These incredible prehistoric artworks were made 5,000 years ago during the Bronze Age (Image: Vladimir Kubarev/IAET SB RAS)

We still don’t know why an ancient tribe decided to draw bizarre horned figures on the walls of their tombs.

But now scientists have cracked the mystery of how the remarkable prehistoric art was made.

The images were first discovered near Karakol village in the Altai Republic in Siberia, Russia, and were made 5,000 years ago in the Bronze Age.

Although it’s been suggested the strange characters in the etchings are gods, we really don’t know what they are meant to represent.


Now scientists have made a discovery which reveals how the drawings were made, yet brings us no closer to revealing why the ancient artists created them.



The striking pieces of art were made from three different colours – red, white and black.

The images have faded over time, but an artist’s impression of the paintings shows just how strange they were (Image: Vladimir Kubarev/IAET SB RAS)

The pigments were created by exposing substances to heat in order to form vivid tones (Image: Vladimir Kubarev/IAET SB RAS)

The images were drawn inside tombs (Image: Vladimir Kubarev/IAET SB RAS)

We still don’t know the exact meaning of the paintings (Image: Vladimir Kubarev/IAET SB RAS)

These same tones were found on dead bodies, with red ochre daubed underneath their eye sockets and a silvery black substance called Specularite used to decorate the eyebrows.

They are the oldest multicoloured rock paintings ever found in Siberia, which has been occupied by humans for roughly 50,000 years.

A team of scientists from the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow found that the 5,000 year old artists knew how to use chemistry to create particular tones they wanted.

Roman Senin, head of the synchrotron research department at Kurchatov Institute, told The Siberian Times that his research showed colours used in paintings were ‘the product of heat treatment’.

‘Simply put, the primitive artist heated the mineral to a certain temperature in order to get the colour he needed,’ Senin said.