Pazyryk burials | |
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Material | Tombs |
Created | 4th-3rd century BCE |
Discovered | Pazyryk, 50°44′47″N88°04′21″E / 50.746389°N 88.072500°E |
The Pazyryk [lower-alpha 1] burials are a number of Scythian (Saka) [3] [4] [5] Iron Age tombs found in the Pazyryk Valley and the Ukok plateau in the Altai Mountains, Siberia, south of the modern city of Novosibirsk, Russia; the site is close to the borders with China, Kazakhstan and Mongolia. [6]
Numerous comparable burials have been found in neighbouring western Mongolia.
The tombs are Scythian-type kurgans, barrow-like tomb mounds containing wooden chambers covered over by large cairns of boulders and stones, dated to the 4th–3rd centuries BCE. [7] The spectacular burials at Pazyryk are responsible for the introduction of the term kurgan, a Russian word, into general usage to describe these tombs. The region of the Pazyryk kurgans is considered the type site of the wider Pazyryk culture. The site is included in the Golden Mountains of Altai UNESCO World Heritage Site. [8]
The bearers of the Pazyryk culture were horse-riding pastoral nomads of the steppe, and some may have accumulated great wealth through horse trading with merchants in Persia, India and China. [9] This wealth is evident in the wide array of finds from the Pazyryk tombs, which include many rare examples of organic objects such as felt hangings, Chinese silk, the earliest known pile carpet, horses decked out in elaborate trappings, and wooden furniture and other household goods. These finds were preserved when water seeped into the tombs in antiquity and froze, encasing the burial goods in ice, which remained frozen in the permafrost until the time of their excavation.
Because of a freak climatic freeze, some of the Altai-Sayan burials, notably those of the 5th century BCE at Pazyryk and neighbouring sites, such as Katanda, Shibe, and Tuekta, were isolated from external climatic variations by a protective layer of ice that conserved the organic substances buried in them. Certain geometric designs and sun symbols, such as the circle and rosette, recur at Pazyryk but are completely outnumbered by animal motifs. Such specifically Scythian features as zoomorphic junctures, i.e. the addition of a part of one animal to the body of another, are rarer in the Altaic region than in southern Russia. The stag and its relatives, however, figure as prominently in Altai-Sayan as in Scythian art. [10]
"At Pazyryk too are found bearded mascarons (masks) of well-defined Greco-Roman origin, which were doubtless inspired by the Hellenistic kingdoms of the Cimmerian Bosporus." [11]
Rudenko initially assigned the neutral label Pazyryk culture for these nomads and dated them to the 5th century BCE; the dating has been revised for barrows 1-5 at Pazyryk, which are now considered to date to the 4th–3rd centuries BCE. [12] The Pazyryk culture has since been connected to the Scythians whose similar tombs have been found across the steppes. The Siberian animal style tattooing is characteristic of the Scythians. The artifacts show that these ancient Altai nomads had cultural and trading links to Central Asia, China and the Near East. [13] There is evidence that Pazyryk trade routes were vast and connected with large areas of Asia including India, perhaps Pazyryk merchants largely trading in high quality horses. [6]
The first tomb at Pazyryk, barrow 1, was excavated by the archaeologist M. P. Griaznov in 1929; barrows 2–5 were excavated by Sergei Ivanovich Rudenko in 1947–1949. [14] While many of the tombs had already been looted in earlier times, the excavators unearthed buried horses, and with them immaculately preserved cloth saddles, felt and woven rugs including the world's oldest pile carpet, [15] [16] a 3-metre-high four-wheel funeral chariot from the 5th century BCE [17] and other splendid objects that had escaped the ravages of time. [18] These finds are now exhibited at the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg.
