Our Deep History Our Deep History A museum of unexplained ancient sites and relics
Kazakhstan rooms

near Ushtogay, Kostanay Region, Kazakhstan

Ushtogay Square

Disputed, late Bronze Age to a possible 8,000 years (one mound was empty, and a solstice reading has no published azimuth)

Ushtogay Square in a 1968 satellite photograph. The mounds read as a square with both diagonals drawn in. The picture is grainy, and it is the figure. A north-south line of smaller mounds sits with the complex and is not the square itself. Unknown photographer, Public domain. Shown unedited.

From the ground the northern steppe looks empty. From the air, near the village of Ushtogay, 101 mounds make a square 287 metres on a side, with the diagonals filled in. Someone has said the winter sun pauses over an outer mound. The date of the square is not agreed.

Why this is extraordinary

Fifteen kilometres east of the village of Ushtogay, in the Kostanay steppe, 101 earthen mounds trace a square and both of its diagonals. Each mound is about 10 to 12 metres across and no more than a metre high, so from the saddle of the land you could walk through it and not see the drawing. From the air it is obvious. A report in 1909 already spoke of barrows in geometric rows on this steppe. The square was picked out of satellite pictures in 2007, and the Kostanay laboratory then measured it. The side is 287 metres. The diagonal is 406 metres. That is the diagonal a true square of 287 metres should have, so the corners are square on purpose. The institute aims the diagonals north-northwest to south-southeast, and west-northwest to east-southeast. The sides themselves are not north, south, east, and west. Three ring ditches lie on the north, a barrow on the south, and a line of seven smaller mounds, 55 metres long, runs north-south. Press accounts of the NASA pictures in 2015 counted at least 260 figures of this family in the Turgai trough.

The sun reading is specific and, so far, unmeasured in the institute’s page. At 51 degrees north the December sunrise is as far south of east as the sun gets, and for about three mornings it seems to stand still. That standstill is the winter solstice. The researcher who found the figures has said the sun hangs over Ushtogay’s outermost mound for those three days, every year, and in 2015 described the straight figures as horizontal observatories, for watching the rising sun from the ground rather than for showing a picture to a pilot. The catch is the plan that was actually published. The diagonals are given as north-northwest and west-northwest, not as a December bearing, and no azimuth from a numbered mound to the horizon is printed. A square this wide will put some mound near that sunrise whether or not anyone intended it. The little north-south line could mark noon instead, which is a different trick. And the age is two stories. The laboratory provisionally puts the complex in the final Bronze Age and down to the first centuries AD, a span they write as 1200 BC to 100 AD. The 2015 reporting estimated the oldest Turgai figures at 8,000 years and pointed at the Mahandzhar foragers. One mound was excavated and gave up neither a skeleton nor a pot. An empty heap cannot choose between those ages. What this changes: if a bearing and a soil date both hold, this is a walked solar calendar on the steppe, and its century is whatever the soil says. If the bearing is only a large square’s accident, the 101 mounds and the true diagonal remain, and the solstice is a sunrise that happens to pass a heap.

The published measures. Side 287 metres, diagonal 406 metres, 101 mounds. The drawing is the geometry, not a plot of every heap. Diagram: Our Deep History.

Why it matters

If the square marks the solstice, steppe builders were keeping a solar year in earth, at a size you can only see from above or by walking it. If it is a ritual figure of the late Bronze Age, the sun is a property of a large square, and the mounds are still a plan no village of that age has explained.

The square lies about 15 kilometres east of Ushtogay village, in the Amangeldi district of Kostanay, in the Turgai trough. A report to a scientific meeting in 1909 already mentioned barrows set in rows that made triangles and quadrilaterals on this steppe. The square itself was picked out of satellite pictures in 2007, and the Kostanay archaeological laboratory then surveyed the complex. It is 101 embankments, each 10 to 12 metres across and up to a metre high. The side is 287 metres. The diagonal is 406 metres, which is what the diagonal of a square of that side should be, so the right angle is real and not a trick of the photograph. The institute orients the figure by those diagonals, north-northwest to south-southeast, and west-northwest to east-southeast. The sides are not the cardinal directions. With the square go three circular ditches on the north, about 20 metres across, a line of seven smaller mounds 55 metres long aimed north-south, and a barrow 22 metres across on the south. Press accounts of NASA pictures in 2015 counted at least 260 such figures in the trough, squares, rings, lines, and a three-armed swastika among them. Ushtogay is the one this room stands on, because it is the one with a published measure.

