Barry Cunlife - The Scythians

discovering the scythians
1.9 (Opposite top) The Alexandropol kurgan in Dnipropetrovsk region, excavated between 1853 and 1857,
is one of the largest kurgans on the Pontic steppe, measuring 21 m high with a circumference of 320 m. It
is shown here in an engraving made before the excavation.
1.10 (Opposite middle) The kurgan of Solokha as it appeared before the excavations of 1912 and 1913.
1.11 (Opposite bottom) The excavation of 1912–13 in progress at the kurgan of Solokha. The principal central
grave had been robbed in antiquity but a side grave remained intact.
masons resident in the nearby town of Panticapaeum. It dated to the fourth century
bc and contained the bodies of a Scythian king, his wife, and a servant, accompanied
by a number of gold items. Among the objects recovered were several depicting
Scythians, most notably a gold vessel showing bearded, long-haired Scythians
wearing trousers, heavy fur coats, and pointed hoods, together with their spears and
shields and bow and arrow cases (Gallery, no. 1). In one scene a warrior is shown in
the act of stringing his recurved bow. In a second scene a man is bandaging the leg
of a colleague, while a third shows a man attending to the tooth of another person.
Also from the tomb was a gold appliqué plaque showing two men firing their short
bows. Here, for the first time, were vivid images of Scythians as they would have
been known to their Greek neighbours. For the fascinated Russian intelligentsia the
Scythians of the Pontic steppe could at last begin to be appreciated as a real people.
But to add to the excitement, from beneath the floor of the tomb came a massive
gold plaque, which had once decorated a shield or the case for a bow and arrows,
1.12 The Kul’-Oba kurgan, in the vicinity of Kerch on the Crimean peninsula, as it is now presented.
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