Pazyryk Totally Explained

Everything about Pazyryk totally explained

.]]The Pazyryk is the name of an ancient nomadic people who lived in the Altai Mountains lying in Siberian Russia south of the modern city of Novosibirsk, near the borders of China, Kazakhstan and Mongolia. In this part of the Ukok Plateau, many ancient Bronze Age barrow-like tomb mounds of larch logs covered over by large cairns of boulders and stones have been found. These spectacular burials of the Pazyryk culture closely resemble those of the Scythian people to the west. The term kurgan, a word of Turkic origin, is generally used to describe such log-barrow burials. This archaeological site on the Ukok Plateau is included in the Golden Mountains of Altai UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The Pazyryks were horse-riding pastoral nomads of the steppe and some may have accumulated great wealth through horse-trading with merchants in Persia, India and China.

Discoveries

The first tombs were excavated by the archaeologist Sergei Ivanovich Rudenko beginning in the 1920s. While many of the tombs had already been looted in earlier times, Rudenko unearthed buried horses, and with them immaculately preserved cloth saddles, felt and woolen rugs including the world's oldest pile carpet, a 3-metre-high four-wheel funeral chariot

from the 5th century BC and other splendid objects that had escaped the ravages of time. These finds are now exhibited at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.

Pazyryk chief

Rudenko's most striking discovery was the body of a tattooed Pazyryk chief: a thick-set, powerfully built man who had died when he was about 50. Parts of the body had deteriorated, but much of the tattooing was still clearly visible (see ). Subsequent investigation using reflected infrared photography revealed that all five bodies discovered in the Pazyryk kurgans were tattooed. No instruments specifically designed for tattooing were found, but the Pazyryks had extremely fine needles with which they did miniature embroidery, and these were probably used for tattooing. The chief was elaborately decorated with an interlocking series of designs representing a variety of fantastic beasts. The best preserved tattoos were images of a donkey, a mountain ram, two highly stylized deer with long antlers and an imaginary carnivore on the right arm. Two monsters resembling griffins decorate the chest, and on the left arm are three partially obliterated images which seem to represent two deer and a mountain goat. On the front of the right leg a fish extends from the foot to the knee. A monster crawls over the right foot, and on the inside of the shin is a series of four running rams which touch each other to form a single design. The left leg also bears tattoos, but these designs couldn't be clearly distinguished. In addition, the chief's back is tattooed with a series of small circles in line with the vertebral column. This tattooing was probably done for therapeutic reasons. Contemporary Siberian tribesmen still practice tattooing of this kind to relieve back pain.

Ice Maiden

The most famous undisturbed Pazyryk burial so far recovered is the "Ice Maiden" found by archaeologist Natalia Polosmak in 1993, a rare example of a single woman given a full ceremonial wooden chamber-tomb in the 5th century BC, accompanied by six horses. It had been buried over 2,400 years ago in a casket fashioned from the hollowed-out trunk of a larch tree. On the outside of the casket were stylized images of deer and snow leopards carved in leather. Shortly after burial the grave had apparently been flooded by freezing rain and the entire contents of the burial chamber had remained frozen in permafrost. Six horses wearing elaborate harnesses had been sacrificed and lay on the logs which formed the roof of the burial chamber. The maiden's well-preserved body, carefully embalmed with peat and bark, was arranged to lie on her side as if asleep. She was young; her hair was still blonde; she'd been 5 feet 6 inches tall. Even the animal style tattoos were preserved on her pale skin: creatures with horns that develop into flowered forms. Her coffin was made large enough to accommodate the high felt headdress she was wearing, which had 15 gilded wooden birds sewn to it. On a gold buckle retrieved from another tomb, a similar woman's headdress intertwined with branches of the tree of life are depicted. Her blouse was originally thought to be made of wild "tussah" silk but closer examination of the fibers indicate the material isn't Chinese but came from somewhere else, perhaps India. The body of the presumed Pazyryk chieftain is tattooed; his sable coat is well-preserved, as are some other objects, including what looks like scissors. A local archaeologist, Aleksei Tishkin, complained that the indigenous population of the region strongly disapproves of archaeological digs, prompting the scientists to move their activities across the border to Mongolia.

Nomadic culture

Rudenko initially assigned the neutral label Pazyryk culture for these nomads and dated them to the 5th century BC. The Pazyryk culture has since been connected to the Scythians whose similar tombs have been found across the steppes. The Siberian animal style tattooing is characteristic of the Scythians. Trading routes between Central Asia, China and the Near East passed through the oases on the plateau and these ancient Altai nomads profited from the rich trade and culture passing through. There is evidence that Pazyryk trade routes were vast and connected with large areas of Asia including India, perhaps Pazyryk merchants largely trading in high quality horses. It has been suggested that Pazyryk was a homeland for these tribes before they migrated west. There is also the possibility that the current inhabitants of the Altai region are descendants of the Pazyryk culture, a continuity that would accord with current ethnic politics: DNA is now being used to study the Pazyryk mummies.

DNA and anthropogenetic findings

Structure of the control region of the mtDNA isolated form three representatives of Pazyryk Culture of Gorny Altai (IV-II century BC), one of the central cultures in the Scythian-Siberian world, was analyzed by molecular genetic techniques.
Of special interest was to compare the results of molecular genetic studies to the modern paleoanthropological characteristics of Pazyryk population. Craniological studies of all presently available materials on burials of this culture have demonstrated both Mongoloid and Europoid components in the anthropological composition of Pazyrykians. Craniological variant occurring in the cattle-breeding tribes in the II millennium BC on the territories of the Southern Tadzhikistan, Southern and Southwestern Turkmenistan, and Northern Iran represents the Europoid component. In the epochs followed, this variant disappears from the territory of the Western and Middle Asia. It was suggested that the carriers of this morphological complex have been few and gradually assimilated into the mass of Eastern-Mediterranean Europoids. The Mongoloid component includes two anthropological types. One type, autochthonous, has been found on the Altai territory on the boundary of Neolithic and Eneolithic periods in the people buried in the Nizhnetitkeskenskaya and Kaminnaya caves and in the second half of the II millennium BC in Karakol Culture population. The typical combination of anthropological parameters characteristic of this type is similar to Southern-Siberian race complex, met currently in Kazakh, Kirgiz peoples, and certain groups of Khakas and Southern-Altaian peoples. The second type, Paleosiberian, dominated on the territory near Baikal during the Neolithic period. Currently, it occurs only in Evenki people in Northern Baikal region.
Comparison of the above-described data with the results of molecular genetic analysis demonstrates that it's currently impossible to give a comprehensive interpretation of all aspects of Pazyryk people anthropogenesis related with paleoanthropological consideration, mainly due to limited molecular genetic data on the majority of contemporary populations of the Northern, Middle, and Central Asia. However, certain questions, in particular the question connected with the Paleosiberian component, received a convincing confirmation and development. The data currently available also suggest certain genetic connections of Pazyrykians with the contemporary population of Gorny Altai. Discovery of the mitotype 2, possessing a marked similarity with the Northern-Asian Mongoloid mitotypes, in the individual with Europoid anthropological characteristics is one more essential finding. This fact demonstrates the absence of an absolute parallelism in anthropological and molecular-genetic characteristics. Note in conclusion that the interpretation potential of the molecular genetic data obtained will increase considerably with the accumulation of the information concerning the contemporary populations geographically and historically related with Pazyryk people.

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