An Old Turkic Statue at Borili, Ulytau Hills, Central Kazakhstan: Cultural Realia

An Old Turkic Statue at Borili, Ulytau Hills, Central Kazakhstan:
Cultural Realia

DOI: 10.17746/1563-0110.2016.44.4.102-113

L.N. Ermolenko¹, A.I. Soloviev², and Z.K. Kurmankulov^3
1Kemerovo State University, Krasnaya 6, Kemerovo, 650043, Russia
²Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Pr. Akademika Lavrentieva 17, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia
³A.K. Margulan Institute of Archaeology, Committee of Science of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Pr. Dostyk 44, Almaty, 050010, Kazakhstan

The article introduces a distinctive Old Turkic statue from Borili, discovered in the hills of Ulytau, Central Kazakhstan. It differs from other Old Turkic statues in that both arms are down, and the hands are on the weapons––a sword and a studded battleaxe, the latter replacing the traditional vessel. No exact matches of this sculpture are known. Only isolated traits (such as clothing style, weapons, and belt mountings) are paralleled by other Old Turkic specimens. Items shown on the Borili statue are similar to those relating to the Sogdian and Turkic traditions, and also those depicted in works of East Asian art from the time of the earliest states. Compositional features of the Borili statue could have been due to the sculptor’s acquaintance with the art of the neighboring regions, primarily that of Sogdiana and China, the latter being spatially closest. The distinctive features of the Borili statue prompt us to examine its semantics in several ways relating to the visual and emotional aspects of the funerary rite. On the basis of the artistic and material parallels, the statue dates to the 7th or early 8th centuries.

Keywords: Old Turkic statues, Central Kazakhstan, Sogdian art, China, bladed weapons, ring pommels, studded battleaxes