Petroglyphic Complexes of the Mongolian Altai
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How it came to be
The Petroglyphic Complexes of the Mongolian Altai are three sites of rock carvings and funerary monuments in Bayan-Ölgii Province, at the far western end of Mongolia. They are Tsagaan Salaa-Baga Oigor, Upper Tsagaan Gol and Aral Tolgoi, about 1,700 km west of the capital Ulaanbaatar. According to UNESCO the carvings record the development of culture in Mongolia over 12,000 years.
The earliest images date from about 11,000 to 6,000 BCE, when the area was partly forested and hunters of large game lived in the valley, and they show animals such as mammoths and rhinoceroses. Later images show the shift to herding, and those of the early first millennium BCE show a horse-dependent nomadic life. The most recent, from the Turkic period of the 7th and 8th centuries, include armed riders.
The Tsagaan Salaa rock art was placed on the Tentative List in 1996, the other two areas were added in 2009, and the nomination followed in 2010. ICOMOS recommended deferral, citing gaps in the systematic documentation of the rock art, but the 35th session of the World Heritage Committee inscribed the property in 2011. It was Mongolia's second cultural World Heritage site, after the Orkhon Valley Cultural Landscape.
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