Tash-Tulga archeological monument

Type
Monuments architecture
Location
Kochkor District

Our tours passing through Tash-Tulga archeological monument

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Valley, located in the Naryn region, attracts travelers not only by the unique Son-Köl Lake, but also by the ancient Sonkel archaeological site of Tash-Tulga, located on the south-eastern shore of the lake.

From the Kyrgyz language, Tash-Tulga means "stone hearth", and the term "Tulga" was called a tagan-tripod. The tripod-tulga was not only for cooking, but also it was a symbol of the maintenance of life, its continuation.

The "Tash-Tulga" complex consists of nine stone centers, built in a line with a length 200 meters from the north to the south. Each circle consists strictly of eight boulders with a diameter of more than one meter, and you can find there stone stelae.

In the archaeological literature, such structures were called "eight-stone" memorial fences. As a rule, memorial monuments of this type are large in size; the diameter of the stone rings reaches 7 meters. The massive boulders were chosen for the construction, brought from afar. Each stone circle had to consist strictly of eight stones. The first explorer of the eight-stone Tash-Tulga was the American scientist Rafael Pampelli.  In 1903 he visited the Sonkel Valley, and made some descriptions of the ancient monument.

The Tash-Tulga archaeological monument is a vivid example of spiritual culture development among the ancient nomadic tribes of the T'ang Shan I thousand BC. Similar monuments were discovered in Tuva, Gorny Altai, Western Mongolia and Central Kazakhstan. According to the researchers, there is some assumption that the ring calculations surrounding the mounds and the eight-stone memorial fences in Central and Inner Tan-Shan were introduced from the eastern regions of Central Asia, which indicates the existence of close cultural relations between the ancient nomads of all Central Asia.

The memorials called kereksur (hereksur), which in Mongolian means «Kyrgyz nests " which  are similar with the memorial monuments of kyrgyz people were found on the territory of Transbaikalia, Tuva, Altai, and Western Mongolia. Where funeral ceremonies and sacrifices were held. In the Kyrgyz heroic epic "Manas", the eight cottages of Tash-Tulga are mentioned as the place where magnificent commemoration was held, in honor of one fellow soldier of the legendary Manas hero. Thus, since ancient times, Kyrgyz people consider memorial monuments as a sacred place with a special energy that has had a beneficial effect on a person. However, there is a popular belief among the kyrgyz people that if a person befoul these sacred places him/her will get into a trouble, that’s why the Kyrgyz behave extremely respectfully, being near these ancient monuments.