THE JOINT MONACO-MONGOLIAN “TSATSYN EREG” ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXPEDITION

Jérôme Magail, Pierre-Yves Milcent, Fabrice Laudrin, Jean François Bussiere, Chimiddorzh Erööl-Erdene, Zham’ian-Ombo Gantulga,

Rinchinkhorloo Munkhtulga, Makhbal Tsengel

Introduction

This paper presents the results of the initial stage of our studies at the site Tsatsyn Ereg. The Mongolian side, the Institute of Archaeology of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences, has im-plemented the project in cooperation with the Museum of Prehistoric Anthropology of Mona-co, the Archaeology and History Research Unit of the University of Toulouse and the Centre of European Archaeology in Bibracte.

In the year 2006, a team of the joint Monaco-Mongolian “Tsatsyn Ereg” archaeological expedition has started its fi eldwork at the eponymous site in the area of Ikhtamir sum of Arkhangai aimag (Fig. 1). A hill of granite rocks called Tsatsyn Ereg is situated 24 km north of the centre of Ikhtamir (Fig. 2). Its location is 47° 45’ 54.0” N, 101° 23’ 21.2” E, and 1,550 m above sea level. The south slope is formed by sediments accumulated as part of a high ravine to the north bank of Khoid Tamir River. The slope Tsatsyn Ereg is very rich in deer stone statues, slab burials and khirigsuurs dating to the Bronze Age. The total area of these scattered archaeological remains is 3 km in length and 1 km in width.

Bibliographical Review

Firstly, in the late 1960s a joint Mongolian-Soviet historic-cultural expedition conducted a short-term survey at the site of Tsatsyn Ereg and V. V. Volkov, a member of the expedition, described all deer stone statues situated at the site (Volkov 1967). After that, a joint Mongolian-Hungarian archaeological expedition carried out a survey around Tsatsyn Ereg in the year 1974 (Erdélyi / Tseveendorzh 1977). In 1981 V. V. Volkov described a total of thirteen deer stone statues and published their plans and drawings (Volkov 1981, 22–23 Tab. 5,1; 8,1–3; 9–11; 12,1–4). D. Tseveendorzh published those deer stone statues in his article “Some Stone Statues found in Mongolia” in the year 1979 and twenty years later in his work “History of Mongolian Prehistorical Art” (Tseveendorzh 1979, 206–207 Pl. 7–16; 1999, 12–14).

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Fig 1. Location of the site of Tsatsyn Ereg.

Fig 2. Tsats Tolgoi and aristocratic tomb in foreground.

The joint Monaco-Mongolian “Tsatsyn Ereg” Archaeological Expedition 173

Fig 3. Remains belonging to Part A on the south slope of Tsats Tolgoi.

Fig 4. Some plans of the remains belonging to Part A at the site of Tsatsyn Ereg.

Fig 5. Tsatsyn Ereg. Paper stampage process of some deer stone statues of Part A.

174 Jérôme Magail et al.

Fig 6. Tsatsyn Ereg. Plan of a khirigsuur of Part A.

Fig 7. Tsatsyn Ereg. Process of taking aerographs.

Fig 8. Tsatsyn Ereg. Aerial photographs of some remains of Part A.

The joint Monaco-Mongolian “Tsatsyn Ereg” Archaeological Expedition 175

The joint Monaco-Mongolian Archaeological Expedition

We worked at the site of Tsatsyn Ereg for twenty days in June / July 2006 and for twenty-fi ve days in June / July 2007. During this time the team classifi ed the distribution of the historical remains into two parts, A and B. We drew plans of all of the remains, located the deer stone statues individually and made copies of them, took photographs from the air using fl ying arti-fi cial bird models, and took topographical measurements of them. In addition, we carried out plans of some signifi cant graves and khirigsuurs and conducted salvage excavations at some monuments destroyed by fl ood and roadways.

A total of 3,915 objects were located by means of a Garmin GPS in some parts of both areas A (Fig. 3–4) and B. In the former area 140 graves and khirigsuurs (Fig. 6) were documented at the end of localisation. We established that there are 38 deer stone statues at the site of Tsatsyn Ereg and in the valley of Baiantsagaan. Moreover, we inserted Garmin GPS locations of all the remains into “MapSource” software and documented plans of all the remains in Area A. In this part we copied one-sided images and inscriptions of some deer stone statues by making paper rubbings (Fig. 5) as well as four-sided images and inscriptions of most deer stone statues using plastic. We also drew plans of some khirigsuurs of particular structures.

