Pazyryk Burials: Frozen Tombs of Scythian-Era Horsemen

The Pazyryk burials are a group of frozen burial mounds in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia, built by a nomadic horse-riding people around the 4th and 3rd centuries BC. Because ice formed inside the tombs, they preserved what almost never survives: tattooed human skin, saddles, clothing, felt wall hangings, Chinese silk and the world’s oldest knotted pile carpet. Excavated mainly by the Soviet archaeologist Sergei Rudenko, they give a vivid picture of the steppe peoples that Greek writers called Scythians.

The setting

The Pazyryk valley lies at about 1,600 metres above sea level in the Ulagan district of the Altai Republic, part of Russia, close to where Russia, Kazakhstan, China and Mongolia meet. The main cemetery contains five large kurgans (burial mounds covered with stone cairns) and a number of smaller graves.

The people buried there belonged to what archaeologists now call the Pazyryk culture, which occupied the high Altai pastures in the second half of the 1st millennium BC. They were related in lifestyle and art to other Scythian-type cultures across the Eurasian steppe, from the Black Sea to Mongolia, including the much earlier Arzhan kurgans of Tuva.

How the tombs froze

Each large kurgan covered a deep shaft, at the bottom of which stood a log chamber containing the dead, placed in coffins hollowed from tree trunks. Horses were buried in the shaft beside the chamber.

In antiquity robbers dug down into every large mound, taking most of the gold and other metal. Their tunnels let rain and meltwater seep in. The water froze in the chambers, and the stone cairn above shaded the ground and kept it cold through the summers. The result was a permanent lens of ice that sealed in wood, leather, textiles and flesh. Ironically, the robbers helped create the conditions that saved so much.

Excavation

Mikhail Gryaznov excavated Kurgan 1 in 1929, working with Sergei Rudenko. Rudenko returned between 1947 and 1949 to open Kurgans 2 to 5. The work was slow: excavators had to melt the ice with hot water, poured by hand, before they could lift objects.

Rudenko published a full account in Russian in 1953, and an English edition, Frozen Tombs of Siberia, appeared in 1970. Most of the finds are now in the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg. Timbers from the chambers allowed tree-ring comparisons, which showed that the five kurgans were built within a few decades of each other; radiocarbon dates and later research place them broadly in the 4th to 3rd centuries BC.

Tattooed bodies

The most famous body is that of a man in Kurgan 2, aged perhaps 50 or older, whose skin carried elaborate tattoos. On his arms, shoulders, chest and legs were deer, rams, fish and fantastic creatures with griffin heads, twisted in the flowing “animal style” typical of steppe art. The tattoos were rediscovered when the skin was examined in 1948; some were seen fully only in later infrared photographs.

The bodies had been prepared for burial with care. The brain and internal organs were removed, and the bodies were stuffed with plant material and sewn up, which probably allowed them to be kept until the ground thawed enough for burial or until mourners gathered. The man in Kurgan 2 had also been scalped and had a wound to the head, suggesting he died in battle. Other Pazyryk-culture graves found since, including the tattooed woman discovered on the Ukok plateau by Natalia Polosmak in 1993, confirm that tattooing was widespread.

Horses and grave goods

Horses were central to Pazyryk life, and every large kurgan contained horses killed for the burial, from 7 to 14 in each tomb. Many wore elaborate harness and saddle decorations of carved wood, leather and felt, some covered with gold foil. A few horses wore masks with antlers or crests, turning them into fantastic beasts for the journey to the afterlife.

Kurgan 5 held a four-wheeled wooden carriage, taken apart and placed in the shaft, and a huge felt wall hanging showing a seated figure, often interpreted as a goddess, facing a horseman. Other finds include felt swans, clothing, a man’s shirt, boots, wooden tables, and a small bronze censer containing stones and hemp seeds. This last find matches the Greek historian Herodotus, who describes in his Histories how Scythians threw hemp seeds onto hot stones and inhaled the vapour.

The Pazyryk carpet

The best-known object is the carpet from Kurgan 5, found in 1949 frozen in a block of ice. It measures about 1.8 by 2 metres and is made with symmetrical knots at a density of around 36 knots per square centimetre, more than a million knots in all. Its central field is filled with repeated star-like motifs, framed by a border of grazing elk or deer and an outer border of men riding or leading horses.

The carpet is the oldest known knotted pile carpet in the world. Its place of manufacture is debated. Many scholars see Persian (Achaemenid) influence in its imagery and think it was imported from Iran or Central Asia, while others argue for Armenian, Central Asian or local production.

Art and belief

Pazyryk craftsmen worked mainly in organic materials: wood, leather, felt, fur and horn. Their designs belong to the “animal style” shared by steppe peoples from the Black Sea to China. Deer with sweeping antlers, rams, wolves, big cats and griffins were carved, cut out of leather or appliquéd in coloured felt. Animals are often shown twisted round on themselves or locked in combat, with a predator attacking its prey.

The same creatures appear on harness, clothing, coffins and tattoos, which suggests that they carried shared meanings, perhaps linked to protection, status or the passage between life and death. Without written texts, however, these meanings must be reconstructed with caution from the objects themselves and from Greek and Chinese descriptions of steppe peoples.

The care taken over burial shows a strong belief in an afterlife. The dead were dressed in fine clothing, given food, drink and weapons, and accompanied by horses equipped as if for a ceremonial ride. The scale of the largest kurgans, which required the felling and hauling of many larch logs and the building of great stone cairns, implies that their occupants were leaders able to call on the labour of a large community.

Contacts across Asia

The Pazyryk tombs show that the Altai nomads were far from isolated. Kurgan 5 contained Chinese silk embroidered with a phoenix design, and a Chinese bronze mirror was found in Kurgan 6. Textiles and motifs link them to Persia and Central Asia. These finds show long-distance exchange across the steppe centuries before the Silk Road was formally opened under the Han dynasty.

Timeline

• c. 4th-3rd century BC: The large Pazyryk kurgans are built within a few decades of each other.
• Antiquity: Robbers break into the mounds; water enters and freezes the chambers.
• 1929: Mikhail Gryaznov and Sergei Rudenko excavate Kurgan 1.
• 1947-1949: Rudenko excavates Kurgans 2 to 5, finding the tattooed man and the Pazyryk carpet.
• 1953: Rudenko publishes his full report in Russian.
• 1970: The English edition, Frozen Tombs of Siberia, appears.
• 1993: A tattooed woman of the Pazyryk culture is found on the Ukok plateau.

Why it matters

Most of what we know about steppe nomads comes from Greek and Chinese observers or from metal objects that survive in ordinary graves. The Pazyryk burials let us see the nomads’ own world: their clothing, their bodies, their beliefs about horses and the afterlife, and the textiles that brightened their tents. They remain one of the most important archaeological discoveries of Inner Asia.