Barry Cunlife - The Scythians

bodies clothed in skins
tight-fitting clothing of leather and felt. Herodotus offers the alarming observation
that ‘they never by any chance wash their bodies with water’ but he goes on to
describe two practices concerned with personal hygiene. The first is an act of purification
following the burial ceremony:
First they well soap and wash their heads; then, in order to cleanse their bodies they
do as follows: they make a booth by fixing in the ground three sticks inclined inwards
towards one another, and stretching around them woollen felt, which they arrange so
as to fit as close as possible: inside the tent a bowl is placed on the ground into which
they put a number of red-hot stones and then add some hemp seed … it gives out such
a vapour as no Grecian vapour-bath can exceed; the Scyths delighted, shout for joy, and
this vapour serves them instead of a water bath.
(Hist. iv. 73–5)
Getting high on the cannabis is clearly one of the attractions of the procedure. The
description seems to imply that people went into the tent and that steam was involved.
If so, in the hot smoky atmosphere they would have sweated profusely, which would
have cleaned the pores, the smoke fumigating their hair and beards. On some occasions
they may have gone in naked and by throwing water on the heated stone may
have created the steamy atmosphere of a sauna bath. Saunas, sometimes quite simple
structures, are found widely among contemporary people across Europe.
It is, however, possible that Herodotus was making a false comparison between
the Greek vapour bath and a quite different Scythian ritual. Evidence for inhalation
comes from kurgan 2 at Pazyryk where two sets of gear were found, each consisting
of a bundle of six long poles designed to form the framework of a tent, one of
felt, the other of leather. Each was associated with a small cast-bronze vessel filled
with burnt stones among which were found charred hemp seeds. Both vessels were
provided with handles, the handles of one being wrapped with birch bark for insulation
so that it could be taken out, without burning the hands, for reheating over a
fire. While these finds are clear evidence that inhalation was practised, the scale of
the equipment is such that it would have been quite impossible to get even one body
into the tent. Its only use would have been to allow a person to put his head under the
covering to inhale. This does not, of course, exclude the possibility that there were
also larger structures allowing one or more people to enter to enjoy the invigorating
atmosphere. In such a case comparison with the Greek vapour bath may have been
appropriate.
Sauna baths, with or without the benefit of cannabis inhalation, may well have
been the preserve of men. For the women Herodotus describes a different process.
They make a paste by pounding cypress, cedar, and frankincense wood with water in
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