Photo tour

1 photograph, unedited. On a phone, swipe the row. Choose one to look closely.

Ushtogay Square in a 1968 satellite photograph. The mounds read as a square with both diagonals drawn in. The picture is grainy, and it is the figure. A north-south line of smaller mounds sits with the complex and is not the square itself. Unknown photographer, Public domain

What is still unexplained

These sit beside the consensus account, with the same visual weight. None of them is marked solved.

Open A winter sun, reported but not surveyed here At about 51 degrees north the sun’s rising point walks the horizon through the year. In late June it rises well north of east. In late December, at the winter solstice, it rises as far south of east as it will go, and for a few mornings it hardly moves. That pause is the solstice. A field reading, reported again in 2025 by the person who found the figures in the satellite pictures, says that at Ushtogay the sun sits over the outermost mound for about three days, every year. In 2015 the same research was quoted as calling the straight figures horizontal observatories for the rising sun, meant to be used from the ground, not seen from the air. How you would observe it is ordinary. You stand at one mound and watch which mound the December sun clears. If the same mound takes the sun for those three still mornings, the square has a marker for the turn of the year. The catch is the published plan. The institute’s own page gives the diagonals as north-northwest and west-northwest, not as a solstice line, and it does not print an azimuth from a mound to the horizon. A square this large will have some mound near a solstice sunrise by accident. A north-south line of seven mounds, 55 metres long, is a different claim. That line could mark noon, when the sun is due south, rather than a sunrise. Noon and the December sunrise are not the same observation. Until an azimuth is printed, the three-day pause is a report from the field, and the diagonals are the measure.
Open Two ages, and an empty mound The Kostanay laboratory classes the complex, preliminarily, as a ritual place from the final Bronze Age into the first centuries AD. The page’s period line is 1200 BC to 100 AD. One embankment was excavated. No structure and no finds came out of it. An empty mound does not date its neighbours, and it does not prove a date either. The 2015 press, working from the NASA pictures, gave the oldest of the Turgai figures an estimate of 8,000 years, and tied some of them to the Mahandzhar, a foraging culture of the region placed about 7000 to 5000 BC. Other comments have put some figures under a thousand years old. Those ranges cannot all be the age of this square. Odd counts of mounds have been read as meaningful in themselves, because odd and even are opposed in many mythologies, sky and earth among them. That is a possible symbolism. It is not a date, and it is not a measurement of the sun.

Location and dating

Location
Fifteen kilometres east of Ushtogay, Amangeldi district, Kostanay Region. The coordinate, 50.832933 north and 65.326276 east, is the square. Other named figures, including a three-armed form near Urpek, are separate pins this room does not claim.
Period label
Current consensus — open to revision Unsettled. The institute’s preliminary class is final Bronze Age to the early centuries AD. An 8,000-year estimate is in the 2015 reporting and is not the institute’s date. One dug mound was empty.
How this dating was done
Comparison with other steppe mounds, and one excavation that found nothing to date. The solar reading is archaeoastronomy, and it needs an azimuth the institute page does not print. Optically stimulated luminescence has been spoken of as a future test. It is not a result in the sources used here.
What could change it
A date on the soil under an undug mound, by optically stimulated luminescence or by anything else that survives in a heap of earth with no bone and no pot. Or a published azimuth from a stated mound to the winter-solstice sunrise.
Published ranges, drawn as bars. A bar is a claim about a span, not a point.
Institute periodContested
Eight-thousand-year estimateContested
6000 BCE2500 BCE100 CE
  • Institute period. The Kostanay page’s preliminary span, final Bronze Age to the first centuries AD. Not a laboratory date.
  • Eight-thousand-year estimate. The 2015 figure for the oldest Turgai geoglyphs, about 8,000 years. An estimate, not a date on Ushtogay’s soil. Contested by the institute’s later span.

