Barry Cunlife - The Scythians

bodies clothed in skins
felt leggings.
Her tall elaborate
headdress, of
white felt on a light
wooden framework,
was decorated with feline
figures covered with gold. Such a
cumbersome structure is more likely to have been
designed for ceremonial occasions than for everyday wear.
While the images of Scythians on the metal vessels found in the kurgans
of the Pontic steppe give a fair impression of the warm, close-fitting clothing of the
horseman, the clothing from the frozen tombs of the Altai provide an incomparable
vision of the sheer exuberance of nomad dress, the love of bright, contrasting colours
and of intricate decoration formed by stitching, embroidery, and the attachment of
leather cut-outs. It also shows the varied materials in use: leather of differing qualities,
a range of furs, and, above all, the ubiquitous felt made from beating wool fibres
together. In the intricate decoration of their clothes both sexes carried with them a
constant reminder of the traditional craft skills of the community, the styles of decoration
perpetuating the beliefs and values of their ancestors.
The frozen tombs have yielded several examples of body tattooing, including
the male and female from both kurgans 2 and 5 at Pazyryk and the female from Ak-
Alakha. The best preserved is the male from kurgan 2. His arms, shoulders, and legs
were covered with energetic renderings of animals which extend onto his chest and
back. The animals on his arms—deer, an onager, and a fanged carnivore—are mostly
drawn with their hind quarters twisted round. The tattooed decoration on his right
leg was dominated by a fish that extended between the knee and the ankle. The female
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