Barry Cunlife - The Scythians

the way of death
royal burials on the Pontic steppe. It required more skill and time to create but had
the advantage of offering unrestricted space for laying out the various aspects of the
burial array in different compartments.
Consigned to the Earth
When the procession at last reached the grave pit the body was consigned to the
earth. Herodotus provides the details:
Having laid out the corpse in the tomb on a mattress and planted spears on both sides
of the body, beams are stretched across above it to form a roof, which is covered over
with mats. In the space around the king’s body they bury one of his concubines after
strangling her and his cup-bearer, carver, equerry, attendant messenger, horses, the
pick of everything else, and golden bowls (they are neither silver nor bronze). Having
done this they heap up a great barrow. . . .
(Hist. iv. 71)
There can be no doubt about the intention of the burial: it was to provide the king
with all the comforts he would expect to have on hand in the afterlife, the hope being
that he would be sufficiently content to remain in his new domain and not interfere
in the world of the living.
Herodotus’ brief description can be augmented by the rich archaeological evidence.
The bodies were often laid on some kind of bedding, particularly in the seventh
and sixth centuries, but by the fourth century, with the influence of the Greek
colonies growing, sarcophagi came increasingly into use. Spears are prominent,
often placed close to the king, and the bodies of female companions and retainers
are regularly found, particularly in the fourth-century burials. The burial practices
associated with the king’s horses were a little more complex. In the earlier period the
slaughtered horses were often divided into two groups, one placed in the grave pit,
the other just outside. In Kelermes 1 there were twelve horses in each group, while
at Kostromskaya all twenty-two horses were laid around the outside of the timber
burial chamber. Although the tradition continued on the Pontic steppe, by the fourth
century it was more usual for the horses to be placed in separate burial pits towards
the periphery of the mound. In the case of Chertomlÿk there were three separate pits
providing space for a total of eleven horses.
Across the north Pontic region variations in behaviour can be discerned. In the
North Caucasus horse skeletons are found in most of the graves of the seventh to
fifth centuries, but even among the richest burials of the forest steppe zone they are
rare: instead, the horses are represented by their harnesses—as many as twenty sets
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