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

PRESERVATION OF THE FROZEN TOMBS OF THE ALTAI MOUNTAINS
Fig. 5 Steppe near
Salbyk in Khakassia in
southern Siberia.
settlement area of the Central Asian Saka people,
who ruled large parts of Central Asia from the
Aral Sea in the west to the foot of the Tien Shan
in the east and whose contacts reached into
neighbouring parts of north-west China and the
Persian Achaemenid Empire.
The excavated princely graves in southern
Siberia are similar to the Pazyryk Culture kurgans
in the Altai Mountains (Pazyryk, Tuekta and
Bashadar). Seepage and condensed water collects
in the tombs beneath the massive burial mound,
this then freezing to form ice that not only freezes
the embalmed body in the tomb, but also all the
other organic materials, such as clothing, shoes,
carpets, ceremonial wagons, wooden carvings,
horses and their saddle blankets, head-dresses
and decorative straps, etc. As a result, it has been
possible to ascertain that the preserved bodies
were tattooed with animal motifs. These bodies
had also undergone a special embalming procedure
in which the intestines, brain, muscles and
other soft tissues were removed, the body stuffed
with organic material and then sewn up with
horsehair.
Many more of these so-called frozen kurgans
have been found on the Ukok Plateau (Ak-Alakha,
Verkh-Kaldzhin and Ulandryk), as well as in the
Kazakh (Berel’) and Mongolian parts of the Altai
Mountains (Olon-Kurin-Gol). These demonstrate
the lively mental world and complexity of the
early nomadic horsemen, owing to their extraordinary
state of preservation.
Other monumental Scythian burial mounds
in southern Siberia show that these originally
contained golden hoards in the same way as did
north Pontic catacomb graves. Tuva, a region in
the heart of Asia between the western Sayan and
the Tannu Mountains, has a special significance
here, since along the banks of the Uyuk, a tributary
of the Yenisei River, the princely necropolis
of Arzhan is located. This huge cemetery, containing
hundreds of kurgans, offers a rare concentration
of monumental burial mounds. The
Arzhan-1 kurgan was excavated by M. P. Grjaznov
in the 1970s, laying bare a complex wooden construction
that features a unique wheel-like burial
chamber covered by a flat stone platform (Fig. 4).
A doubled beam chamber in the centre contained
Fig. 6 Tagar Culture
kurgan near Salbyk in
Khakassia in southern
Siberia.
Photos: © DAI, Berlin.
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