Barry Cunlife - The Scythians

discovering the scythians
cultural system—a royal warrior burial accompanied by sacrificed retainers, the
allegiance of mounted warriors from afar, and the prevalence of a highly distinctive
animal art—were already present in the Sayan Mountain region of Siberia soon after
the beginning of the first millennium bc. For the excavator, Mikhail Griaznov, this
was strong evidence to support the idea that Scythian culture originated in the Altai–
Sayan region and spread westwards.
The great Arzhan kurgan was one of several in the region but it was not until 1998
that work began on another, this time led by a Russian–German team. The first season
involved making a geographical survey. Trial excavations began in 2000 and between
2001 and 2003 the mound was completely excavated revealing another royal burial.
While Arzhan 1 had suffered from grave robbing, Arzhan 2 was intact and yielded an
impressive array of gold, much of it decoration from clothes. Dating to the seventh
century, the burial shows that elite nomadic culture was still flourishing in the Sayan
region at the time that the historical Scythians were beginning to raid Asia Minor and
were settling in the Pontic region.
Between East and West
The tract of steppe stretching between the Black Sea region and the Altai–Sayan
Mountains—most of it within the boundaries of modern Kazakhstan—was also
home to nomadic pastoralists who buried their dead beneath kurgans. Those who
lived on the southern border of the region, in what is now Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan,
are known historically from their various engagements with the Persian empire.
They were generally referred to as Sakā, renowned for their horse-riding skills and
distinguished by their tall pointed hats. The famous relief carved in a rock face at
Bisitun, Iran, dating to 520–19 bc, which shows the Persian leader, Darius, triumphant
over nine rebel kings, depicts a bearded Sakā king, in the dress of a horseman,
resplendent in just such a hat.
In 1969 a farmer ploughing his fields near Issyk not far from Almaty in southern
Kazakhstan discovered an embossed gold plaque on the edge of a kurgan. The find
was reported to the authorities and the excavation which followed showed that,
while the central tomb had been plundered by grave robbers, they had missed a
second burial chamber to the side of the mound, dating to the fourth century bc,
which contained a body, probably of a young man, wearing clothes covered with
gold appliqué and a tall, pointed, gold-trimmed headdress. The ‘golden man’, or
‘golden princess’ as some would prefer, caused a sensation and has now been adopted
as one of the symbols of the Kazakh state.
24