russian Altai, rock art sanctuaries are being vandalised as well as removed from the landscape for sale on the black market. In addition, climate change brings into question the future preservation of Scythian frozen tomb burials.

The photographs below were taken whilst interpreting on behalf of local custodians at ‘Kalbak-Tash’ rock art sanctuary in the Altai Republic.

See ‘Deer Goddess’ gift card set inspired by deer compositions at Kalbak-Tash sanctuary (Altai) here.