Barry Cunlife - The Scythians

the rise of the pontic steppe scythians
rites afforded to Scythian kings (Hist. iv. 71–3). This theme will be discussed in detail
in Chapter 11. Here the focus will be on the use of burials in establishing social hierarchies
and the way in which the structure of the tombs changed over time.
The typical Scythian burial consisted of a pit dug into the ground to take the body
and a mound (kurgan) piled over the top. The elaboration of the grave pit, the range
of the grave offerings, and the size of the mound reflect the status of the deceased.
The majority of the burials that have been excavated are comparatively simple. The
common people had few grave goods but warriors could be provided with weapons,
horse gear, and sometimes even a horse. The more elaborate and well-furnished
tombs with larger kurgans belonged to the elite, though the distinction between
kings and the aristocracy is not always clear.
The richest are usually indicated by the size of the kurgan which, by the fourth
century, could vary from between 14 and 21 m in height; earlier kurgans of the seventh
and sixth century are somewhat smaller. An examination of the great kurgan,
21 m high, heaped up over the burial at Chertomlÿk showed that it had been built of
carefully stacked turves, the structure stabilized with rings of compacted mud which
had set like concrete. The total volume of the mound, some 80,000 cubic metres,
required about a million turves to be cut and carried to the burial site, amounting to
about 75 hectares of grassland (below, p. 305). To add to its grandeur the structure was
bounded by a stone wall and covered with stone slabs nearly to the top. This would
have involved quarrying 8,000 cubic metres of stone and hauling it for distances of
between 3 and 8 km. No one who looked in awe upon the kurgan of Chertomlÿk
could have been in any doubt about the power wielded by the lineage of the deceased.
Another criterion for judging status is the number of humans and horses sacrificed
to accompany the deceased. In the tombs regarded as royal, human sacrifices
vary between three and eleven and the number of horses placed within the central
burial, between four and sixteen. Other indications of high status are the use of gold
in the harnesses of the horses and the general richness and range of the funerary
equipment. Using these criteria, twenty-one burials have been identified as probably
being royal, ten belonging to the seventh–sixth centuries, four to the fifth century,
and seven to the fourth century.
The structure of the grave chambers changed over time. The earliest type of construction,
beginning in the seventh century and continuing throughout the sixth and
fifth centuries, was the large quadrangular grave pit dug deep into the subsoil with a
wooden roof often covered with mats. This type was used in the royal tombs at Kelermes
in the seventh century. In kurgan 1/V, much disturbed by looters, the chamber
was divided up by posts with one area set aside for the king’s body. Twelve horses
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