Barry Cunlife - The Scythians

further reading
Chapter 8 Bodies Clothed in Skins
Classical sources, particularly Herodotus and Pseudo-Hippocrates, have much to say
about the appearance, health, and clothing of the Scythians but one must remember
that their observations, whether gathered from the field or through informants,
would have been of people restricted to the Pontic steppe. Moreover, the way in which
they chose to depict the Scythians would to some extent have been coloured by their
prejudices about barbarians. Recent research on the human remains has given some
fascinating insights into the health of the population. See, for example, M. Schultz
et al., ‘Oldest Known Case of Metastasizing Prostate Carcinoma Diagnosed in the
Skeleton of a 2,700-Year-Old Scythian King from Arzhan (Siberia, Russia)’, International
Journal of Cancer, 121/12 (2007), 2591–5; M. Schultz et al., ‘Die paläopathologische
Untersuchungen erste Auswertungen einer bio-archäologischen Analyse’, in K.
Čugunov, H. Parzinger, and A. Nagler (eds.), Der skythenzeitliche Fürstenkurgan Aržan 2 in
Tuva (Mainz, 2010), 296–302; and A. Y. Letyagin and A. A. Savelov, ‘Life and Death of
“the Altai Princess” ’, Science First Hand, 57/58 (2014), 117–37.
The evidence for dress comes from two principal sources: depictions on metal vessels
and from the actual clothing preserved in the frozen tombs. For the former, the
objects chosen for illustration in Gallery of Objects (pp. 331–51) offer the best examples.
For the latter the most accessible source is S. I. Rudenko, Frozen Tombs of Siberia:
The Pazyryk Burials of Iron Age Horsemen (London, 1970), augmented by the excellent
illustrations and descriptions in St J. Simpson and S. Pankova (eds.), Scythians: Warriors
of Ancient Siberia (London, 2017). The distribution of appliqué ornaments in graves,
even when all traces of organic materials have rotted, can also give an indication of
dress. See, for example, the elite person buried at Issyk described in K. A. Akisev,
Kurgan Issyk: Iskusstvo sakov Kazakhstana (Issyk Mound: Art of the Sakā in Kazakhstan)
(Moscow, 1978). A brief discussion of the strength and weaknesses of the various
types of evidence for dress is offered in M. Gleba, ‘You Are What You Wear: Scythian
Costume as Identity’, in M. Gleba, C. Munkholt, and M.-L. Nosch (eds.), Dressing the
Past (Oxford, 2008), 13–28. Body tattoos are best displayed on the body from Pazyryk
kurgan 2, described and discussed in Rudenko, Frozen Tombs of Siberia (cited above),
110–14. The apparatus used for inhaling the fumes of burning hemp is also described
in Rudenko’s book, pp. 284–5, as are the other comforts of home.
Evidence for social structure is referred to in the classical sources and is inherent
in different styles of burial. The subject is discussed by A. I. Ivantchik in ‘The
Funeral of Scythian Kings: The Historical Reality and the Description of Herodotus
(IV, 71–72)’, in L. Bonfante (ed.), The Barbarians of Ancient Europe: Realities and Interactions
377