The land of Kyrgyzstan holds many places that are at once fascinating and mysterious. Among them are sites whose original meaning remains unexplained to this day. One of them is the Saimaluu-Tash petroglyph gallery. It lies in the Toguz-Toro district of Jalal-Abad region, at an altitude of 3,200–3,400 metres above sea level. It covers roughly 7–10 hectares and is 200 kilometres from the regional centre. Saimaluu-Tash is considered one of the largest petroglyph galleries in the world. The meaning of some of the marks cut into hundreds of open-air stones is hard to grasp. Yet the outlines of animals and people, along with other symbols, reflect the daily life and culture of the Kyrgyz of that era and their understanding of society and nature. According to historians, the inscriptions, signs and drawings on the stones were carved 7,000–10,000 years ago.
History
