Barry Cunlife - The Scythians

bodies clothed in skins
a stone mortar and use it to cover their faces and their whole bodies. ‘A sweet odour
is thereby imparted to them and when they take off the paste the next day their skin
is clean and glossy’ (Hist. iv. 75). After trekking for days across the steppe, cooped
up together in claustrophobic covered wagons, such a cleansing process would have
been to everyone’s benefit.
Attention to personal appearance is amply demonstrated by the fine clothes worn
by both males and females. The women buried in the Pazyryk cemetery had pierced
ears, though not all were wearing earrings. They also styled their hair into long plaits,
sometimes bulked up with horsehair, sometimes twisted with felt braids, and sometimes
tied at the end with ribbons of white felt. These rigid plaits were arranged to
stand up vertically from the top of the head. To aid them in preparing these creations
they used mirrors and fine-toothed combs made of horn. Combs of this kind
would probably have been used by both sexes to provide some relief from nits and
lice which must have been a constant irritation.
The Comforts of the Home
The classic picture of the Scythians as wandering
nomads travelling on horseback accompanied by their
covered wagons derives largely from the Hippocratic
text quoted above (p. 200) supported by Herodotus,
who writes of ‘people who have built neither cities nor
walls, who take their dwellings with them … whose
homes are their wagons’ (Hist. iv. 46). For much of the
open steppe this kind of mobility would probably have
been the norm during the summer months with communities
moving every few days to find new pastures
for the animals, but in the winter more permanent
bases were likely to have been established in the river
valleys. The wagons that carried the household goods,
the women, the aged, and the young are known from a
few clay models which suggest that the upper part was
built of hoops of light wood covered with fabric, probably
felt. A single family would have needed several such
vehicles to carry everything and everyone. When a stop
was made the wagon would have provided some shelter
but it is likely that other shelters were carried, like
wigwam-style tents or more elaborate structures like
8.9 Clay model of a wagon with solid wheels and covered to
protect the people and goods carried in them.
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