It is impossible to conjure up an image of Amazons or women warriors without their horses nearby. A wealth of physical evidence shows the importance of horses in Scythian cultures. Thousands of pieces of horse
Equipment, blankets, harnesses, bridles, bits, frontlets, false antlers and masks, light saddles, and other trappings made of wood, iron, leather, felt, silver, and gold have been recovered from Scythian kurgans. Many exquisitely detailed artistic representations of horse culture appear on Scythian artifacts. The most famous example is the relief frieze around the elaborate gilded silver amphora from a queen’s burial in Chertomlyk, Ukraine, the site of numerous women warrior burials (Chapters 4 And 9).
The naturalistic frieze shows eight Scythians carrying out various activities with two types of horses. The people are dressed alike in tunics and trousers and have shoulder-length hair; six are bearded males and the other two are women or beardless youths. A man and a woman (or youth) are shown catching two fine wild horses with flowing manes, while two semiwild horses with roached manes graze peaceably, representing the tribe’s herd. Another scene shows a man hobbling a stout, short-necked horse with a trimmed mane, bridle, and blanket/cushion with loosened girth strap. Beside them, a man pours koumiss from a skin bag into a cup. Two men and a woman (or youth) are training a wild horse to kneel. Next to them, a fine bridled stallion obeys a man’s command to kneel.
Kneeling horses appear in many other Scythian artworks. Teaching horses to kneel for mounting was unique to Scythians. Kneeling was crucial in battle to allow a fallen warrior carrying weapons to swiftly remount (stirrups were unknown at this time). The Greeks, in contrast, mounted their horses by clutching the mane or vaulting with the help of a staff—except in the case of Alexander’s faithful horse companion Bucephalus, who had been taught to kneel. (Some suggest that Bucephalus was a Scythian-trained Akhal Teke-type horse.) Herodotus remarked that nomad horses were “trained to crouch on their bellies.” This practice was also mentioned by Aelian, who wrote that among the Saka, if a horse loses its rider it is trained to wait for her to mount again. Kneeling horses are not depicted in Greek vase paintings of Amazons, however. In Greek art, Amazons “dismount by sliding down the right side of the horse.” Amazons standing on the horse’s right side are thought to have just dismounted, while Amazons on the left side are about to mount.21
Among nomads, wealth in gold could not be stored but was worn by riders and their horses and buried with them in death. Unlike the plainer equipment of Greek and Persian cavalry horses, the mounts of Amazons and Scythians would have been decked out in dazzling finery.
Herodotus and many other Greek writers remark on the nomads’ gold, silver, and bronze weapons, jewelry, and horse decorations. The opulence of nomads’ horse gear can be imagined from the heaps of golden and gilded horse equipment recovered from kurgans all across the steppes.22
Archaeologists have discovered vast numbers of horse remains (mostly skeletons but some well-preserved frozen bodies) buried with female and male warriors in Scythian kurgans from the Black Sea to the Altai (chapter 4).23 The evidence of the horse sacrifices confirms numerous details of Herodotus’s ancient descriptions of Scythian funerals. Two kinds of horses, stocky and tall, have been found in Scythian kur-gans. Both kinds were decorated with costly ornaments and both are depicted in Scythian artwork. Small steppe horses stood about 11-14 hands high at the shoulder (hand = 4 inches); larger desert-type horses were 15-16 hands. The most perfectly preserved mare of Pazyryk culture was 12-15 years old and 13 hands high. She was wearing elaborate regalia, including a stag mask with huge, branching antlers and a beautiful red felt blanket with leather cutouts. She had suffered years of severe arthritis in her hind leg, suggesting to the archaeologists that she had been a favorite, cared for despite her lameness until the death of her owner. Notably, the smaller steppe horses found in kurgans appear to be of all ages and health conditions, whereas the larger, slender purebred types, perhaps more prized and rare, are old or lame. Ongoing skeletal and DNA testing of the equine remains will reveal much more about ancient horse types and relations to modern breeds.24
One extraordinary discovery by a French-I talian-Kazakh team in 1999, at the Berel kurgan complex, Bukhtarma Valley (northern Kazakhstan), was a great mound (330-270 BC) containing the coffin of a woman and man clad in furs accompanied by the bodies of thirteen perfectly frozen horses. This was the first Scythian grave to yield such a massive trove of sacrificed horses, all preserved intact in blocks of ice with their equipment and finery in place. Each horse had been sacrificed on an autumn day more than 2,300 years ago by a single blow of a pointed battle-axe to the forehead. The horses were “past their prime” at 9-18 years old, leading these archaeologists to guess that the nomads “were unwilling to part with their younger horses for the sake of ceremony.”
Arranged in two layers separated by twigs and sheets of birch bark, the horses were fitted with extravagant regalia, pendants, garlands, harnesses, and wooden ornaments covered in gold leaf depicting elk, griffins, lions, and stags, ornaments that would have shown brilliantly against the red felt blankets when they were ridden by the woman and man. The designs combined Persian, Scythian, and Chinese motifs, an amazing integration of diverse styles indicating extensive travels and trade activities. Several horses wore leather and wood masks of horned ibexes, elk, and tiger-griffins, similar to the many towering antler masks worn by other horses in Pazyryk culture graves. Some DNA testing in 2005 showed genetic diversity and relationships to modern equines.25
World History
