Barry Cunlife - The Scythians

bodies clothed in skins
its delicacy of construction imply that it was for ceremonial use. It is closely similar
to contemporary Chinese examples and may have been of Chinese origin, arriving
in the Altai Mountains perhaps as a diplomatic gift. Such a contraption would have
been suitable for making grand gestures to enhance the status of its owner but would
have been of little use for hauling the family possessions from one pasture to another.
Indeed, the fact that it could easily be dismantled meant that it could, itself, become
part of the baggage when the family moved on.
The idea of packing up the family home and having to move several times a year
may seem arduous but this is how half the population of Mongolia lives today. It
takes less than a day to dismantle the ger and to pack it and all the other belongings
into a small lorry—the modern equivalent of the ox-drawn covered wagon—before
the trek to the new pasture begins.
Social Structure
To generalize about social structure based on the few scraps of evidence that survive is
dangerous, not least since there must have been considerable variation from one part
of the Scythian world to another. It is unlikely, for example, that the same social rules
applied to communities living in the Altai as to those existing on the Pontic steppe.
While Herodotus says that those whom he calls the ‘Royal Scyths’ adopted a form
of hereditary succession to appoint their leaders, the archaeological evidence from
Pazyryk suggests that this may not have been so in the eastern mountains, where
the elite all seem to have been exceptionally tall, implying that physical prowess may
have been a factor in the selection of a leader. At best, using the literary sources we
can create a generalized picture for the Pontic region but one must remember that
it may be biased by the behaviour of the leading tribe, the Royal Scyths, best known
to the classical world. Those who lived in the forest steppe and cultivated grain may
have lived by different social rules, while the Sakā of Central Asia and the Altai dwellers
may have been different again.
That said, the classical sources give a picture of the social hierarchy of the Pontic
steppe entirely consistent with the burial evidence. The Scyths seem to have been
ruled simultaneously by three kings of different status, the chief king having the
largest kingdom. Succession was hereditary. Under the kings many different classes
were recognized, nomarchs (land owners) and other ranks called ‘noble’ and ‘distinguished’.
Then came the class of skilled men such as sceptre bearers, spear bearers,
and soothsayers. Below them were the ordinary people and at the bottom of the
social scale, the slaves. Not much is heard of the slaves but Herodotus offers a rather
confused account of the practice of blinding those slaves who were involved in the
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