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

CHAPTER I • SCYTHIANS IN THE EURASIAN STEPPE AND THE PLACE OF THE ALTAI MOUNTAINS IN IT
The Scythians: Nomadic Horsemen
of the Eurasian Steppe
Hermann Parzinger
President, Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Germany
Over the past 300 years, kurgans from the
Scythian age have been discovered between
the Yenisei River in the east and the middle
Danube in the west, drawing attention to the
monumental burial mounds and highly decorated
golden objects of the Eurasian nomadic
horsemen that built them during the 1 st millennium
bce. Originating in southern Siberia in the
late 9 th and early 8 th centuries bce, and extending
during the 7 th century to Kazakhstan, the southern
Urals, Russia and through the Ukrainian
steppe to the Carpathian Basin, the Scythians
and related horse-dependent nomadic peoples
(the Sauromatae and Saka, etc.) were replaced
by other peoples (the Xiongnu, Wusun and
Sarmatians) around 200 bce before finally disappearing
from history.
The Ancient Greeks wrote about the extraordinary
customs of the Scythians, and the historical
tradition stated by Herodotus places their
origins in Central Asia, southern Siberia and the
northern borders of China and in areas where
our knowledge of them depends on archaeological
sources.
Scythian life on the steppe depended on
mobility since pastures had to be periodically
relocated to support the herds that represented
wealth and prosperity, and therefore often
needed to be defended from other nomadic
groups. This led to the stratification and militarization
of nomadic society, which further
increased the importance of the warrior horsemen.
However, the many Scythian forts to the
north of the Black Sea indicate settlement,
craftsmanship and even agriculture. The town of
Gelonus (probably today’s Belsk), for example,
described as a large fortress by Herodotus, was
built completely out of wood and surrounded by
a 5km-long wall. While there is a need for further
research on Scythian settlements, much more is
known about these people’s burial customs.
These had a special meaning for the Scythians,
particularly for members of the ruling class,
called basileis, or “kings”, by Herodotus. Several
of these large kurgans, or burial mounds, have
been excavated since the 19 th century, and they
give an impression of the grandeur of the
Scythian ruling class.
v
The kurgan mounds of Certomlyk, Solokha,
Kozel, Kul’-Oba, Oguz, Tatjanina Mogila,
v
Ryzanovka and Tolstaja Mogila, among others,
have yielded bodies wearing grave-clothes decorated
with sheets of gold. These ornaments are
made of thin gold foil, and they often show
Scythian-style animal figures, as well as motifs
of Greek origin. The same applies to the gold
used to make the quivers, dagger-handles and
scabbards, the decorative plates of buckles,
sceptre-handles, and so on, all found in the
tombs. Torcs, pectoral decorations and bracelets
are also made of solid gold. All these objects have
symbolic meaning, since they signify the status of
the buried person. Plates made of precious
metals, bronze cauldrons, Greek chalices and
Fig. 1 Gilded figures
of stags from the
Filippovka princely
grave in the South
Urals.
© The State Hermitage
Museum, St. Petersburg.
Left The highest
peaks of the Altai
Mountains: Tavan
Bogd in the
Mongolian section
of the Altai.
© Gary Tepfer.
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