Cranial measurements from the Pazyryk burials performed in the 1960s suggested that the interred were largely of European ancestry with some admixture of Northeast Asian ancestry. [19] But genetically, the Pazyryk population was actually fairly balanced between western and eastern Eurasian ancestry: it was modeled to derive between c. 50% from the Khövsgöl_LBA source, c. 36% from Western Steppe Herders (Steppe_MLBA), and c. 14% from a BMAC-like source. One outlier specimen (Pazyryk_Berel_50BCE) could be modeled as c. 18% Pazyryk_IA and c. 82% additional Northeast Asian admixture, suggesting that this individual represents a migrant who arrived from further East. [20] [21]
Tomb number 1 at Pazyryk has numerous artifacts, including horses wearing deer antlers masks, or harnesses with human figures. [22] The tomb is dated to the 4th century BCE. [23] Its main content was looted, but the area with horse sacrifices remained intact. It was excavated by Griaznov in the 1930s. [24]
Rudenko's most striking discovery in 1947 was the body of a tattooed Pazyryk chief in burial mound 2: a thick-set, powerfully built man, 176cm tall, who had died when he was between 55 and 60. [31] His tomb was monumental and lavishly equipped. [31] He died violently, and was killed with a Scythian-type battle axe, and scalped. He was carefully embalmed, and his body was covered in animal style tattoos, but not his face. [31] Parts of the body had deteriorated, but much of the tattooing was still clearly visible (see image). Subsequent investigation using reflected infrared photography revealed that all five bodies discovered in the Pazyryk kurgans were tattooed. [32] No instruments specifically designed for tattooing were found, but the Pazyryks had extremely fine needles with which they did miniature embroidery, and these were probably used for tattooing.
The chief was elaborately decorated with an interlocking series of striking designs representing a variety of fantastic beasts. The best preserved tattoos were images of a donkey, a mountain ram, two highly stylized deer with long antlers and an imaginary carnivore on the right arm. Two monsters resembling griffins decorate the chest, and on the left arm are three partially obliterated images which seem to represent two deer and a mountain goat. On the front of the right leg a fish extends from the foot to the knee. A monster crawls over the right foot, and on the inside of the shin is a series of four running rams which touch each other to form a single design. The left leg also bears tattoos, but these designs could not be clearly distinguished. In addition, the chief's back is tattooed with a series of small circles in line with the vertebral column. [33]
His embalmed head, now in the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, suggests a rather "Mongoloïd type". [34] He was crowned with a gilded copper tiara decorated with six winged, horned and hoofed lions ("lion griffins"). The lion griffins were made of wood, but were originally covered in gold foil before the foils were looted by tomb robbers. [35] A false beard, made of hair, sinew thread and leather, was also discovered next to him in his tomb. Its significance remaining conjectural, as all mummies recovered from Pazyryk were clean-shaven. [36] An extraordinary male headgear, a carved wooden crest representing a bird of prey with a deer head in its beak, was also found at the head of the coffin, and is thought to be the headgear of the chieftain. [37]
Pazyryk barrow 5 also contained the remains of a Saka chief. [41] It was excavated by S.I. Rudenko in 1949. [41]
The grave was formed of an inner and an outer log sarcophagus, covered with five layers of logs and a layer of boulders. [41] The tomb was looted in antiquity, but still contained the enbalmed remains of a man and a women, together with some artifacts, nine horses, either harnessed to chariot or back riding, a disassembled wagon with four large wheels on spokes, and various carpets. [41]
The most famous undisturbed Pazyryk burial so far recovered is the Ice Maiden or "Altai Lady" found by archaeologist Natalia Polosmak in 1993 at Ukok, near the Chinese border. The find was a rare example of a single woman given a full ceremonial burial in a wooden chamber tomb in the fifth century BCE, accompanied by six horses. [6] She had been buried over 2,400 years ago in a casket fashioned from the hollowed-out trunk of a Siberian larch tree. On the outside of the casket were stylized images of deer and snow leopards carved in leather. Shortly after burial the grave had apparently been flooded by freezing rain, and the entire contents of the burial chamber had remained frozen in permafrost. Six horses wearing elaborate harnesses had been sacrificed and lay to the north of the chamber. [44]
The maiden's well-preserved body, carefully embalmed with peat and bark, was arranged to lie on her side as if asleep. She was young, and her hair had been shaved off but she was wearing a wig and tall hat; she had been 167 centimetres (5 ft 6 in) tall. Even the animal style tattoos were preserved on her pale skin: creatures with horns that develop into flowered forms. Her coffin was made large enough to accommodate the high felt headdress she was wearing, which was decorated with swans and gold-covered carved cats. [46] She was clad in a long crimson and white striped woolen skirt and white felt stockings. Her yellow blouse was originally thought to be made of wild "tussah" silk but closer examination of the fibers indicate the material is not Chinese but was a wild silk which came from somewhere else, perhaps India. [9] Near her coffin was a vessel made of yak horn, and dishes containing gifts of coriander seeds: all of which suggest that the Pazyryk trade routes stretched across vast areas of Iran[ citation needed ]. Similar dishes in other tombs were thought to have held Cannabis sativa , confirming a practice described by Herodotus [6] but after tests the mixture was found to be coriander seeds, probably used to disguise the smell of the body.
