The Scythian-like burial mound found in southern Siberia has been dated to the late ninth century B.C., making it one of the oldest of its kind ever found.Image credit: Trevor Wallace
Posted on 10/09/2024 11:13:13 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
A 2,800-year-old burial in Siberia that contains the remains of an elite individual, who was buried with at least one sacrificed human and 18 sacrificed horses, appears to belong to a culture closely related to the enigmatic Scythians, a new study finds.
The kurgan, or large burial mound, was unearthed in Tuva, a republic in southern Siberia. It dates to the transition between the Bronze and Iron ages, and it's one of the earliest known of its kind to show Scythian burial practices...
An excavation of the kurgan revealed horse-riding gear and artifacts decorated with animals, indicating that the elite person's culture was similar to that of the Scythians, who later lived thousands of miles to the west, the researchers wrote in the study. Some of the horse skeletons still had brass bits lodged between their teeth; the remains of a woman, likely a sacrifice victim, was also found, they noted...
...the Greek historian Herodotus (circa 484 to 420 B.C.), who wrote about their elaborate sacrificial burial rituals for the "Scythian royalty" in the fifth century B.C...
Modern genetic studies have shown that the Scythians of the first millennium B.C. were a diverse cultural group containing Siberian, East Asian and Eurasian ancestry. But the full story of how and where these groups came together to form the Scythian culture is still debated.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
The Scythian-like burial mound found in southern Siberia has been dated to the late ninth century B.C., making it one of the oldest of its kind ever found.Image credit: Trevor Wallace
As I understand it, “Scythian” is more a catch-all phrase for “north western barbarians, we don’t care what languages they speak”
What did the horses do? :(
They knew too much.
A book I truly enjoyed (though it got into the weeds too much for some tastes) was “The Horse, the Wheel and Language: How Bronze Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World” by David W. Anthony.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
