SCYTHIAN CAVALRY: HORSE HEADS AND HARNESS AND HORNS…OH, MY!

 

Painter of Munich: By ArchaiOptix - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=93548087

So, have any horse remains actually been found in the Scythian kurgans? The short answer is “Yes”. The longer answer is “Wow!”

Not only have large burials yielded piles of horse bones; but a circle of twenty-two horse skulls wreathed the perimeter of one kurgan. Of course, that find was small pickings compared to what awaited archaeologists at the famous Pazyryk I site.

At Pazyryk I, archaeologists discovered a burial of ten golden horses. (Not horses made of gold; palominos). This shade was highly prized in antiquity; maybe it was rarer then. Their modern descendants are famous in equine circles as the “Turkmen horse”. (I’ve never heard of it before, but then I don’t run with the “horsey set”). Other types found in the grave sprang from the crossbreeding of a small, hardy, local variety with a Central Asian breed.

Although all the manes and eyebrows were carefully trimmed – better groomed than some modern humans – some ancient Scyth had distinctly earmarked each horse. It has been suggested that this “probably represented different ownership and, the horses most likely represented ‘gifts of grief’ from subordinate patrimonial elders to the buried chieftain”. Although I’m sure the chieftain and his demise were vital tribal concerns, the inclusion of horses in rulers’ burials also indicates their importance and intrinsically links them to the familial leader.

And the gear! I mean, forget “my kingdom for a horse”! Some Scythian kurgans are a veritable treasure trove of gold foil and fancy headdresses and zoomorphic animal art and…horse stuff!

Although not all Scythian graves belonged to equestrian women, the Scyths were a hard-riding, horse-centric people. At Povrovka, both functional and decorative horse gear seems to have been a prerequisite for burial. Archaeologists found pots specifically used to cook horsemeat, which was and is a staple of the Steppe Atkins Diet. One Saka woman’s grave held seven horses…and the abundant bronze harness rings once worn by them.

Again, at Pazyryk, the horse gear is spectacularly specific. More magnificent harnesses, plus this splendid description:

Usually two horses were decorated with particularly rich finery, and it would seem probable that these animals had belonged specifically to the chieftain. The head of each horse was decorated with a mask representing a horned tiger, while the tail was dressed with a cover. One horse wore a tiger mask with huge stag horns made from heavy leather. The saddles were decorated with hanging images of fish (Fig. 5).

Apparently, horns were a thing with the Scyths. In the Altai near the town of Berel, more “horse-horns”, made of different materials, were found:

 

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 were recovered near another pair of false horns.

 

Tiger, stag, ibex, griffin. Wood, leather, horn. Whatever the animal or material, no one in such a rough time and place, where survival was the primary concern, would have taken the time, trouble, and energy to create spectacular Halloween costumes for dead animals, unless the dead animal – the horse – had been of supreme importance.

Was there any evidence that the Scythians – and their Amazonian counterparts – had ridden these horses as advertised? Or were planning on riding them, like Kal Drogo, into or during the afterlife?

It has been speculated that steppe women began their cavalry training young and that their cavalry careers probably ended once they married or bore their first child. They may have found themselves on horseback before they could walk, and probably rode before they could run, considering the nomadic need to periodically move camp. So, riding would have been these women’s first skillset. Of course, this is archaeological speculation. But is there any evidence?

Yes, there is. Both camel and horse bones were found in the kurgans at Pokrovka. Although archaeologists believe they may have been meant for ceremonial riding in the afterlife, or to make a spectacular entrance into the otherworld, it is possible, based on the positioning of the deceased riders’ bodies, that the animals were ridden extensively in this life. The women were buried with their legs bent into the riding position. This represented a function they would have fulfilled in their lifetimes and possibly their primary role in the culture. Perhaps it is also a role they died fulfilling: fighting and dying on horseback, thus earning themselves the right to be buried as “riders”, as Amazons.

And what of the weapons? Did any lend themselves to cavalry-style warfare? Did these women even haveweapons? In the ancient world, no weapon equaled no warrior.

Let’s go down the list. Jeanine Davis-Kimball says that 20% of Sauromatian warrior graves were those of women. Bows and arrows appear to have been their weapons of choice, with one kurgan boasting over 200 arrowheads. At Pokrovka, an iron sword over three feet long – a length that rendered it unfit for any fighting but that of either the schiltron (unknown on the Asian steppes until Alexander’s arrival) or that which was executed from horseback – was found.

And then there’s the Sarmatian style of fighting. Sarmatians were a later group of steppe nomads, landing around the late seventh century BC to the fourth century AD, (while the Scyths peaked around the third century BC). The Sauro-Sarmatians didn’t like to fight hand-to-hand, either. (This would have disadvantaged any women warriors among them). Fighting “almost exclusively” from horseback, they seem to have used a tactic common to Indigenous American nations of the Great Plains, who were also horse-warriors. Riding nearly up to the foe’s front lines, they taunted them and lured them back into the battle. They would then wheel their horses in the opposite direction, firing back over their shoulders with bows and arrows at the pursuing enemy. For closer encounters, the three-foot-plus lances – shorter than yet similar to those of medieval mounted knights – would have literally kept the women at arm’s length.

All this abundant evidence – horse burials, equine trappings in women’s graves, cavalry-style weaponry, and early reports about steppe warfare from Classical writers – points to a warrior culture on the Asian grasslands, where horses played vital roles in the ritual and practical lives of the Scythians and the later Sarmatians.

But let’s forget about all that archaeology and science and history for a minute.

Emerging from the morass of accumulated evidence is a startling image: real-life warrior women, bows slung across backs, iron swords balanced across muscular thighs…their horses’ spectacular horned headdresses undulating with the horse hooves’ cadence, beckoning across time with the waving grasses on the high steppe.

 

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Bokovenko, N. A. “The Origins of Horse Riding and the Development of Ancient Central Asian Nomadic Riding Harnesses.” Kurgans, Ritual Sites, and Settlements: Eurasian Bronze and Iron Age, 2000, archsib.ru/articles/A356.pdf.

Davis-Kimball, Jeannine, and Mona Behan. Warrior Women: an Archaeologist's Search for History's Hidden Heroines. Warner, 2003.

Ivantchik, Askold I. “Chapter 3: The Funeral of Scythian Kings: The Historical Reality and the Description of Herodotus.” The Barbarians of Ancient Europe: Realities and Interactions, by Larissa Bonfante, Lightning Source UK Ltd., 2018, pp. 71–106.

Wilde, Lyn Webster. On the Trail of the Women Warriors: the Amazons in Myth and History. Thomas Dunne Books, 2000.