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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.
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.
[[Image:Scythiancarpet.jpg|thumb|One of the most ancient pile carpets in the world, ca. 400 BC, [[Persian_carpet#Early_history|Pazyryk]]. This carpet has 3600 symmetrical double knots per cm² (232 per inch²), in modern terminology also called "[[Ghiordes knot|Turkish Knot]]").<ref>Sheida Nouri-Zadeh, Turkish Carpet: The Beautiful Picture of Art in History.</ref><ref>Wilfried Menghin, [http://books.google.com/books?id=e6vpAAAAMAAJ Im Zeichen des goldenen Greifen: Königsgräber der Skythen], Prestel, 2007, p.126: "''Er wurde mit symmetrischen Doppelknoten (sogenannten türkischen Knoten) geknüpft. [...] Der Teppich hat eine sehr dichte Textur und ist ein seltenes Exemplar der vorder- und mittelasiatischen Knüpfkunst jener Zeit.''"</ref><ref>D. T. Potts, [http://books.google.com/books?id=zqQofdcZAGoC A Companion to the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, Vol. 1], John Wiley & Sons, 2012, p.439: "''Further afield, we have also learned much from important find from Siberia, most notably the famous 4th century BC pile carpet from Pazyryk (Rudenko 1970). This carpet is made up of ghiördes (symmetrical, or Turkish) knots with a count of 3,600 per square decimeter or about 6 knots per linear centimeter (15 knots per linear inch).''"</ref><ref>Virginia Dulany Hyman, William Chao-chung Hu, [http://books.google.com/books?id=ra_YAAAAMAAJ Carpets of China and its border regions, Ars Ceramica], 1982, p.10: "''The Pazyryk carpet contains motifs which could be found in many variations throughout their historical development within Turkish and Hun art and they all bear a strong resemblence to their proto-types. Many of the elements found on the Pazyryk carpet can be traced through later Turkish rugs.''"</ref><ref>W. T. Ziemba, Abdulkadir Akatay, Sandra L. Schwartz, [http://books.google.com/books?id=CbMnAAAAMAAJ Turkish flat weaves: an introduction to the weaving and culture of Anatolia], Scorpion Publications, 1979, p.44: "''The following article discusses various theories concerning the age and provenance of the Pazyryk carpet and provide insights into designs and weaving of Turkish carpets and kilims woven much later. See also Rudenko (1970).''"</ref> The carpet shows great similarities to modern [[Turkmen carpet]]s<ref name="Bausback">Peter Bausback, [http://books.google.com/books?id=DaRWAAAAMAAJ Antike Orientteppiche]. 1978. p.429: "''Die Annahme, daß aus dem ostturkestanischen Raum der Einfluß der Kunst den Weg nach Westen nahm, wird durch die Völkerwanderungen untermauert. ... Die Muster des frühen Knüpfteppichs aus Pazyryk entsprechen in der Systematik den turkmenischen Erzeugnissen. Durch die Völkerverschiebungen in den verschiedenen Jahrhunderten waren die Turkmenensteppen die Durchgangsgebiete für die Wanderungen nach Westen. Hierdurch erklärt sich auch, daß frühe seldschukische Teppiche der Türkei mit dem Stil der Turkmenensteppe vieles gemeinsam haben.''"</ref><ref name="Jahrbuch.vol.39">[http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=dNUjAQAAIAAJ Museum für Völkerkunde zu Leipzig, Jahrbuch, vol. 39], 1992, p.40-42: "''Vergleicht man aber die Nomaden- und Bauernteppiche Vorder- und Mittelasiens untereinander und sucht nach Parallelen zum Pazyryk-Teppich, so ergibt sich, daß turkmenische Bodenteppiche dem von Pazyryk am nächsten stehen, und zwar durch Merkmale, die sie bezeichnenderweise von kaukasischen, persischen und türkischen unterscheiden. ... Sowohl auf dem Teppich von Pazyryk als auch bei turkmenischen Erzeugnissen dominiert die rote Farbe. Bei den Turkmenen wird der monochrome Eindruck noch dadurch verstärkt, dass das Rot nicht nur die Grundfarbe des Innenfeldes und meist auch der Bordüre, sondern auch die dominierende Farbe des Musters ist. ... Die Zahlenwerte des Pazyryk-Teppichs erscheinen aber erstaunlicherweise in der Oghuz-Legende wieder. Nach dem persischen Historiker Raschid ad-Din hatte der Stammvater der Oghuzen sechs Söhne, die ihrerseits wiederum je vier männliche Nachkommen hervorbrachten. Um Zwistigkeiten zu vermeiden, soll ein Ratgeber empfohlen haben, jedem der 24 Geschlechter ein eigenes Brandzeichen bzw. Siegel zu geben. Außerdem bekamen je vier gemeinsam einen Jagdvogel als „Totem". In ethnischer Hinsicht betrachtet Tolstow die Oghuzen als Hephtaliten, die sich mit türkischen Elementen, welche im 6.-8. Jh. aus dem Siebenstromland in das Gebiet östlich des Aral-Sees vorgedrungen waren, vermischt und neu formiert hatten. So versteht er die oghuzische Kultur des 10. Jh. „als gradlinige Weiterentwicklung der hephtalitischen des 5. und 6. Jh. Man kann davon ausgehen, daß auch die Oghuz-Legende auf einem älteren skythisch- massagetischen Motiv aufbaut, das bereits auf dem Pazyryk-Teppich seinen Niederschlag fand''"</ref> and carpets of the early [[Seljuq Empire|Seljuq]] period.<ref name="Bausback"/> The numerical values ​​of the carpet also show striking parallels to the [[Oghuz_Khagan#Legend|Oghuz-legend]] which could be based on a older version of the [[Massageteans]].<ref name="Jahrbuch.vol.39"/>]]
[[Image:Scythiancarpet.jpg|thumb|One of the most ancient pile carpets in the world. (ca. 400 BC, Pazyryk).]]


