Yttygran

Yttygran
	Map of Arakameche and Yttygran
Waters	Bering Sea
Geographical location	64 ° 37 ′ N , 172 ° 36 ′ W Coordinates: 64 ° 37 ′ N , 172 ° 36 ′ W
length	13.8 km
width	6.4 km
surface	55 km²
Highest elevation	Gora Yttygran ; 545 m
Residents	uninhabited
	Walallee on Yttygran

Yttygran (also Itygran or Ittygran , Russian Ыттыгран, Итыгран or Иттыгран , Yupik language Sikluk) is an uninhabited Russian island in the Bering Sea off the coast of the Chukchi Peninsula . Administratively it belongs to the Prowideniya Rajon in the Chukchi Autonomous Okrug .

geography

Yttygran is located directly off the coast of the Chukchi Peninsula, from which the island is separated in the north-west by the 5.3 km wide Senjawin Strait and in the south by the 1.5 km wide Chiyetschengkujym Strait. 4.4 km north is the larger neighboring island of Arakamtschetschen , 2.3 km north-west is the island of Kinkay. To the east, Yttygran lies in front of the Nuneangan bird cliff. Yttygran is 13.8 km long, 6.4 km in the east and only 2.3 km wide in the west.

Flora and fauna

The predominant form of vegetation on the island is the tundra . There are some endemic species in the Senjawin Strait area, as well as American plants from across the Bering Strait.

The mammals on Yttygran include the Nordic vole , the Siberian lemming and the arctic fox . The surrounding sea is seasonally rich in gray whales and belugas . Occasional guests include the killer whale and bowhead whale . There are walrus colonies on the neighboring islands .

Yttygran's rocky coast offers good breeding conditions for a number of sea birds . The colonies are mainly formed by thick-billed and guillemots . But there are also sea shags , ice gulls , kittiwakes , pigeon ducks , hornlunds and yellow coppers breed here .

Walallee

Friedrich Benjamin von Lütke mapped the island in 1827 while sailing around the world with the Senjawin . Yttygran was also repeatedly visited later by European explorers, for example on 9/10. September 1881 by the brothers Aurel and Arthur Krause , who traveled the coast of the Chukchi Peninsula on behalf of the Bremen Geographical Society. Therefore, the discovery of Walallee ( Russian китовая аллея ) in 1976 was a scientific sensation. The approximately 400 m long "avenue" near Cape Konowak on the north coast of the island consists of two parallel rows of skulls arranged in groups (47 in total) and as Jawbones inserted into the ground and taken from bowhead whales. On an adjacent slope covered with rock debris there are around 120 funnel-shaped storage pits for whale meat and bubbles . A 50 m long stone path leads from the middle of the avenue to a flat, round square with a diameter of 4 to 4.5 m. The site is interpreted by ethnologists as a monumental prehistoric cult site of the Eskimos and dates from the 14th to 16th centuries AD. The similarity of the island's Yupik name, Sikluk, with the name for the storage pits (siklugak) also suggests that it may have been a place where the hunted whales were felled and stored. The whale bones that had been set up would then have served as racks for drying the boats.

literature

AV Andreev: Wetlands in Russia . Vol. 4, Wetlands in Northeastern Russia . (PDF, 2.7 MB) Wetlands International, Moscow 2004, ISBN 90-5882-024-6 (original edition: А. В. Андреев: Водно-болотные угодья России . Том 4. Водно-болотные угодья Северо-Востока России Wetlands. International, Moscow 2001, ISBN 90-5882-986-3 )

Web links

Commons : Yttygran - collection of images, videos and audio files

topographic map of Yttygran

Individual evidence

↑ AV Andreev, p. 104 f.
^ AV Andreev, p. 121
↑ Nikolai B. Konyukhov, Ludmila S. Bogoslovskaya, Boris M. Zvonov, Thomas I. van Pelt: Seabirds of the Chukotka Peninsula, Russia . In: ARCTIC 51 (4), 1998, pp. 315-329
↑ Aurel Krause, Arthur Krause: The expedition of the Bremen geographic society to the Chukchi Peninsula and Alaska . In: Deutsche Geographische Blätter 5, 1882, p. 127
↑ Jean Malaurie: Myth of the North Pole. 200 years of expedition history . National Geographic Germany, 2003. ISBN 3-936559-20-1 , pp. 12f
↑ Mikhail A. Chlenov, Igor I. Krupnik: Whale Alley. A Site on the Chukchi Peninsula, Siberia . (PDF; 1.9 MB). In: Expedition 26 (2), 1984, pp. 6-15
↑ Andrei V. Golovnev: Arctic Sea Nomads: Adaptation Models . In: Northern Archaeological Congress . Papers. 9-14 September 2002, Akademkniga, 2002, pp. 94–111

[1] AV Andreev, p. 104 f.

[2] AV Andreev, p. 121

[3] Nikolai B. Konyukhov, Ludmila S. Bogoslovskaya, Boris M. Zvonov, Thomas I. van Pelt: Seabirds of the Chukotka Peninsula, Russia . In: ARCTIC 51 (4), 1998, pp. 315-329

[4] Aurel Krause, Arthur Krause: The expedition of the Bremen geographic society to the Chukchi Peninsula and Alaska . In: Deutsche Geographische Blätter 5, 1882, p. 127

[5] Jean Malaurie: Myth of the North Pole. 200 years of expedition history . National Geographic Germany, 2003. ISBN 3-936559-20-1 , pp. 12f

[6] Mikhail A. Chlenov, Igor I. Krupnik: Whale Alley. A Site on the Chukchi Peninsula, Siberia . (PDF; 1.9 MB). In: Expedition 26 (2), 1984, pp. 6-15

[7] Andrei V. Golovnev: Arctic Sea Nomads: Adaptation Models . In: Northern Archaeological Congress . Papers. 9-14 September 2002, Akademkniga, 2002, pp. 94–111