The anthropomorphized Sun God: Cultic representations in Kazakhstan

During the second millennium B.C., Indo-European peoples, which were known archaeologically as the Andronovo culture, settled in Southern Kazakhstan. They left behind a rich repository of petroglyphs, which they carved into stone cliffs at their cultic centres. While petroglyphs can be difficult to date, because the stone had existed for millennia before being carved upon, the techniques used to carve the pictographs have assisted in the dating process. The abundance of solar representations found and the complexity of their iconography suggest that the cult of the sun was especially powerful in this region. Abstract sun symbols, including spoked wheels, concentric circles, multiple and swastikas are used to symbolise the sun, as well as more anthropomorphized and zoopmorphic interpretations, e.g. bulls, horses and wild asses. While examples from cults of solar deities have been discovered around the world, these finds in Southern Kazakhstan, may be among the earliest.