The Earliest Skiers
A Bronze Age Petroglyph Steeped in Mystery
Hunters on skis have been hunting goats for over four thousand years/Olga Gumirova
Even the bravest skiers would think twice before descending the slopes of the hill where, in 2023, the Petroglyph Hunters team documented a large cluster of ancient drawings that now derive their name from the Küngeitas Ridge. The first to spot these well-hidden images nestled in a maze of rocks was a resident of Taldykorgan named Rafael Khismatullin. The ridge's slopes are completely unsuitable for skiing, being both too steep and scattered with crumbling stone bastions. Yet, it was here that shaman artists carved an intricate multi-figure composition on a massive rock surface during the Bronze Age. The image, though challenging to interpret, features skiers—or, more precisely, hunters on skis.
Such depictions are a great rarity in general, not only in Kazakhstan. Globally, their number is minimal—a single figure of a skier dating back to the Stone Age has been documented in the municipality of Alstahaug in the Nordland county of Norway. A few more figures have been discovered in Karelia, in clusters along the banks of the Angara and Lena rivers and near Lake Baikal in Russia. These were all created in different eras, ranging from the Paleolithic and Mesolithic to the Bronze Age.
And now, ‘skiers’ have been discovered in Kazakhstan, specifically in the south, where skis were previously thought to have never been used. This suggests that as early as the Bronze Age, 4,000 years ago, the inhabitants of the Köksu River valley were familiar with skis and even used them for hunting game, substituting spears for ski poles.
Is the scene from Küngeitas a sketch from life? The drawing clearly demonstrates that the artist knew of skis firsthand rather than through stories, as both the skis and the hunter’s posture are depicted with striking accuracy. However, this composition most likely illustrates a myth, the details of which remain unknown. Regardless, we can appreciate the dynamic and expressive portrayal of these fearless skiers engaged in a sacred goat hunt!
