The Russian geoglyph refers to a geoglyph on slopes of the Zyuratkul Mountains in the

Chelyabinsk Chelyabinsk ( rus, Челя́бинск, p=tɕɪˈlʲæbʲɪnsk, a=Ru-Chelyabinsk.ogg; ba, Силәбе, ''Siläbe'') is the administrative center and largest city of Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia. It is the seventh-largest city in Russia, with a ...

region in

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

.Janus, Owen., Mysterious elk-shaped structure discovered in Russia Huge geoglyph may predate Peru's famous Nazca Lines by thousands of years, Live Science on NBC News, 2012-10-12.

Description and discovery

The geoglyph depicts accurate contours of an animal similar to an

elk The elk (''Cervus canadensis''), also known as the wapiti, is one of the largest species within the deer family, Cervidae, and one of the largest terrestrial mammals in its native range of North America and Central and East Asia. The common ...

moose The moose (in North America) or elk (in Eurasia) (''Alces alces'') is a member of the New World deer subfamily and is the only species in the genus ''Alces''. It is the largest and heaviest extant species in the deer family. Most adult mal ...

, with four legs, two

antler Antlers are extensions of an animal's skull found in members of the Cervidae (deer) family. Antlers are a single structure composed of bone, cartilage, fibrous tissue, skin, nerves, and blood vessels. They are generally found only on male ...

s and a long

snout A snout is the protruding portion of an animal's face, consisting of its nose, mouth, and jaw. In many animals, the structure is called a muzzle, rostrum, or proboscis. The wet furless surface around the nostrils of the nose of many mammals is c ...

. It may also have had a

tail The tail is the section at the rear end of certain kinds of animals’ bodies; in general, the term refers to a distinct, flexible appendage to the torso. It is the part of the body that corresponds roughly to the sacrum and coccyx in mammals, r ...

, though this has now been obscured. It was first detected in 2011 by

Alexander Shestakov Alexander is a male given name. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Variants listed here are Aleksandar, Al ...

using

satellite imagery Satellite images (also Earth observation imagery, spaceborne photography, or simply satellite photo) are images of Earth collected by imaging satellites operated by governments and businesses around the world. Satellite imaging companies sell ima ...

. He notified researchers who surveyed the outline using a

paraglider Paragliding is the recreational and competitive adventure sport of flying paragliders: lightweight, free-flying, foot-launched glider aircraft with no rigid primary structure. The pilot sits in a harness or lies supine in a cocoon-like 'po ...

and

seaplane A seaplane is a powered fixed-wing aircraft capable of takeoff, taking off and water landing, landing (alighting) on water.Gunston, "The Cambridge Aerospace Dictionary", 2009. Seaplanes are usually divided into two categories based on their tec ...

. Research has continued into the site under Stanislav Grigoriev from the

Russian Academy of Sciences The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; russian: Росси́йская акаде́мия нау́к (РАН) ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across t ...

Institute of History and Archaeology. Grigoriev published an article with Nikolai Menshenin from the State Centre for Monument Protection about the discovery in the ''

Antiquity Antiquity or Antiquities may refer to: Historical objects or periods Artifacts *Antiquities, objects or artifacts surviving from ancient cultures Eras Any period before the European Middle Ages (5th to 15th centuries) but still within the histo ...

'' journal in spring 2011.

Excavation

Excavations have unearthed stones laying wide, precisely under the contour at a depth of to . The borders consist of large stones with a center filled with smaller ones. Builders of the object cut off a soil layer down to virgin clay and placed stones into this trench. The stones are now covered by a layer of patina with a dark shade. Earlier they were lighter and were perfectly visible from the ridge because the huge size of the drawing. It has a width of , length of , and a diagonal of . Excavations in the summer of 2012 have revealed small walls and remains of what are thought to be passageways on the areas around the hoof and

of the animal. Grigoriev remarked that ''"the hoof is made of small crushed stones and clay. It seems to me there were very low walls and narrow passages among them. The same situation in the area of a muzzle: crushed stones and clay, four small broad walls and three passages."'' The geolyph is thought to have been created by a ''"

megalith A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. There are over 35,000 in Europe alone, located widely from Sweden to the Mediterranean sea. The ...

ic culture"'' operating in the area during the past and connected with other Megaliths in the Urals and on Vera Island. In the period of its creation the soil layer was only , and today it is to .

Dating

Grigoriev has found over forty stone tools resembling pickaxes during recent excavations that Grigoriev suggests show a style of Lithic reduction dating to the

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...

Chalcolithic The Copper Age, also called the Chalcolithic (; from grc-gre, χαλκός ''khalkós'', "copper" and ''líthos'', "stone") or (A)eneolithic (from Latin '' aeneus'' "of copper"), is an archaeological period characterized by regular ...

periods between 4000 and 2000 BCE. Further accuracy regarding the dating of the geoglyph is hoped to be obtained from an ongoing study using

pollen core A pollen core is a core sample of a medium containing a stratigraphic sequence of pollen. Analysis of the type and frequency of the pollen in each layer is used to study changes in climate or land use using regional vegetation as a proxy. This a ...

analysis. This suggested dating would place the construction of the geoglyph many centuries before that of the Nazca lines in

Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = Seal (emblem), National seal , national_motto = "Fi ...

, the Blythe geoglyphs in

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

and several in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, making it one of the oldest examples of

land art Land art, variously known as Earth art, environmental art, and Earthworks, is an art movement that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, largely associated with Great Britain and the United StatesArt in the modern era: A guide to styles, schools, & mov ...

in the world.Sky News Australia, Russian geoglyph may be older than 500BC, 2012-10-13.
( )

References

External links

Geoglyph "Elk" on Wikimapia

{{European Standing Stones Archaeological sites in Russia Geoglyphs Prehistoric art Land art Prehistoric inscriptions Earth mysteries Megalithic monuments in Europe Prehistoric Russia