Barry Cunlife - The Scythians

bodies clothed in skins
8.8 The body of the man buried beneath kurgan 2 at Pazyryk was
heavily tattooed (opposite). The inset (right) shows two of the images of
twisted animal motifs adorning one of his arms.
from Ak-Alakha had animal tattoos on one of her shoulders
and on her wrist and thumb (above, pp. 193–4). The
tattooing of both sexes was presumably a mark of status.
What beliefs lay behind the choice and arrangement
of the motifs is difficult to say. It may be that they were
believed to be protective but they could have proclaimed
the ancestry of the individual, applied perhaps during
the rites of passage that marked the beginnings of adulthood.
Tattooing was probably quite widespread among
the nomads. The first-century writer, Pomponius Mela,
commenting on the Agathyrsi, says that they ‘draw over
the face and body … drawing which even washing cannot
remove’ and when Pliny, writing at about the same
time, observes that the Sarmatians ‘paint their bodies’,
he is probably referring to tattooing.
It seems that scarring was also practised by some
groups of Scythians. Pseudo-Hippocrates refers to them
‘cauterizing their shoulders, arms, hands, chests, thighs,
and loins for no other purpose than to avoid weakness
and flabbiness and to become energetic’. Although the
writer is keen to suggest a medical reason for this deliberate
scarring, it may simply have been a coming of age
ritual. Herodotus also mentions ritual mutilation during
funerary ceremonies when the mourners slit their
ears, cut their hands, and thrust arrows through their
left hand. Such activities will have left visible scars as a
sign that the correct rites had been observed.
Clean in Body and Mind
Most societies feel the need to clean the body from time
to time and this must have been all the more necessary
for nomads after weeks or months of riding wearing
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