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Twelve Horses Found Sacrificed in Scythian Burial
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October 15, 1999
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by Bernadette Arnaud
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A dozen horses sacrificed nearly 2,500 years ago in full dress regalia have
been recovered frozen in a Scythian kurgan, or tumulus, near the village of
Berel in Kazakhstan's Bukhtarma Valley. Sealed in a chamber with a
sarcophagus containing the remains of two nobles, the horses are expected
to yield vital information about the Scythians, a bellicose nomadic culture
famed for its horsemanship that flourished on the steppes of Ukraine and
Russia between the seventh and second centuries B.C. "A discovery like this
occurs perhaps twice a century," says Henri-Paul Francfort, director of the
French team excavating the horses, which were preserved with their skin,
hair, harnesses, and saddles intact. This is the first time a Scythian
kurgan in central Asia's Altai mountains has yielded such a massive
sacrifice of horses.
The Scythians are known to have invaded Syria and Judea and sacked Nineveh
and Babylon, yet their tumuli, scattered across the northern Black Sea
Steppes and central Asia, are the sole monuments attesting their ancient
might. "Even the most humble Scythian was buried in a kurgan," says
Francfort. "To be sure, he would have been accompanied by only one horse,
or sometimes only its head or horse figurines."
The horses were found buried side by side on a bed of leaves and birch bark
next to a funeral chamber containing the pillaged remains of the Scythian
nobles. The horses appear to have been left undisturbed. Their bits are
made of wood and sculpted with animal figures, while their saddles are
decorated with gold leaf, leather, and felt and rested on red saddle
blankets. Each horse appears to have worn ornaments relating to an animal
commonly represented in Scythian art. Ibex horns fashioned in wood were
discovered near one horse and appear to have been worn on its head, while a
griffin sculpture in the round with horns of leather was recovered near
another pair of false horns.
The Altai mountains are famous for frigid temperatures that aid in the
preservation of bodies; ice sheets rapidly imprison burials, saving
organic remains from decomposition. Excavating this past summer, Francfort
encountered enormous difficulties excavating because rising temperatures
threatened to melt and decompose the remains of the horses, which had to be
chopped out of the ice in blocks and rushed into a freezer truck as
temperatures rose. "There wasn't any question of proceeding like a classic
excavation," says Francfort. "We had to cut out the blocks without taking
the time to examine the discoveries. All we had time to do was identify the
remains, cut them out, and pack them up."
This winter, in the comfort of a laboratory in Almaty, the Kazakh capital,
Francfort's team will conduct a minute excavation of the frozen blocks
while specialists perform a series of biomolecular tests on the human and
animal remains

© 1999 by the Archaeological Institute of America archive.archaeology.org/online/news/horses.html |