Cultic Stones and Megalith Constructions of the Ural region

Abstract

The usage of megaliths in cultic life of ancient people is well known in different territories. The Ural region is a mountainous territory, which is why different stone objects - mountains, rocks, caves, stones and its groups - often were the objects of worship. Megalithic objects like rocks, cliffs, boulders and groups of them, both natural and artificial, invoke special interest. Rocks of bizarre and unusual forms usually became the objects of worship. On their tops or at their foots rites and sacrifices took place. Very often the rocks contained painted images (petroglyphs) which were the basic elements of rituals. In the last decade boulders (sometimes anthropomorphous or zoomorphic), cup-form and trace-form stones, menhirs and different rock objects used for cultic purposes were found in the Ural region. The so-called shichans are cultic rocks monuments of a new type. The cultic megaliths of Shaitanskoe Lake (Sverdlovsk region) and megaliths of Vera Island in Turgoyak Lake (Chelyabinsk region) as well as complexes of menhirs in Ahunovo (Bashcortostan) on Cheka mountain (Chelyabinsk region) are of particular interest. A geoglyph in the shape of a 200-meter-long elk is a unique rock object found near Zuratkul Lake (Satkinsky district of Chelyabinsk region). The analysis proves that the space inhabited by humans was structured by means of sacral marketed points - sacred places.