Esther Jacobson-Tepfer, Cultural Riddles: Stylized Deer and Deer
Stones of the Mongolian Altai
Deer stone of Mongolian type (Type 1),
Ushkiin-Uver. Hövgöl aimag, Mongolia.
This paper examines the image of a stylized deer of the late Bronze and
early
Iron Ages in Mongolia and adjoining regions. This image is
associated
primarily with a particular kind of standing stone known as "deer
stone"
found in the Transbaikal and northern Mongolia. In fact,
the
Mongolian deer stone is only one of several so-called deer stone types
of
that period, and the stylized deer image itself existed independently,
and
vigorously, across Mongolia but most particularly in rock art of
the
Altai Mountains. An examination of the deer image pecked into the
surfaces
of erratic boulders and bedrock complicates traditional understandings
of
the evolution and significance of all deer stone typologies. It
is
evident that in the case of the Altai representations, image meaning
seems
to point in cultural directions rather different from those
hitherto
associated with the generic deer stone.