===Other findings===
===Other findings===

Revision as of 02:07, 12 June 2014

49°34′44″N 88°09′11″E / 49.579°N 88.153°E / 49.579; 88.153

Horseman, Pazyryk felt artifact, c.300 BC. For another felt artifact, see here.

The Pazyryk (Russian: Пазырык) burials are a number of Iron Age tombs found in the Pazyryk Valley of 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.[1] Numerous comparable burials have been found in neighboring 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.[2] The spectacular burials at Pazyryk are responsible for the introduction of the term kurgan, a Russian word of Turkic origin, 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.[3]

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.[4] 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.

Discoveries

A gilded wooden figurine of a deer from the Pazyryk burials, fifth century BC

The first tomb at Pazyryk, barrow 1, was excavated by the archaeologist M. P. Gryaznov in 1929; barrows 2-5 were excavated by Sergei Ivanovich Rudenko in 1947-1949.[5] 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, a 3-metre-high four-wheel funeral chariot from the 5th century BC and other splendid objects that had escaped the ravages of time. These finds are now exhibited at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.

Craniological studies of samples from the Pazyryk burials revealed the presence of both Mongoloid and Caucasoid components in this population.[6] quoting G. F. Debets on the physical characteristics of the population in the Pazyryk kurgans, records a mixed population. The men would seem to be part Mongoloid and the women Europoid.[7]


Pazyryk chief

Rudenko's most striking discovery was the body of a tattooed Pazyryk chief: a thick-set, powerfully built man who had died when he was about 50. 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.[8] 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. This tattooing was probably done for therapeutic reasons. Contemporary Siberian tribesmen still practice tattooing of this kind to relieve back pain.

Ice Maiden

Main article: Siberian Ice Maiden
The Ice Maiden - fifth century BC

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 BC, accompanied by six horses.[1] 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.[9] 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 was shaven off but wearing a wig and tall hat; she had been 5 feet 6 inches 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.[10] 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.[4] 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[1] 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.