What is actually there

Open questions

Question Status
Does the December sun really sit on an outer mound for three mornings, or does a large square always offer some mound near that sunrise? Open. The pause of the solstice is real. An azimuth for this square has not been published beside the institute’s diagonals.
Are the mounds late Bronze Age, or several thousand years older? Open. The institute and the 2015 estimate do not meet. The one dug mound had nothing in it.

The current narrative

Where publication stands today. It is the best-supported reading, and it is open to revision. It is not a verdict.

The current narrative — open to revision

A ritual square of the later steppe

Ushtogay is a ceremonial figure of mounds, preliminarily the final Bronze Age into the early centuries AD. The geometry is the point. Any match with the winter sun is what a large square on an open horizon will do.

What supports this

  • The Kostanay survey publishes the side, the diagonal, the count, and the diagonal orientation, and classes the complex as ritual.
  • One excavated mound held no burial and no object, which fits a marker more than a grave, and does not require an astronomical use.
  • A solstice sunrise at 51 degrees north falls somewhere along a wide southern-eastern horizon. A square of 101 mounds is hard to miss with some line of sight.

What pushes back

  • The 2015 account and the 2025 field report are specific about the rising sun and about a three-day pause, not about a random horizon.
  • A north-south line of seven mounds is a meridian, which is a solar tool if it was meant as one, and it is not explained by calling the whole thing a square.
  • An 8,000-year estimate, if it holds, pulls the figure off the late Bronze Age class entirely.

What would settle it

It is the centre because it is the institute’s own preliminary class, and the sun reading has not been published as an azimuth. It moves if that azimuth lands on the December sunrise and the soil date leaves the Bronze Age.

Emerging narratives

Other published readings. Each may be right. None is adopted here unless the evidence carries it.

An emerging narrative

A horizontal observatory for the winter sun

The mounds were placed so a person on the ground could watch the sun’s rising point through the year, and could see the winter solstice pause over an outer mound. The square was a calendar you walk, not a picture for the sky.

What supports this

  • The 2015 interviews describe straight figures as observatories for the rising sun, used from the ground.
  • The 2025 report says the December sun stays with an outer mound for about three days, which is how the solstice behaves, and says it happens every year.
  • The diagonals are a true square, 287 and 406 metres, so the layout was measured by someone, not drifted into shape.

What pushes back

  • The institute orients those diagonals north-northwest and west-northwest, and does not print a solstice azimuth.
  • A three-day claim without the mound’s number and the bearing cannot be checked from the page.
  • The date that would make this an early calendar, about 8,000 years, is an estimate. The institute’s span is much later, and the one dug mound was empty.

What would settle it

It stays on the table because December sunrise at this latitude can be watched, and the report says someone has watched it. It is not the centre until the bearing is published against the institute’s diagonals.

Should the current view be reevaluated?

Open to revision

The square is real and measured. The age is not, and the solstice is a reported observation without an azimuth next to the survey. Open keeps the ritual figure and the winter sun together until the soil or the bearing decides.

What drives this

  • 101 mounds, 287 by 406 metres, diagonals off the cardinals.
  • A reported three-day pause of the December sun on an outer mound, and no published azimuth.
  • An institute span from 1200 BC to 100 AD against an 8,000-year estimate, and one empty excavation.

This is the museum’s own weighing of the evidence. It is not a visitor vote, and it is separate from the slider.

Weigh it yourself

Anonymous. Nothing here is stored except on this browser. Your lean does not change the assessment beside it.

A ritual square of the later steppe Unsure A horizontal observatory for the winter sun

If the contested reading is right

What would follow if a reading that is not the consensus turned out to be true, and what could settle it. This explains the stakes. It does not adopt the reading.

The outer mound marks the winter solstice

The Turgai figures would be taught as solar calendars walked from the ground, and the age of that calendar would still have to be dug. Nazca and the other famous geoglyphs would have a steppe cousin whose date might be older or much younger.

Why it is still worth a test

A published azimuth from a numbered mound to sunrise on 21 December, and a luminescence date on the buried soil of an undug mound.

Sources

  1. Ushtogay square Institute of Archaeology, Kazakhstan
  2. NASA adds to evidence of mysterious ancient earthworks The New York Times, 30 October 2015
  3. Steppe geoglyphs Wikipedia, for the coordinate and the count of figures

Image credits

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