Masters of the Steppe: The Impact of the Scythians and Later Nomad Societies of Eurasia

Proceedings of a conference held at the British Museum, 27-29 October 2017

Svetlana Pankova, St John Simpson, Svetlana Pankova, St John Simpson

• Publisher: Archaeopress Archaeology
• Year: 2021
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781789696486
• Subtopic: Archaeology
• Index: Social Sciences

Masters of the Steppe: the impact of the Scythians and later nomad societies of Eurasia consists of 45 papers presented at a major international conference held at the British Museum in 2017 on the occasion of the BP exhibition Scythians: warriors of ancient Siberia, both conference and exhibition being jointly organised with the State Hermitage Museum. There are 58 contributors and co-authors from 16 countries, mostly from Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, but also America, Britain, France, Germany, China and Mongolia. The papers range from new archaeological discoveries, results of scientific research and studies of museum collections to reconstructions of social elites, the phenomenon of monumental tomb construction, and 'Animal Style' art. Most results are presented for the first time in the English language and they throw a completely new light on a huge range of aspects of the lives of Scythians and other ancient nomads of Eurasia, their horses, rock art and the working of precious metals, textiles and other materials.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright page
• Frontispiece
• Contents Page
• List of Figures
• Introduction
• The Sasanian and Gupta empires and their struggle against the Huns
• Supersize me: political aspects of monumental tomb building in early steppe empires
• Saka ‘Animal Style’:
• A Scythian treasure in the lands of the Getae:
• Interactions between mobile pastoralists and settled agricultural societies in central Asia:
• The Arzhan-2 ‘royal’ funerary-commemorative complex:
• Scythian archers of the 4th century BC:
• Fabergé and the gold making tradition in Russia
• Scythians, Persians, Greeks and horses:
• Textiles, dyes and pigments of the European Scythians:
• Scythian gold from 19th century private collections
• Scientific study of the etching process used on ancient carnelian beads
• Trade, community and labour in the Pontic Iron Age forest-steppe region, c. 700–200 BC
• The predator scene in Scythian ‘Animal Style’ as a socio-political indicator
• ‘Animal Style’ art: influences and traditions in the nomadic world
• To accompany and honour the deceased:
• The royal *gaunaka: dress, identity, status and ceremony in Achaemenid Iran
• Scythian archery
• A priestly burial from the Taksai-1 cemetery
• The Okunev culture:
• Scientific analyses of some glass beads from Scythian
• Petroglyphs of the Scythian period in the Oglakhty mountains
• Scythian and Sarmatian weapons with gold decoration
• Gold of Peter the Great: Scythian goldsmithing techniques
• Life and death in the Scythian world of southern Siberia:
• Pazyryk horse masks of Gorny Altai
• Mummies and mannequins from the Oglakhty cemetery in southern Siberia
• Textile finds from the central burials of the Arzhan-1 barrow in Tuva
• The Sarmatian conquest of the northern Pontic region:
• The royal Scythian Alexandropol kurgan based on new research data of 2004–2009
• New investigations of Scythian kurgans and their periphery in the lower Dnieper region:
• The formation of the early Scythian cultural complex of the Kelermes cemetery
• The results of new scientific analyses of gold bracelets from Taksai-1 and an iron sword from Issyk
• Secrets of Achaemenid production of personal ornaments and vessels
• Jiang Yuan and north Chinese nomads
• Mysterious transformations of the Scythian cultures in the 6th and 3rd centuries BC
• Etched or bleached? Traded or copied?
• In hoc signo vinces: the victory of the Scythians over the offspring of their slaves
• Testing Herodotus: leather species identification of Scythian quivers
• Saddles of the Hun-Sarmatian period
• The wooden comb of the ‘golden lady’:
• Finds from the Noin-Ula kurgans at an exhibition in Berlin in 1929
• The Scythian empire: reassessing steppe power from western and eastern perspectives
• Antennae of Scythian akinakai:
• Settled rather than saddled Scythians: the easternmost Sakas
• ‘Steppe Style’ in southeast Gansu province (China)
• Conclusions
• The contributors
• Bibliography
• Index
• Back cover