On August 6, 2025, a scientific seminar titled “Tamga-bearing Altai: Past and Present” will be held in the Katon-Karagai district of East Kazakhstan Region. The seminar is organized based on the results of the grant-funded scientific project AP23486716 – “Sign system and tamgas of the Kazakhs of Altai”, implemented with the support of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan. This seminar is dedicated to interdisciplinary research on the historical and contemporary signs and tamgas of the Kazakhs of Altai.

Topics for discussion:

• Definitions of key concepts: tamga, symbol, sign, and terminological precision;
• Social, legal, and sacred functions of signs and tamgas;
• Historical tamgas of the Kazakhs of Altai and their preservation in the modern ethnographic context;
• Regional features of the sign system and issues of ethnic identification;
• Introduction of signs into scholarly discourse and methods of digital documentation.

Seminar Objective:
To share the results of archaeological and ethnographic expeditions and to disseminate materials collected within the framework of the project to the broader academic community.

Goals:

• To systematize the concepts of “sign” and “symbol” and analyze their functions;
• To identify the role of the sign system in social organization, historical memory, and kinship structures;
• To propose modern approaches to scientific recording and digital documentation of data.

Participants:
Archaeologists, ethnologists, historians, art historians, students of relevant disciplines, and representatives of academic and museum institutions are invited to participate.

Registration contact:
Zhanar Elemesova
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
+7 775 391 6646

We warmly invite all interested specialists to take part in the seminar!

Time: August 6, 2025, 02:00 PM Astana time

Join Zoom Meeting:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89763864827?pwd=Fdx4hG86ZspdKbQB9fIbOn8tWbTUCj.1

Meeting ID: 897 6386 4827
Passcode: 473518

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On August 4, 2025, a scientific seminar titled "Signs and Symbols of the Ancient Nomads of the Kazakh Altai" will take place in the Katon-Karagay District of East Kazakhstan Region. The seminar is organized as part of the outcomes of the research program BR22082478 "Sign system in the cultures of the Early Iron Age of the Kazakh Altai."

The seminar is dedicated to current issues in the study of signs and symbols in the culture of the ancient populations of the Kazakh Altai, their semantic and functional roles, and their place within the visual-communicative system of early nomadic societies. The event is designed as an interdisciplinary scientific platform to discuss the obtained results.

Topics for discussion include:

• Definitions and terminology (sign, symbol, tamga);
• The animal (zoomorphic) style as a system of sign-based communication;
• Key interpretative approaches: structural-semiotic, contextual, and comparative-typological.

Objective:
To reinterpret the visual-communicative practices of early nomads in light of the latest archaeological data and semiotic methodologies.

Goals:

• To systematize terminology and approaches to the interpretation of signs;
• To reveal the significance of the animal style as an expression of social and sacred structure;
• To discuss methodological foundations for further study of the visual systems of nomadic cultures.

Participants:
Archaeologists, ethnologists, historians, art historians, students of relevant disciplines, as well as representatives of academic and museum institutions are invited to take part.

Registration contact:
Zhanar Elemesova
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
+7 775 391 6646

We warmly invite all interested specialists to take part in the seminar!

Time: August 4, 2025, 02:00 PM Astana time

Join Zoom Meeting:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/88159985442?pwd=dhTAzs1ge4DbHKsJltOnaV2gwhXZp0.1

Meeting ID: 881 5998 5442
Passcode: 8vEsxF

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The scientific staff of the "Berel" State Historical and Cultural Museum-Reserve visited Istanbul, Turkey, from April 22 to 27, 2025, as part of the grant project of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan, titled "AP23486716 – The Sign System and Symbols of the Altai Kazakhs." The purpose of the visit was to identify the preserved symbols among Kazakhs who migrated from Altai to Turkey.

During the trip, the team visited the Kazakh Turks Foundation (Kazak Türkleri Vakfı) in the Zeytinburnu district of Istanbul, where they interviewed local elders and Saadet Pınar Yıldırım, the General Director of the Turkish World Research Foundation (Türk Dünyası Araştırmaları Vakfı), and a member of the Kazakh Kerei clan.

The museum staff also collected data from institutions such as the Hizmet Foundation (Hizmet Vakfı), the Institute of Turkish Studies (İstanbul Üniversitesi Türkiyat Araştırmaları Enstitüsü), and the Rıdvan Çelikel Archaeology Museum (İstanbul Üniversitesi Rıdvan Çelikel Arkeoloji Müzesi). Additionally, they visited the cemeteries in Istanbul where Kazakhs are buried, including Eski Kozlu (Eski Kozlu Mezarlığı), Silivrikapı (Silivrikapı Mezarlığı), and Güneşli (Güneşli Mezarlığı), to gather more information.

The results of the trip will be published in a scientific publication presented by the Committee for Quality Assurance in Science and Higher Education of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan later this year.

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