Pazyryk Culture Up in the Altai
Pazyryk Culture Up in the Altai

Author: Katheryn M. Linduff

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-12-30

Total Pages: 157

ISBN-13: 0429851537

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This book reconsiders the archaeology of the Pazyryk, the horse-riding people of the Altai Mountains who lived in the 4th–3rd centuries BCE, in light of recent scientific studies and excavations not only in Russia but also Kazakhstan, Mongolia and China, together with new theories of landscape. Excavation of the Pazyryk burials sparked great interest because of their wealth of organic remains, including tattooed bodies and sacrificed horses, together with superb wooden carvings and colorful textiles. In view of this new research, the role of the Pazyryk Culture in the ancient globalized world can now be more focused and refined. In this synthetic study of the region, the Pazyryk Culture is set into the landscape using recent studies on climate, technology, human and animal DNA and local resources. It shows that this was a powerful, semi-sedentary, interdependent group with contacts in Eurasia to their west, and to their east in Mongolia and south in China. This book is for archaeologists, anthropologists, art historians, social and economic historians as well as persons with general interests in mobile pastoralism, the emergence of complex societies, the social roles of artifacts and the diverse nature of an interconnected ancient world.

Fantastic Fauna from China to Crimea
Fantastic Fauna from China to Crimea

Author: Petya Andreeva

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Published: 2024-03-05

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 1399528548

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Numerous Iron-Age nomadic alliances flourished along the 5000-mile Eurasian steppe route. From Crimea to the Mongolian grassland, nomadic image-making was rooted in metonymically conveyed zoomorphic designs, creating an alternative ecological reality. The nomadic elite nucleus embraced this elaborate image system to construct collective memory in reluctant, diverse political alliances organised around shared geopolitical goals rather than ethnic ties. Largely known by the term "e;animal style"e;, this zoomorphic visual rhetoric became so ubiquitous across the Eurasian steppe network that it transcended border regions and reached the heartland of sedentary empires like China and Persia. This book shows how a shared fluency in animal-style design became a status-defining symbol and a bonding agent in opportunistic nomadic alliances, and was later adopted by their sedentary neighbours to showcase worldliness and control over the "e;Other"e;. In this study of enormous geographical scope, the author raises broader questions about the place of nomadic societies in the art-historical canon.

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

Author: Svetlana Pankova

Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd

Published: 2021-01-21

Total Pages: 802

ISBN-13: 1789696488

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This book presents 45 papers presented at a major international conference held at the British Museum during the 2017 BP exhibition 'Scythians: warriors of ancient Siberia'. Papers include new archaeological discoveries, results of scientific research and studies of museum collections, most presented in English for the first time.

Frozen Tombs of Siberia
Frozen Tombs of Siberia

Author: Сергей Иванович Руденко

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 1970

Total Pages: 528

ISBN-13: 9780520013957

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Sergei Ivanovich Rudenko was a prominent Russian/Soviet anthropologist and archaeologist who discovered and excavated the most celebrated of Scythian burials, Pazyryk in Siberia. During the excavation of Pazyryk tombs, he discovered the world's most spectacular tattooed mummy said to belong to the Pazyryk Culture which flourished between the 7th and 3rd centuries BC. Herodotus and other ancient writers referred to the Altay as "the golden mountain". It was there that the impregnable citadel of the Scythians (or Sacae) lay hidden for centuries. Rudenko, however, was cautious enough not to assign his findings to the Scythians. He attributed the kurgan finds to the formidable Iron Age horsemen and warriors, whom he dubbed the "Pazyryks." Although they left no written records, Pazyryk artifacts are distinguished by a sophisticated level of artistry and craftsmanship. The Pazyryk tombs discovered by Rudenko were in an almost perfect state of preservation. They contained skeletons and intact bodies of horses and embalmed humans, together with a wealth of artifacts including saddles, riding gear, a chariot, rugs, clothing, jewelry, musical instruments, amulets, tools, and an "apparatus for inhaling hemp smoke." Also found in the tombs were fabrics from Persia and China, which the Pazyryks must have obtained on journeys covering thousands of miles.

