Archaeological discoveries of well-preserved sets of clothing confirm that real horsewomen of ancient Scythian lands dressed much as did those described in Greek texts and illustrated in Scythian and Greek artworks. Nomads wearing tunics, trousers, and pointed caps appear on numerous ancient gold reliefs, terra-cotta figures, and vases made in the northern Black Sea region, and on artifacts depicting the daily life and horse culture of Scythia. One famous example is the exquisite Cherto-mlyk vase showing trousered men and women or youths training horses. Other fine examples are the gold beaker from Kul Oba Kurgan (Kerch, fourth century BC), showing scenes from Scythian life, and the detailed relief on the fine silver and gilt bowl from Gaymanova Kurgan, showing several Scythian men (and possibly one woman) in typical dress, with weapons, at a banquet (all fourth century BC).24
The oral Manas epic of the nomadic Kyrgyz describes the hero’s wife sewing a pair of strong kandagai, “trousers.” Trousers and tunics fashioned from leather, wool, hemp, flax, and silk have been found in Scythian burials. In some cases, inner layers of wool or silk were worn under heavier clothes of leather and fur. Pieces of material of different sizes and thickness were stitched with decorative seams. As noted above, the earliest preserved trousers were part of the full wardrobes of the desiccated Tarim mummies, ca. 1200-900 BC, along with fur-trimmed coats with cuffs and wide skirts with colorful leggings of wrapped wool (the leggings in Greek vase paintings may reflect similar garments). The Golden Warrior of Issyk (fifth-third centuries BC) wore leather trousers with spangled seams, a cloth shirt under a leather tunic, and boots, all covered with golden scales. The Pazyryk man and young woman buried together with their weapons and horses at Ak-Alakha in the Altai both wore trousers of wool (fifth century BC; fig. 4.2). Preserved pieces of trousers from Ak-Alakha 1, mound 1, indicate that the pants legs were about eleven inches wide, probably similar to loose Turkish trousers gathered at the ankle, and perhaps tied under the instep as shown in some Scythian artifacts and Greek vases. The archaeologists who analyzed the clothing in Pazyryk women’s tombs suggest that “the girls, being warriors, wore trousers,” while older women wore robes or skirts over leggings. This would fit several ancient Greek accounts of
Young Amazon warriors as active-duty soldiers and older women as reserves, fighting only when required.25
In 1984 in the Tarim Basin archaeologists at Sampula discovered an extraordinary pair of trousers in a mass grave containing the jumbled skeletons of about 133 male and female nomads killed in a Xiongnu attack (third to first centuries BC). The bones were buried with textiles, tools, mirrors, and combs evincing far-reaching trade and plunder. Still encased in his or her limb bones, one nomad’s trousers had been tailored from pieces of a fine ornamental wool tapestry woven with flowers, birds, griffins, and other designs. One pants leg was decorated with a Centaur blowing a salpinx, a war trumpet used by Scythians and Amazons in Greek art. An image of a beardless blue-eyed steppe warrior holding a spear adorned the other pants leg. The archaeologists surmise that the large pictorial wall hanging had been looted during a Saka assault on a settlement in Sogdiana/Baktria, then cut up and sewn into garments.26
The Sampula mass grave also yielded many short skirts with multicolored bands and motifs. Long, wide skirts have been recovered from many women’s burials in Scythian lands. As we saw, the sari, worn since antiquity in India, was a large rectangle of cloth that could be easily transformed into riding breeches and battle wear. Archaeologist Polos-mak described a similar versatility for the long woolen skirt worn by the Ice Princess (Chapter 6). Xenophon advised a variation of this same draping and tucking arrangement to prevent chafing for Greek male horse riders, above. We can assume that nomad women on the steppes used the method of hiking a long skirt between their legs, and securing it with a belt, to make a trouser-like garment for riding and strenuous activities.
