New Studies of the Saimaly-Tash Monument (Kyrgyzstan, Ferghana Ridge)

In 2016, the Ministry of Culture, Information and Tourism of the Kyrgyz Republic organized and funded a program for the study and documentation of a large monument of rock art Saimaly-Tash. The program "Pri­mary archaeological and historical-architectural study of the Saimaluu-Tash State Natural Park and its adjacent territories with partial documentation of historical and cultural heritage objects" was implemented during two seasons of 2016 - 2017. The works on the monument were carried out within the framework of the project objectives and the results were provided to the Ministry of Culture of the Kyrgyz Republic in the form of a report, the first album about the Saimaly-Tash rock art monument was published. Thanks to this project, for the first time it was possible to make a detailed and extensive topography of the monument, count the number of stones with drawings using a total station and the exact locations of each rock art, identify objects of a dif­ferent category in the area of the main clusters of petroglyphs and enter their location in the map. Exploration work was carried out on a large scale.