One of the most ancient pile carpets in the world, ca. 400 BC, Pazyryk. This carpet has 3600 symmetrical double knots per cm² (232 per inch²), in modern terminology also called "Turkish Knot").[11][12][13][14][15] The carpet shows great similarities to modern Turkmen carpets[16][17] and carpets of the early Seljuq period.[16] The numerical values ​​of the carpet also show striking parallels to the Oghuz-legend which could be based on a older version of the Massageteans.[17]

Other findings

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 of an inhalation tent - 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 beenl 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.[18] 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.[19]

Pazyryk culture

Main article: Pazyryk culture

Rudenko initially assigned the neutral label Pazyryk culture for these nomads and dated them to the 5th century BC; the dating has been revised for barrows 1-5 at Pazyryk, which are now considered to date to the 4th-3rd centuries B.C.[20] 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. Trading routes between Central Asia, China and the Near East passed through the oases on the plateau and these ancient Altai nomads profited from the rich trade and culture passing through.[21] 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.[1]

It has been suggested{who} that Pazyryk was a homeland for these tribes before they migrated west[citation needed]. There is also the possibility that the current inhabitants of the Altai region are descendants of the Pazyryk culture, a continuity that would accord with current ethnic politics: Archaeogenetics is now being used to study the Pazyryk mummies.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d "Ice Mummies: Siberian Ice Maiden". PBS - NOVA. Retrieved 2009-09-01. Cite error: The named reference "nova" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  2. ^ A Special Issue on the Dating of Pazyryk. Source: Notes in the History of Art 10, no. 4, p. 4.
  3. ^ "Golden Mountains of Altai". UNESCO. Retrieved 2007-07-31.
  4. ^ a b Bahn, Paul G. (2000). The Atlas of World Geology. New York: Checkmark Books. p. 128. ISBN 0-8160-4051-6.
  5. ^ Trial trenches were excavated by Rudenko in 1924. Rudenko, Sergei (1970), M. W. Thompson, tr. Frozen Tombs of Siberia: The Pazyryk Burials of Iron-Age Horsemen. Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. xviii, xxxiii.
  6. ^ [1] Doklady: Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences Biological ... - Volume 358 - Page 72
  7. ^ [Ars Orientalis: The Arts of Islam and the East, Volume 4]http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=KlMhAQAAMAAJ&q=pazyryk+mongoloid&dq=pazyryk+mongoloid&hl=en&sa=X&ei=twXLUcOGLcrUsgaU94G4DQ&ved=0CDIQ6AEwADgU
  8. ^ Findings published in Archaeology, Ethnology and Anthropology of Eurasia, Spring 2005.
  9. ^ Polosmak, Natalia (1994). "A Mummy Unearthed from the Pastures of Heaven." National Geographic 186:4, p. 91.
  10. ^ Polosmak (1994), pp. 98-99.
  11. ^ Sheida Nouri-Zadeh, Turkish Carpet: The Beautiful Picture of Art in History.
  12. ^ Wilfried Menghin, Im Zeichen des goldenen Greifen: Königsgräber der Skythen, Prestel, 2007, p.126: "Er wurde mit symmetrischen Doppelknoten (sogenannten türkischen Knoten) geknüpft. [...] Der Teppich hat eine sehr dichte Textur und ist ein seltenes Exemplar der vorder- und mittelasiatischen Knüpfkunst jener Zeit."
  13. ^ D. T. Potts, A Companion to the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, Vol. 1, John Wiley & Sons, 2012, p.439: "Further afield, we have also learned much from important find from Siberia, most notably the famous 4th century BC pile carpet from Pazyryk (Rudenko 1970). This carpet is made up of ghiördes (symmetrical, or Turkish) knots with a count of 3,600 per square decimeter or about 6 knots per linear centimeter (15 knots per linear inch)."
