The semantics of ancient Turkic statues in connection with their portrait similarity with real people or, on the contrary, with the stylization of facial features rarely became the subject of special consideration. Therefore, the choice of this topic by L. N. Ermolenko [2006] seems to be nontrivial. However, it is impossible to agree with the main idea put forward by the author: about the stylization of images on ancient Turkic sculptures, in particular, with the interpretation of the T-shaped image of the eyebrows and nose as eyebrows drawn together on the bridge of the nose and expressions of anger. We will give detailed arguments in favor of the failure of this assumption.
When considering this topic, it was necessary to refer not only to the article devoted to it, but also to the monograph of L. N. Ermolenko [2004], as well as a number of other articles by the researcher [Ermolenko, Getsova, Kurmankulov, 1985; Ermolenko, 1995a, b, 1998a, b, 2003; etc.]. and the lack of documentation of some of the statements of L. N. Ermolenko in the analyzed article, which are present in a detailed form in her other works.
In the article devoted to the stylization of ancient Turkic statues, there is no information about which array of objects is analyzed - only from the territory of Kazakhstan or all known to date in Central and Central Asia. It remains unknown what the total number of ancient Turkic statues under consideration is and how many of them are so-called stylized (i.e., with a T-shaped bas-relief of the nose and large eyes). The statement that "the faces of many statues are stylized" is extremely vague. Some idea of the number of such sculptures can be obtained from the monograph of L. N. Ermolenko. It analyzes 120 sculptures of ancient Turkic appearance from the territory of Kazakhstan, of which 76 are "big-eyed", and 68 - with a T-shaped image of eyebrows and nose [2004, p. 19]. Of the 42 "breast"* statues of the ancient Turkic appearance, 18 have large eyes and 14 ...
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