Pegtymel is a nature site located in the town district of Pevek in lowlands of Pegtymel river, in area of Keingynei mountain massif (614 meters). Pegtymel’s petroglyphs (or rock paintings) are monument of ancient culture of Chukotka in later neolith (1 ^st millennium BC). They were engraved on the rocks of a right bank of Pegtymel river, on about half-kilometer length of the Kaikuul cliff. At all, there are 104 groups of silhouette paintings on 12 rocks. The paintings are depicting the scenes of hunting of ancient people on northern deer, there exist also pictures of the grazing deer. The petroglyphs are under secure as a monument of the ancient culture [5].

The petroglyphs were discovered accidentally. In the late of August of 1965, Nikolai Samorukov, the geologist, flew down the river in a boat. He stayed along the cliff to split off some rocks. He ordered to a worker who was accompanying to him to fix the boat. Then he got up through the thick thickets of tallow to the rocks. He saw that all the surface of stones was densely covered by the plenty of pictures [4].

The further discoverings in the territory of Pegtymel are connected with the name of the researcher Nikolai N. Dikov. In 1955, he became the director of the Chukotka local lore museum. In 1956–1959, he has maintained big archaeological researches of Chukotka. As a result, there was discovering of many Neolithic sites. These studies let to Dikov to put forward a hypothesis about Chukotka’s settlement in Paleolithic period. In 1960s, he continued to study Kamchatka and Chukotka [1]. In particularity, in 1967–1968, the expedition discovered in Pegtymel 103 painted compositions [6].

From 1967 to 1986, in the Chaunski district on the Pegtymel river, scientifical and researching works were held. After that, there was some kind of decline. But towards the late of 1990s, the interest to the rock paintings of ancient people got higher again. The new expeditions discovered new rock pictures. The photo- and the graphical fixations were held, the petroglyphs’ technic was studied [2].

In 2005, in 40 years after discovering of the Pegtymel petroglyphs, the scientists held new researches. The photo fixation and the estampages were executed. More than that, the polymeric copies have been made from the most interesting pictures. The specialists of the Institute of Archaeology of Russian Academy of Sciences, of the State Hermitage, of the State Institute of Restauration, and of the Kemerovo State University were among the participants of the expedition. The works were held within the framework of the project of the Russian Fund of the Fundamental Studies. As a result of the works, about 170 compositions and lone figures until that unexplored were discovered. The plots of some of newly discovered paintings have no analogs with the paintings that were acknowledged on this site before. For example, at first depictions of archers, of deer with solar symbol on a body, and, supposedly, of a home were found [6].

The basic plots of the Pegtymel petroglyphs are specific way of hunting on deer during their river trip, and sea hunting. A typically hunting plot repeats more often. A hunter in a small boat hits with a spear or with a harpoon huge wild deer in it. As a result of new studies, a number of plots that earlier were unique got bigger. For example, the number of scenes with hunting on a bear with a fork has increased [6].

There are anthropomorphic, predominantly feminine paintings of quite mysterious form in Pegtymel. They are more than 30 ones. They are accompanied by huge mushrooms. The mushroom-shaped contours above the dancing human figures mean just mushrooms, not hairdresses or hats, as it seems from the first sight. Sometimes they placed instead the head of human painting. Monsterous mushrooms are fly agarics. They have their own sense, and they are correlated with human figures only symbolically. In a far distance of that gallery a petroglyph was found with a toadstool depicted between a boat and a whale, at that the mushroom on the picture is as big as a whale. In the Arctic, it is not wonderfully to meet such a symbol. The red fly agarics and other hat mushrooms live and reproduce here. One of the rivers of Transpolar Chukotka even has the name Mukhomornaya (or, Fly Agaric River). Although the fly agarics appear rarely in the Arctic Basin, their cultural meaning reliably established by the ethnographers. In at not very past time people used it here as a drug. The unity of the mushroom with a human figure is also not unprecedented. We can see just that anthropomorphic hallucinogenic mushrooms in a stone sculpture of the Mayas in pre-Classical and Classical periods. So, this principle correlates to the famous general pattern of the anthropomorphization of the flora and the fauna in different peoples [3, p.p. 39–40; 6].