A wide variety of leather belts and buckles found in Scythian burials confirms that the belts and baldrics were accurately depicted in Greek vase paintings of Amazons. Archaeologists describe numerous broad belts with attachments, clasps, and hooks for carrying weapons and quivers, as well as narrow belts for pendants and light items such as knives and whetstones. Buckles, plates, and plaques in various shapes and sizes of iron, bronze, bone, wood, and gold, decorated with animal and abstract motifs, also occur in profusion in male and female burials, confirming the passages in Herodotus and Strabo describing the golden
FiG. 12.3. Artist’s reconstruction of girl warrior and horse in the Ak-Alakha burial, based on her preserved clothing and grave goods. Painting by Verena Kalin, Zurich, reproduced with permission.
Belts and baldrics of the Scythian and Saka (Massagetae) warriors. The animal and abstract geometric motifs that decorate Amazon and Scythian clothing in Greek art closely resemble the designs and shapes on artifacts found in Scythian and Thracian graves. The tombs of armed women also yield a great array of personal adornments such as earrings, necklaces, bracelets, pendants, beads, pins, animal teeth and claws, cowries (from the Indian Ocean) and other fossil and replica shells, and leather and gold appliques. Notably, many Greek vase painters included “feminine” jewelry—earrings, necklaces, and bracelets—in their illustrations of Amazons, even those shown in the thick of battle. Leopard and other animal pelts were another accurate detail (first appearing on a black-figure vase of 575-550 BC), since furs of spotted wildcats, martens, and other animals are among the grave goods of women of ancient Scythia.27
Amazons’ shoes and boots in vase paintings and sculpture also match the kinds of footwear found in the graves of steppe nomads. Well-made moccasins, ankle boots, and tall boots of felt and leather, often richly decorated with golden plaques, beads, scallops, and embroi-
FiG. 12.4. Examples of clothing preserved in ancient graves: pointed felt hat from Tarim Basin; leather hat with earflaps, Pazyryk Kurgan 3; trousers from Pazyryk frozen grave, fifth century BC. Collage by Michele Angel, after images in Siberian Times and other sites.
Dery, have been recovered from numerous ancient burials of women in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, the Altai, ancient Baktria, and other sites in Central Asia (chapter 4).
The headgear of Amazons and Scythians in Greek art falls into two basic types: stiff, pointed hats and soft (“Phrygian”) caps with earflaps (lappets) and/or back panel or ties. Some of the soft caps resemble pointed hoods or have curled-over tops, and some are elaborately decorated (Plates 7, 11-13, figs. 7.2, 7.3, 7.5, 11.2-4, 12.2, 13.1, 13.6, 15.1, 16.1, 16.2, 18.3). These Phrygian caps with lappets or ties appear in ancient Scythian reliefs and on ancient Armenian coins. Examples of this style of cap in leather, cloth, wool, felt, and fur have been found in ancient warriors’ graves on the steppes. The tall, stiff, pointed hats worn by the Saka-Scythians, known to the Persians as the Saha tigraxauda (“Pointed Hat Saka”) of the Caspian-Aral region, were described by Herodotus. These high conical hats appear in the earliest Greek images of Scythians (e. g., the famous Francois vase and fig. 11.1), and they are also depicted in ancient Hittite and Persian reliefs and seals. Archaeologists have unearthed several examples of these pointed hats (likened to “witch-hats”)—some very tall—made of leather, wool, and felt, often studded with elaborate golden ornaments, from many graves in Central Asia.
Tall pointed hats were worn by the frozen Ice Princess of the Altai, the Golden Warrior of Issyk, the skeleton of a woman in the Chertomlyk burial, the sumptuously dressed woman in Arzhan 2, and several female Tarim Basin mummies.28
Archaeological and literary evidence shows that the depictions of Amazon dress and equipment developed more realistic details in classical art as the Greeks discovered more about the lifestyles of real horsewomen and - men of Eurasia. The changes demonstrate that Greek artists and their audiences had access to information about nomad dress or had observed examples firsthand. The Greeks soon came to understand that the mythic warrior women they called Amazons would not have been outfitted like Greek hoplites but were mounted archers dressed and armed like contemporary nomads of the steppes. As the next chapter, on weaponry, reveals, trousers and horse riding were not the only inventions attributed to warrior queens in antiquity.
World History
