Botai Photo Chronicle

The State Historical and Cultural Museum-Reserve "Botai" continues its "Botai Photo Chronicle" series on social media.

The series presents archival and modern photographs of Kazakhstani and international scholars who have studied the Botai culture, images of archaeological excavations, unique artifacts, the natural landscape, field seminars, and distinguished guests of the museum.

Today we are pleased to share photographs from the fundamental scientific publication "Botai: At the Origins of Steppe Civilization" by the distinguished archaeologist Professor Viktor F. Zaibert, published in 2011 in Kazakh, Russian, and English.

The first photograph (1993) features renowned scholars who made significant contributions to archaeology: Kemal Akishev, Viktor Zaibert, Viktor Groshev, Karl Baipakov, and Marsha Levine, the first foreign archaeozoologist to work at the Botai settlement.

The second photograph (2007) reflects a new stage of comprehensive research on the Botai archaeological culture. It features Professor Alan Outram of the University of Exeter, Professor Viktor Zaibert, and Russian archaeologist Alexey Kasparov from the Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Their collaborative research played an important role in bringing the Botai culture to international recognition.

Thanks to the joint efforts of Kazakhstani and international researchers, the Botai culture has gained worldwide recognition, and the results of these studies have been published in leading international scientific journals, including Science and Nature.