Two years after the discovery of the "Ice Maiden" Dr. Polosmak's husband, Vyacheslav Molodin, found a frozen man, elaborately tattooed with an elk, with two long braids that reached to his waist, buried with his weapons.
Dr Anicua also noted that her blouse was a bit stained, indicating that the material was not a new garment, made for the burial.
One of the most famous finds at Pazyryk is the Pazyryk rug, which is probably the oldest surviving pile carpet in the world. According to some sources, it was manufactured in Ancient Armenia, using the Armenian double knot and Armenian cochineal for the red color. [47] [48] [49] According to another source, it is an imported Persian work because of its decoration. [50] It measures 183 cm × 200 cm (6 ft 0 in × 6 ft 7 in) and has a knot density of approximately 360,000 knots per square meter, which is higher than most modern carpets. The middle of the rug consists of a ribbon motif, while in the border there is a procession with elk or deer, and in another border warriors on horses. When it was found it had been deeply frozen in a block of ice, which is why it is so well-preserved. The rug can be seen at the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia. [51] [52]
In a corner of one grave chamber of the Pazyryk cemetery was a fur bag containing cannabis seed, a censer filled with stones, and the hexapod frame[ definition needed ] of an inhalation tent[ definition needed ] – these are believed to have been utilized at the end of the funerary ritual for purification.
Other undisturbed kurgans have been found to contain remarkably well-preserved remains, comparable to the earlier Tarim mummies of Xinjiang. Bodies were preserved using mummification techniques and were also naturally frozen in solid ice from water seeping into the tombs. They were encased in coffins made from hollowed trunks of larch (which may have had sacral significance) and sometimes accompanied by sacrificed concubines and horses. The clustering of tombs in a single area implies that it had particular ritual significance for these people, who were likely to have been willing to transport their deceased leaders great distances for burial.
As recently as the summer of 2012, tombs have been discovered at various locations.[ citation needed ] In January 2007 a timber tomb of a blond chieftain warrior was unearthed in the permafrost of the Altai mountains region close to the Mongolian border. [53] The body of the presumed Pazyryk chieftain is tattooed; his sable coat is well preserved, as are some other objects, including what looks like scissors. A local archaeologist, Aleksei Tishkin, complained that the indigenous population of the region strongly disapproves of archaeological digs, prompting the scientists to move their activities across the border to Mongolia. [54]
Saka kurgans [55] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Saka were a group of nomadic Eastern Iranian peoples who historically inhabited the northern and eastern Eurasian Steppe and the Tarim Basin.
A kurgan is a type of tumulus constructed over a grave, often characterized by containing a single human body along with grave vessels, weapons, and horses. Originally in use on the Pontic–Caspian steppe, kurgans spread into much of Central Asia and Eastern, Southeast, Western, and Northern Europe during the third millennium BC.
The Pazyryk culture is a Saka nomadic Iron Age archaeological culture identified by excavated artifacts and mummified humans found in the Siberian permafrost, in the Altay Mountains, Kazakhstan and Mongolia. The mummies are buried in long barrows similar to the tomb mounds of Scythian culture in Ukraine. The type site are the Pazyryk burials of the Ukok Plateau. Many artifacts and human remains have been found at this location, including the Siberian Ice Princess, indicating a flourishing culture at this location that benefited from the many trade routes and caravans of merchants passing through the area. The Pazyryk are considered to have had a war-like life. The Pazyryk culture was preceded by the "Arzhan culture".
The Tashtyk culture was a Late Iron Age archaeological culture that flourished in the Yenisei valley in Siberia from the 1st century CE to the 4th century CE. Located in the Minusinsk Depression, environs of modern Krasnoyarsk, eastern part of Kemerovo Oblast, it was preceded by the Tagar culture and the Tesinsky culture.
