Barry Cunlife - The Scythians

the rise of the pontic steppe scythians
This first becomes apparent on the Crimean peninsula when the walls of the grave
pits were faced with stone. In the case of the burials at Dort Oba the masonry extends
above the edge of the shaft and is roofed with a dome-like stone vault. The rise of the
Bosporan kingdom further encouraged the adoption of Greek and Thracian ideas.
This is best shown by the famous tomb of Kul’-Oba on the Kerch Peninsula. Here the
burial chamber was built of regularly cut stone blocks and has a corbelled stone roof.
It was reached by a stone-built passageway (dromos). The body of the man for whom
the tomb was built was placed in a painted wooden sarcophagus. His wife was laid on
a couch at his side with the body of a male servant placed behind them. Even more
remarkable is the Great Bliznitsa kurgan on the Taman Peninsula. Here a number of
separate burial chambers had been set into the mound. Three of them were rectangular
chambers with corbelled roofs and short entrance passages. In one of them a
bust of the goddess Demeter had been painted in the centre of the vault. Three of the
burials were of rich women, and all contained items which could be related to the
5.16 Contemporary illustration of the excavations in progress on the Great Bliznitsa kurgan in 1864.
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