TSAGAAN SALAA

The Tsagaan Salaa-Baga Oigor site was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996 because of its cultural significance. It is part of the petroglyph complex of the Mongolian Altai, with two other rock art sites: the high Tsagaan Gol and Aral Tolgoi, all located in the Bayan-Olgiyaimag.

This site gathers indeed nearly 10 000 rock paintings distributed on a length of 15 km. Very well preserved, these petroglyphs offer an intact testimony of the human culture of this region spread over a period of more than 12,000 years. The whole is remarkable as much by the quantity of images present on the site as by their quantity and their state of conservation. It provides exceptional documentation on the prehistory and tribes of this region of the world, located at the intersection of Central and Northern Asia.

The earliest images reflect a time (11,000 - 6,000 BC) when the area was partly forested and the valley provided a habitat for big game hunters. The later representations correspond to the transition to pastoralism as the dominant way of life. The most recent representations show the transition to equestrian nomadism during the^1st millennium BC, the Scythian period and the later Turkic period (7th-8th centuries AD).

Since 2008, the site has also been included in the list of historical and cultural properties under state protection to provide additional protection.