Scytho-Siberian art is the art associated with the cultures of the Scytho-Siberian world, primarily consisting of decorative objects such as jewellery, produced by the nomadic tribes of the Eurasian Steppe, with the western edges of the region vaguely defined by ancient Greeks. The identities of the nomadic peoples of the steppes is often uncertain, and the term "Scythian" should often be taken loosely; the art of nomads much further east than the core Scythian territory exhibits close similarities as well as differences, and terms such as the "Scytho-Siberian world" are often used. Other Eurasian nomad peoples recognised by ancient writers, notably Herodotus, include the Massagetae, Sarmatians, and Saka, the last a name from Persian sources, while ancient Chinese sources speak of the Xiongnu or Hsiung-nu. Modern archaeologists recognise, among others, the Pazyryk, Tagar, and Aldy-Bel cultures, with the furthest east of all, the later Ordos culture a little west of Beijing. The art of these peoples is collectively known as steppes art.
Sergei Ivanovich Rudenko was a prominent Ukrainian, born to a noble Ukrainian family, and Soviet anthropologist and archaeologist who discovered and excavated the most celebrated of Scythian burials, Pazyryk in Siberia.
Deer stones, sometimes called the Deer stone-khirigsuur complex (DSKC) in reference to neighbouring khirigsuur tombs, are ancient megaliths carved with symbols found mainly in Mongolia and, to a lesser extent, in the adjacent areas in Siberia. 1300 of 1500 the deer stones found so far are located in Mongolia. The name comes from their carved depictions of flying deer. The "Deer stones culture" relates to the lives and technologies of the late Bronze Age peoples associated with the deer stones complexes, as informed by archaeological finds, genetics and the content of deer stones art.
Ukok Plateau is a plateau covered by grasslands located in southwestern Siberia, in the Altai Mountains region of Russia near the borders with China, Kazakhstan and Mongolia. The plateau is recognized as part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site entitled Golden Mountains of Altai as an important environmental treasure. It provides a habitat for many of the world's endangered species including one of its least studied predatory animals: the snow leopard. Other endangered species protected there include the argali mountain sheep, the steppe eagle, and the black stork. It is also one of the last remaining remnants of the mammoth steppe. There are several threats to the preservation of the Ukok Plateau, including overuse of the steppe by ranchers, a proposed road, and plans for a gas pipeline between China and Russia.
The Issyk kurgan, in south-eastern Kazakhstan, less than 20 km east from the Talgar alluvial fan, near Issyk, is a burial mound discovered in 1969. It has a height of 6 meters (20 ft) and a circumference of 60 meters (200 ft). It is dated to the 4th or 3rd century BC. A notable item is a silver cup bearing an inscription. The finds are on display in Astana. It is associated with the Saka peoples.
The Noin-Ula burial site consist of more than 200 large burial mounds, approximately square in plan, some 2 m in height, covering timber burial chambers. They are located by the Selenga River in the hills of northern Mongolia north of Ulaan Baatar in Batsumber sum of Tov Province. They were excavated in 1924–1925 by Pyotr Kozlov, who found them to be the tombs of the aristocracy of the Xiongnu; one is an exceptionally rich burial of a historically known ruler of the Xiongnu, Wuzhuliu, who died in 13 CE. Most of the objects from Noin-Ula are now in the Hermitage Museum in Russia, while some artifacts unearthed later by Mongolian archaeologists are on display in the National Museum of Mongolian History, Ulaan Baatar. Two kurgans contained lacquer cups inscribed with Chinese characters believed to be the names of Chinese craftsmen, and dated September 5 year of Tsian-ping era, i.e. 2nd year BCE.
Golden Mountains of Altai is the name of an UNESCO World Heritage Site consisting of the Altai and Katun Natural Reserves, Lake Teletskoye, Belukha Mountain, and the Ukok Plateau. As stated in the UNESCO description of the site, "the region represents the most complete sequence of altitudinal vegetation zones in central Siberia, from steppe, forest-steppe, mixed forest, subalpine vegetation to alpine vegetation". While making its decision, UNESCO also cited Russian Altai's importance for preservation of the globally endangered mammals, such as Snow leopard, Altai argali, and Siberian ibex. The site covers a vast area of 16,178 km2 (6,246 sq mi).
Natalia Viktorovna Polosmak is a Russian archaeologist specialising in the study of early Metal Age Eurasian nomads, especially those known as the Pazyryk Culture, an ancient people, often glossed as "Scythian", who lived in the Altay Mountains in Siberian Russia. She is best known for her discovery and analysis of the Ice Maiden mummy which is now the focus of an ethnic political debate between Russian scientists and the Altay people living there.
