World Heritage Identification Number: 1145
World Heritage since: 2004
Category: Cultural Heritage
Transboundary Heritage: No
Endangered Heritage: No
Country: 🇰🇿 Kazakhstan
Continent: Asia
UNESCO World Region: Asia and the Pacific
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Exploring the Petroglyphs of the Archaeological Landscape of Tanbaly: A Journey Through Time
The Petroglyphs of the Archaeological Landscape of Tanbaly, inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004, offer a unique glimpse into the rich history and cultural practices of pastoral societies that once inhabited the region now known as Kazakhstan. Situated within the verdant Tanbaly Gorge, nestled amidst the expansive, arid Chu-Ili mountains, this remarkable site boasts over 5,000 petroglyphs, or rock carvings, spanning from the second half of the second millennium BC to the beginning of the 20th century.
More to come…UNESCO Description of the World Heritage Site
Set around the lush Tanbaly Gorge, amidst the vast, arid Chu-Ili mountains, is a remarkable concentration of some 5,000 petroglyphs (rock carvings) dating from the second half of the second millennium BC to the beginning of the 20th century. Distributed among 48 complexes with associated settlements and burial grounds, they are testimonies to the husbandry, social organization and rituals of pastoral peoples. Human settlements in the site are often multilayered and show occupation through the ages. A huge number of ancient tombs are also to be found including stone enclosures with boxes and cists (middle and late Bronze Age), and mounds (kurgans) of stone and earth (early Iron Age to the present). The central canyon contains the densest concentration of engravings and what are believed to be altars, suggesting that these places were used for sacrificial offerings.
UNESCO Justification of the World Heritage Site
Criterion (iii): The dense and coherent group of petroglyphs, with sacred images, altars and cult areas, together with their associated settlements and burial sites, provide a substantial testimony to the lives and beliefs of pastoral peoples of the central Asian steppes from the Bronze Age to the present day.
Encyclopedia Record: Tanbaly
Tamgaly is a petroglyph site in the Zhetysu of Kazakhstan. Tamgaly became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004. Tamgaly is located 170 km northwest of Almaty.Additional Site Details
Area: 900 hectares
Coordinates: 43.80333333 , 75.535