In the summer of the year 2007 we successfully took aerial photographs of Part A remains by the means of the fl ying artifi cial bird model (Fig. 7–8). Topographical detailed measure-ments of about 500 sites were taken in the same area (Fig. 9–10).

Fig 9. Tsatsyn Ereg. Process of taking topographical measurements.

Fig 10. Process of taking topographical measurements of deer stone statues in a valley of Baiantsagaan.

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Excavations

Disturbed Grave: 2 / 3 of a grave mound, situated on the east bank of a ravine at the western foot of Tsats Tolgoi hill, was heavily disturbed by river fl ooding (Fig. 11). Therefore, we con-ducted a salvage excavation at the gravesite before its complete destruction (Fig. 12–13).

The mound of stones is 1.7 x 5.8 m. Three 1 x 1 m sized test pits were dug for horizontal pro-fi les in the 6 x 1.2 m excavation area. At the depth of 90 cm all three pits exposed a layer of pebbled soils. Now that the grave has proved to be completely destroyed, we stopped the research.

Ritual structure: The excavation site is located on the west slope of Tsats Tolgoi hill, where there are a total of hundred ritual structures, twenty of which are destroyed by automobile tracks. Since the structure is situated very close to the track it would have been very possibly destroyed, thus we conducted soon a salvage excavation (Fig. 14).

The structure, a circle of eight big stones with an average size of 20 x 25 x 30 cm, has a diam-eter of 1.7 m (Fig. 15; 17). At the depth of 10 cm we revealed some burnt animal bones in the centre of the presumably ritual structure (Fig. 16). We sampled some of them for dating analy-sis. Because of the appearance of the natural sediments at the depth of 25 cm we stopped the excavation and reconstructed the site.

Fig 11. Tsats Tolgoi. Excavation process of the grave destroyed by fl ood.

The joint Monaco-Mongolian “Tsatsyn Ereg” Archaeological Expedition 177

Fig 14. Tsats Tolgoi. Excavation process of the ritual structure.

Fig 12. Tsats Tolgoi. Plan of the grave destroyed.

Fig 13. Tsats Tolgoi. Profi le of the grave destroyed.

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Fig 15. Tsats Tolgoi. General view of the ritual structure.

Fig 16. Tsats Tolgoi. Artefacts of the ritual structure.

Fig 17. Tsats Tolgoi. Plan of the ritual structure.

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Petroglyphs

A rock art site is situated on the south slope of a hill of granite rocks stretching in a west–east direction north to the track for Ikhtamir sum, 4–5 km west to the site of Tsatsyn Ereg. Rock arts are distributed very sparsely into fi ve places, at the eastern end of which there are a number of petroglyphs. Images of the petroglyphs at the site of Tsatsyn Ereg are similar in style and scene to ones dating back to the Bronze and Early Iron Ages, but we encountered some particular images (Fig. 18–23). For instance, we would emphasize an image of a shield (Fig. 18) that occurs not on the surface of rock, but only on the deer stone statues. In addition, because there are many animal styled images of deer (Fig. 19; 22) on the deer stone statues at the site, we can place this rock art site around the same time as the deer stone statues.

Fig 18. Tsats Tolgoi. A shield image.

Fig 20. Tsats Tolgoi. Image of chariot.

Fig 19. Tsats Tolgoi. Animal styled image of deer.

Fig 21. Tsats Tolgoi. Images of life styles.

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New Deer Stone Statue

During the return to Ulaanbaatar in summer 2007 some team members of the joint expedition found a new deer stone statue 7–8 km south to the site of Tsatsyn Ereg on the way to Tsetserleg (Fig. 24–25). The location is N 45° 36’ 39.4”, E 101° 23’ 01.8”, 1,592 m above sea level.

Fig 22. Tsats Tolgoi. Images of deer and wild animals.

Fig 23. Tsats Tolgoi. Images of tamgas.

Fig 24. A newly found deer stone statue 7–8 km south of Tsatsyn Ereg.

Fig 25. A newly found deer stone statue 7–8 km south of Tsatsyn Ereg.

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Measurements of the statue fallen in the centre of its square enclosure are 2.3 m in length and 25 cm in width at each of its four sides. The top of the deer stone statue is human head shaped, but the inscription is unclear. This human face-shaped top is similar to the top of a statue situ-ated at the site of Uushgyn Övör in the area of Bürentogtokh sum of Khövsgöl aimag (Volkov 2002, 82 Tab. 79, Pl. 5).

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