Abstract

The article deals with the images of horses and “horse-like” animals on items from the archaeological sites of the Tagar culture, as well as from the sites of the same period from neighbouring regions (Tuva and Tomsk region), represented in this work as fully as possible. A historiographic review of the research topic has revealed the lack of stylistic analysis of the image of a horse in Tagar art that would take into account all the up-to-date data. This study purpose is to fill the gap. It involves the images published in literature, as well as the objects studied and sketched by the author directly in the funds of the State Historical Museum and the Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences. These images are not numerous, but quite stylistically diverse and made on a wide variety of items. It should be noted that most of the samples belong to the category of random finds, and the “horse-like” images noticeably prevail over the ones of horses. The article is an attempt at systematization and stylistic analysis of the images that were divided into two large categories (fullfigure and reduced representations) with further identification of groups and types within each category. The analysis allows new interpretations of already known images, previously correlated with the horse representation. It also allows revealing the dynamics of the development of the horse image in Tagar art. The two chronological stylistic groups of images, very shortly overlapping, have been distinguished. The early group is performed in the “Minusinsk style” (related to the Karasuk pictorial tradition), and the later one is represented by the “Altai style” images. Their analysis allows to conclude that stylistic changes in Tagar art were linked with the penetration of new ethnic groups into the Minusinsk hollow. In general, the influence of horse-breeding culture on the life of the settled Tagar population is quite noticeable..