Barry Cunlife - The Scythians

scythians in central asia
Pazyryk. Wool was also spun and woven to create serges of different qualities, textiles
with long pile, with whole or cut loops, that could be used as carpets and much finer
plaited-weave or lace-weave fabrics, like the delicate patterned lace used to make the
pigtail cover found in kurgan 2 at Pazyryk. The fibres of Siberian hemp (kendyr) were
also woven and made into shirts.
The skill of the woodworker was everywhere to be seen, especially in the intricate
relief or three-dimensional carvings of animals, often covered with gold foil, and
painted bright red, used to decorate harnesses. Small items of furniture were also
made, like the circular table with detachable legs carved in the form of rampant lions
found in kurgan 2 at Pazyryk. The advantage of such a piece was that it was small,
comparatively light, and could easily be taken apart and packed when the community
was preparing to move. In nomadic society there was little place for larger items.
That said, the coffin from the Bashadar cemetery shows what could be achieved.
More than 3 m long and half a metre wide, its surface was intricately carved with
eleven animals—snarling tigers, mountain rams, elks, and boars—all vigorously
interacting, in a composition displaying great skill in the use of space, not unlike the
famous tattoos on the arms of the man buried in kurgan 2 at Pazyryk.
Most members of the community would have been involved in making items
for everyday life in the spare time between caring for the flocks and herds and preparing
food. The more skilled craft workers created products that could have been
used in gift exchange with neighbours. For more distant exchanges, fine horses and
raw materials such as gold, leather, and furs were the currency. These would have
been exchanged for the exotic luxury goods sought by the elite. What is remarkable
about the people of the Altai is their ability to acquire items of value from great distances
away. We have already referred to the carpet and saddle cloth made in Persia
that found their way to Pazyryk (pp. 170–5). Other items came from India and from
China. India provided two cotton shirts and a tin bronze mirror with a handle made
of ox horn, while from China came silk fabrics, items of lacquer work, a large mirror,
and a bronze helmet. It is also possible that the tall narrow wagon with spoked
wheels found in kurgan 5 at Pazyryk was made in China. It is closely similar to a
contemporary example found in the deposits associated with the burial of the First
Emperor at Xian.
By what route and through what complex exchange mechanisms these exotics
reached the Altai we will never know. One possibility is that they were simply trade
goods transported along the caravan routes around the Taklamakan Desert (occupying
much of the Xinjiang province of modern China) and used in local dealings,
but it may be no coincidence that the Chinese goods first appeared in the Altai in
the third century bc at about the time when cavalry was being rapidly developed in
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