Scythian Culture - Preservation of The Frozen Tombs of The Altai Mountains (UNESCO)

Fig. 1 Archaeological
remains in the Golden
Mountains of Altai:
burial mounds
(kurgans), Bronze-Age
stelae and stone
circles.
© Gary Tepfer.
the position of the Altai in the broad context of
Eurasia as a whole, the article serves as an introduction
to those that follow dealing with specific
themes.
The second article, “The Frozen Scythian
Burial Complexes of the Altai Mountains:
Conservation and Survey Issues,” introduces two
of the most important valleys in the Altai
Mountains, the Bashadar and Ukok Valleys,
which are parts of the UNESCO World Heritage
Site, and suggests future challenges in carrying
out research on the frozen tombs that are located
in them.
The third article, “Culture and Landscape in
the High Altai,” concerns the cultural landscape
of the Altai, providing readers with a chronological
profile of the region. When travelling in the
Altai, it is easy to appreciate the many human
civilizations that have flourished there over the
millennia: Bronze and Iron Age structures are
scattered across the landscape in the form of
petroglyphs and deer-stones, as well as in the
shape of the burial mounds themselves. Later
Turkic Period (ca. 500 to 900 ce) culture is represented
by the presence of beautiful anthropomorphic
standing stones, or balbals (Fig. 5, 6 and 7).
The article describes how the combination of
archaeological remains in the Altai from different
periods in the last three millennia has given rise
to a unique cultural landscape. This is, in part, a
Fig. 3 and 4 Hair Pins
from the Arzhan-2
kurgan, Tuva Republic,
Russian Federation.
© Deutsches
Archäologisches
Institut, DAI, Berlin.
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