A knotted-pile carpet is a carpet containing raised surfaces, or piles, from the cut off ends of knots woven between the warp and weft. The Ghiordes/Turkish knot and the Senneh/Persian knot, typical of Anatolian carpets and Persian carpets, are the two primary knots. A flat or tapestry woven carpet, without pile, is a kilim. A pile carpet is influenced by width and number of warp and weft, pile height, knots used, and knot density.
Arzhan is a site of early Saka kurgan burials in the Tuva Republic, Russia, some 60 kilometers (40 mi) northwest of Kyzyl. It is on a high plateau traversed by the Uyuk River, a minor tributary of the Yenisei River, in the region of Tuva, 20 km to the southwest of the city of Turan.
The Siberian Ice Maiden, known locally as the Princess of Ukok, the Altai Princess, Devochka ("Girl") and Ochy-bala, is a mummy of a woman from the 5th century BC, discovered in 1993 in a kurgan belonging to one of the Pazyryk burials, from the Pazyryk culture in the Republic of Altai, Russia. It was among the most significant Russian archaeological findings of the late 20th century. In 2012 she was moved to a special mausoleum at the Republican National Museum in Gorno-Altaisk.
The Scytho-Siberian world was an archaeological horizon that flourished across the entire Eurasian Steppe during the Iron Age, from approximately the 9th century BC to the 2nd century AD. It included the Scythian, Sauromatian and Sarmatian cultures of Eastern Europe, the Saka-Massagetae and Tasmola cultures of Central Asia, and the Aldy-Bel, Pazyryk and Tagar cultures of south Siberia.
Sargatka culture was a sedentary archaeological culture that existed between 7th century BC and 5th century AD in Western Siberia. Sargatka cultural horizon encompassed northern forest steppe zone between the Tobol and Irtysh rivers, which is currently located in Russia and Kazakhstan. The northernmost Sargatka culture presence is found near Tobolsk, on the border of the forest zone. In the south, the area of culture coincides with the southern border of the forest-steppe. Eastern foothills of the Urals make up the western boundary of the culture, meanwhile Baraba forest-steppe forms the eastern edge for Sargatka settlements and burial grounds. The culture is named after the village of Sargatskoye on the Sargatka River, which is located near a Sargatka burial ground.
The Boar hunter from the Hermitage Museum is a set of two symmetrical gold repoussé belt plaques depicting a nomad horserider hunting a boar with a bow. The plaques are dated to the 3rd-1st centuries BCE, or even earlier to the 5th-4th centuries BCE. The plaques were found in Southern Siberia, in an unknown location somewhere in the area between modern Kazakhstan and the Altai Mountains. The plaques belonged to the broadly-defined Scythian Animal style, and are relatively late examples of this kind of ornaments. They are often attributed to the Saka culture, but some Hunnic affinities have also been suggested. The plaques are also known in French as the plaques "à la chasse des Iyrques", after the famous account by Herodotus.
The Subeshi culture, also rendered as Subeishi culture or Subeixi culture, is an Iron Age culture from the area of Shanshan County, Turfan, Xinjiang, at the eastern edge of the Tarim Basin. The Subeshi culture contributes some of the later period Tarim Mummies. It might be associated with the Jushi Kingdom known from Chinese historical sources. The culture includes three closely related cemeteries:
The Siberian Collection of Peter the Great is a series of Saka Animal art gold artifacts that were discovered in Southern Siberia, from funeral kurgan tumuli, in mostly unrecorded locations in the area between modern Kazakhstan and the Altai Mountains. The objects are generally dated to the 6th to the 1st centuries BCE.
From all the evidence available I am convinced that the Pazyryk rug was a funeral accessory and most likely a masterpiece of Armenian workmanship
Thus the Pazyryk rug will have to be regarded as one of the first testimonies to early Armenian work, quite possibly produced in the vicinity of the old textile centre of Ardashad in the south-western Caucasus.
Whether the Pazyryk carpet was made in Central or Western Asia is a matter of debate, but Armenia in particular has been mentioned as a possible place of origin. As it happens, Armenia is also quoted as the source of rugs among which the Umayyad Walid b. Yazid sat to receive guests, though the technique used to make these particular floor-coverings is not certain.
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