  14. ^ Virginia Dulany Hyman, William Chao-chung Hu, Carpets of China and its border regions, Ars Ceramica, 1982, p.10: "The Pazyryk carpet contains motifs which could be found in many variations throughout their historical development within Turkish and Hun art and they all bear a strong resemblence to their proto-types. Many of the elements found on the Pazyryk carpet can be traced through later Turkish rugs."
  15. ^ W. T. Ziemba, Abdulkadir Akatay, Sandra L. Schwartz, Turkish flat weaves: an introduction to the weaving and culture of Anatolia, Scorpion Publications, 1979, p.44: "The following article discusses various theories concerning the age and provenance of the Pazyryk carpet and provide insights into designs and weaving of Turkish carpets and kilims woven much later. See also Rudenko (1970)."
  16. ^ a b Peter Bausback, Antike Orientteppiche. 1978. p.429: "Die Annahme, daß aus dem ostturkestanischen Raum der Einfluß der Kunst den Weg nach Westen nahm, wird durch die Völkerwanderungen untermauert. ... Die Muster des frühen Knüpfteppichs aus Pazyryk entsprechen in der Systematik den turkmenischen Erzeugnissen. Durch die Völkerverschiebungen in den verschiedenen Jahrhunderten waren die Turkmenensteppen die Durchgangsgebiete für die Wanderungen nach Westen. Hierdurch erklärt sich auch, daß frühe seldschukische Teppiche der Türkei mit dem Stil der Turkmenensteppe vieles gemeinsam haben."
  17. ^ a b Museum für Völkerkunde zu Leipzig, Jahrbuch, vol. 39, 1992, p.40-42: "Vergleicht man aber die Nomaden- und Bauernteppiche Vorder- und Mittelasiens untereinander und sucht nach Parallelen zum Pazyryk-Teppich, so ergibt sich, daß turkmenische Bodenteppiche dem von Pazyryk am nächsten stehen, und zwar durch Merkmale, die sie bezeichnenderweise von kaukasischen, persischen und türkischen unterscheiden. ... Sowohl auf dem Teppich von Pazyryk als auch bei turkmenischen Erzeugnissen dominiert die rote Farbe. Bei den Turkmenen wird der monochrome Eindruck noch dadurch verstärkt, dass das Rot nicht nur die Grundfarbe des Innenfeldes und meist auch der Bordüre, sondern auch die dominierende Farbe des Musters ist. ... Die Zahlenwerte des Pazyryk-Teppichs erscheinen aber erstaunlicherweise in der Oghuz-Legende wieder. Nach dem persischen Historiker Raschid ad-Din hatte der Stammvater der Oghuzen sechs Söhne, die ihrerseits wiederum je vier männliche Nachkommen hervorbrachten. Um Zwistigkeiten zu vermeiden, soll ein Ratgeber empfohlen haben, jedem der 24 Geschlechter ein eigenes Brandzeichen bzw. Siegel zu geben. Außerdem bekamen je vier gemeinsam einen Jagdvogel als „Totem". In ethnischer Hinsicht betrachtet Tolstow die Oghuzen als Hephtaliten, die sich mit türkischen Elementen, welche im 6.-8. Jh. aus dem Siebenstromland in das Gebiet östlich des Aral-Sees vorgedrungen waren, vermischt und neu formiert hatten. So versteht er die oghuzische Kultur des 10. Jh. „als gradlinige Weiterentwicklung der hephtalitischen des 5. und 6. Jh. Man kann davon ausgehen, daß auch die Oghuz-Legende auf einem älteren skythisch- massagetischen Motiv aufbaut, das bereits auf dem Pazyryk-Teppich seinen Niederschlag fand"
  18. ^ "Russian Archaeologists Discover Remains of Ancient Chieftain in Altai Permafrost". 2007-01-10. Retrieved 2007-05-06.
  19. ^ Daria Radovskaya (2007-01-10). "Кочевник был блондином". Rossiyskaya Gazeta. Retrieved 2007-05-06.
  20. ^ See above, n. 2.
  21. ^ "Early Nomads of the Altaic Region". The Hermitage. Retrieved 2007-07-31.

References

  • S.I. Rudenko, Kul'tura naseleniia Gornogo Altaia v skifskoe vremia (" (The Population of the High Altai in Scythian Times")(Moscow and Leningrad, 1953) translated as Frozen Tombs of Siberia: The Pazyryk Burials of Iron Age Horsemen, M.W. Thompson, tr. (University of California Press, Berkeley) 1970. ISBN 0-520-01395-6
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