Barry Cunlife - The Scythians

predatory nomads
The astonishing discovery of Arzhan 1, with its very close similarities to later
Scythian burials on the Pontic steppe, immediately generated a lively debate centring
on its date. Initial uncertainties have now been resolved through a systematic programme
of radiocarbon dating showing that the kurgan was probably constructed
in the late ninth century, thus preceding the earliest Scythian burials on the Pontic
steppe by a century or so. The implications are considerable and we will return them
again later (pp. 104–5).
Arzhan 2 was slightly smaller than Arzhan 1, being 80 metres in diameter and 2
metres high. The central area beneath the mound was found to be occupied by two
square chambers of the kind that could have held graves. Both had been dug into
by robbers sometime in the past, but the complete absence of anything that could
have come from a disturbed burial such as fragments of bone or small items that had
been missed was puzzling. One possible explanation, suggested by the excavator, is
that these central grave pits had been constructed as a decoy to convince would-be
robbers that someone had got there before them. This suggestion is to some extent
supported by the discovery of an intact and exceptionally rich burial chamber placed
well off centre. The chamber was rectangular, 5 m by 4.5 m, built of horizontally laid
logs and lined internally with felt. On the floor were placed two bodies, a man and a
woman, richly adorned with gold ornaments and gold appliqué work once attached
to their clothes. In all, some 5,700 gold items were recovered. The man was accompanied
by a dagger and two ring-handled knives, while nearby lay his bow in a sheath,
a quiver of arrows, and a battleaxe. The woman carried a knife and a miniature gold
cauldron. The amount of gold and precious stones, including turquoise, amber, garnet,
and malachite, and the quality of the animal art into which the gold was worked
leave little doubt of the exceptionally high status of the deceased and his partner.
The mound also covered other burials. About 10 m from the royal burial was a
small timber chamber containing a wooden saddle and a set of elaborately decorated
horse gear symbolic of a horse burial. Elsewhere within the mound fifteen human
burials were found in stone-built cists. Most were in individual graves, but one grave
contained two men and three women. All the women’s graves were placed in the
south-western half of the kurgan, while the men lay in the north-eastern part. This
echoes the placing of the two bodies in the royal tomb. One young woman had been
killed by several blows to the head using a sharp-pointed battleaxe. In the south-eastern
part of the mound a large pit, 8 m by 3 m, was found containing fourteen horses
placed with their legs folded beneath the bodies and their heads facing west, all provided
with their harness. The pit had been dug after the mound had been finished,
but the fact that the stone covering of the mound had been carefully restored above
suggests that the horse burials represented a late stage in the burial ritual rather than
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