In 2008, the specialists under supervision of Ye. G. Devlet held the aprobation of the emergency and the rescuing methodics in relation to the petroglyphs in their natural conditions. But on the monument many rocks with the petroglyphs are in the emergency condition today. At the present moment, the copies have been made from all the surfaces with the petroglyphs. But the condition of the originals is disasterous. The rocky surfaces are collapsing. Many of the surfaces are overgrowing with lichen. The birds’ nesting is leading to the rocks’ pollution. The anthropogenic influence is also a serious problem today. It is sometimes just a vandalism. The people often put inscriptions next to the petroglyphs, and they try to do their own rock paintings in the technics of ancient people. In the recent time, this process got worse because it is easier to get to Pegtymel neither earlier. If earlier we could get here only in the all-terrain vehicle (ATV), now it’s possible to get in a shift work machine because some rivers in tundra shallowed and dried up.

It’s important to say that the object has many names. In the State Cadaster of the Real Estate it signifies as,,Archaeological Complex ,,Pegtymel’ski,, In April of 2015, by the Order of the Culture Ministry of the Russian Federation, the object ,,Rock Paintings of the Chukotski Autonomous District,, was inregistered in the United State Register of the objects of cultural legacy (or, monuments of history and of culture) of the Russion Federation’s peoples. It was the special number that was granted to the monument. The Department of Culture and of Youth Politics of the Chukotski autonomous district did a big work for the preparing and the submission of general pocket of the documents for the including of the petroglyphs in the Preliminary List of the Subjects of the UNESCO Universal Legacy [2].

From this article, we can make some conclusions. Pegtymel is the nature’s monument in the Chukotski autonomous district, Russia, that was discovered in 1965. N. Dikov played a big role in its exploration. The main theme in the Pegtymel petroglyphs is hunting. Among the paintings also there are a lot of pictures with fly agarics above the head or instead the head of humans. In the present time, the significant part of the monument is in the emergency condition. The Pegtymel petroglyphs are the cultural legacy object.

References:

1. Dikov, Nikolai Nikolayevich — Wikipedia (in Russian). [Electronic source]: URL:https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Диков,_Николай_Николаевич.
2. Dobriyeva, S. Petroglifam Pegtymelya ugrozhayut vandaly. Obshchestvenno-politicheskaya Gazeta ,,Krainiy Sever,, (in Russian). The vandals are threatening to the Pegtymel petroglyphs. Socio-political newspaper ,,The Farest North,, [Electronic source]: URL: https://www.ks87.ru/82/4849.html.
3. Istoriya Chukotki s drevneyshih vremyon do nashih dney / Pod rukovodstvom i obshchey nauchnoy redaktsiyei N. N. Dikova. — Moscow: Mysl’, 1989. — 492 (1) str. (in Russian). The history of Chukotka from the most ancient times to nowadays / Under the supervision and general scientifical redaction of N. Dikov. — Moscow: Mysl’, 1989. — 492 (1) p.
4. Ovtsebyki v naskal’nyh risunkah drevnih lyudei. Neopoznannyye obrazy petroglifov reki Pegtymel’: pro ovtsebykov i antropomorfnyh sushchestv (in Russian). The musk oxes in the rock paintings of the ancient people. The unidentified images of the Pegtymel river petroglyphs: about the musk oxes and the anthropomorphic creatures. [Electronic source]: URL: http://www.овцебык.рф/i-chelovek/ovcebyki-i-antropomorfnye-sushchestva-na-petroglifah-reki-pegtymel.
5. Pegtymel’skiy. Osobo ohranyayemyye prirodnyye territorii Rossii (in Russian). Pegtymelski. Especially secured natural territories of Russia [Electronic source]: URL: http://www.oopt.aari.ru/oopt/Пегтымельский.
6. Prirodno-istoricheskiy pamyatnik,,Pegtymel’skiy,,. Botanicheskiy sad — Institut DVO RAN (in Russian). Natural — historical monument ,,Pegtymelski,, Botanical garden — Institution of the Far-Eastern Department of the Russian Academy of Sciences. [Electronic source]: https://web.archive.org/web/20160527065350/http:/botsad.ru/menu/activity/issledovaniya/granty/rastitelnyj-mir-oopt-chukotki/prirodno-istoricheskiy-pamyatnik-pegtymelskiy/.