Climates, Landscapes, and Civilizations
Climates, Landscapes, and Civilizations

Author: Liviu Giosan

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2013-05-09

Total Pages: 574

ISBN-13: 1118704436

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Published by the American Geophysical Union as part of the Geophysical Monograph Series, Volume 198. Climates, Landscapes, and Civilizations brings together a collection of studies on the history of complex interrelationships between humans and their environment by integrating Earth science with archeology and anthropology. At a time when climate change, overpopulation, and scarcity of resources are increasingly affecting our ways of life, the lessons of the past provide multiple reference frames that are valuable for informing our future decisions and action plans. Volume highlights include discussions of multiple connotations of the Anthropocene, landscapes as a link between climate and humans, synoptic approaches to explore large-scale cultural patterns, regional studies for contextualizing cultural complexity, and environmental determinism and social theory. Straddling the fields of Earth sciences, anthropology, and archaeology and presenting research from across several continents, Climates, Landscapes, and Civilizations will appeal to a wide readership among scientists, scholars, and the public at large.

The Hunter, the Stag, and the Mother of Animals
The Hunter, the Stag, and the Mother of Animals

Author: Esther Jacobson-Tepfer

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 448

ISBN-13: 019020236X

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Offers a stunning archaeological and art historical exploration of the changing traditions of belief in pre-Bronze and Bronze Age North Asia

Ancient Ink
Ancient Ink

Author: Lars Krutak

Publisher: University of Washington Press

Published: 2018-01-08

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 0295742844

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The human desire to adorn the body is universal and timeless. While specific forms of body decoration and the motivations for them vary by region, culture, and era, all human societies have engaged in practices designed to augment and enhance people’s natural appearance. Tattooing, the process of inserting pigment into the skin to create permanent designs and patterns, is one of the most widespread forms of body art and was practiced by ancient cultures throughout the world, with tattoos appearing on human mummies by 3200 BCE. Ancient Ink, the first book dedicated to the archaeological study of tattooing, presents new, globe-spanning research examining tattooed human remains, tattoo tools, and ancient art. Connecting ancient body art traditions to modern culture through Indigenous communities and the work of contemporary tattoo artists, the volume’s contributors reveal the antiquity, durability, and significance of body decoration, illuminating how different societies have used their skin to construct their identities.

The Archipelago of Hope
The Archipelago of Hope

Author: Gleb Raygorodetsky

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2017-11-07

Total Pages: 383

ISBN-13: 1681775964

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While our politicians argue, the truth is that climate change is already here. Nobody knows this better than Indigenous peoples who, having developed an intimate relationship with ecosystems over generations, have observed these changes for decades. For them, climate change is not an abstract concept or policy issue, but the reality of daily life.After two decades of working with indigenous communities, Gleb Raygorodetsky shows how these communities are actually islands of biological and cultural diversity in the ever-rising sea of development and urbanization. They are an “archipelago of hope” as we enter the Anthropocene, for here lies humankind’s best chance to remember our roots and how to take care of the Earth.We meet the Skolt Sami of Finland, the Nenets and Altai of Russia, the Sapara of Ecuador, the Karen of Myanmar, and the Tla-o-qui-aht of Canada. Intimate portraits of these men and women, youth and elders, emerge against the backdrop of their traditional practices on land and water. Though there are brutal realities—pollution, corruption, forced assimilation—Raygorodetsky's prose resonates with the positive, the adaptive, the spiritual—and hope.

The Scythians
The Scythians

Author: Barry Cunliffe

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2019-09-26

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 0192551868

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Brilliant horsemen and great fighters, the Scythians were nomadic horsemen who ranged wide across the grasslands of the Asian steppe from the Altai mountains in the east to the Great Hungarian Plain in the first millennium BC. Their steppe homeland bordered on a number of sedentary states to the south - the Chinese, the Persians and the Greeks - and there were, inevitably, numerous interactions between the nomads and their neighbours. The Scythians fought the Persians on a number of occasions, in one battle killing their king and on another occasion driving the invading army of Darius the Great from the steppe. Relations with the Greeks around the shores of the Black Sea were rather different - both communities benefiting from trading with each other. This led to the development of a brilliant art style, often depicting scenes from Scythian mythology and everyday life. It is from the writings of Greeks like the historian Herodotus that we learn of Scythian life: their beliefs, their burial practices, their love of fighting, and their ambivalent attitudes to gender. It is a world that is also brilliantly illuminated by the rich material culture recovered from Scythian burials, from the graves of kings on the Pontic steppe, with their elaborate gold work and vividly coloured fabrics, to the frozen tombs of the Altai mountains, where all the organic material - wooden carvings, carpets, saddles and even tattooed human bodies - is amazingly well preserved. Barry Cunliffe here marshals this vast array of evidence - both archaeological and textual - in a masterful reconstruction of the lost world of the Scythians, allowing them to emerge in all their considerable vigour and splendour for the first time in over two millennia.