Gold of the Nomads

7/30/2019 Gold of the Nomads

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Gold of the Nomads

Brooklyn Museum of Art

200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, NY 11238 (tel: 718/638-5000).

October 13, 2000 - January 21, 2001

Organized by the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore and the San Antonio Museum of Art,in cooperation with museums of the Ukraine, the Brooklyn exhibit presents a wealth of

golden objects (fig.1) found in elaborate burial mounds known as kurgans or kurhans. It

also provides us with a history of the Scythians, nomads who apparently moved westfrom the Altai Mountains early in the first millenium, replacing the Cimmerian tribes to

control the rich agricultural lands north of the Black Sea (modern Ukraine) from ca. 600-300 BC. Much of our knowledge of these horse-riding tribes comes from the 5th centuryBC historian Herodotus who recorded such details as their custom of using the skin of

their enemies' hands to make quivers, and their propensity to drink fermented mare's

milk.

Entering the main exhibithall we get our first look at

these famed warriors,

depicted on a magnificentgolden helmet uncovered in

1988 . Nearby is anelaborate gold cover for a

gorytos, or bow and quivercase (fig.1) one of four

found in Scythian burial

mounds, each hammeredagainst the same template,

probably by Greek craftsmen working in the kingdom of Bosphorus.

[Fig.1: Gold cover for gorytos or quiver, 4th c BC (Gold of the Nomads, Brooklyn

Museum of Art).]

Although Scythian women are rarely represented on works of art, we are provided with

some idea of how they looked by a display of their garments. Wealthy Scythian women,

it seems, were literally covered in gold from head to toe, wearing such items as a

headdress covered in 243 gold plaques depicting gorgon heads, rosettes, lotuses andpalmettes, a dress decorated with gold plates showing various fantastical scenes, and

shoes also appliqued in gold. A rare depiction of a Scythian woman, on a golden diadem

excavated one hundred years ago, is probably of the principal Scythian deity, Tabiti (cat.


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#40). Here she holds a mirror, objects frequently found in women's burials throughout

Central Asia (several bronze examples are in this exhibit), and is surrounded by men

playing instruments and participating in ritual drinking.

Considering the importance of horses in Scythian society, it is not surprising that their

mounts, too, were covered in adornment, especially those that were sacrificed and buriedalongside their riders to accompany them to the next world. The exhibit features the

silver trappings from one such horse, buried along with thirteen others in the Khersons'kaOblast' region. The trappings include finely wrought cheekpieces in which a winged deity

fights a lion, and a noseband with a raised lions head. Another kurgan excavated ten

years ago in the same region contained not only the skeletons of horses still wearing theirgold and bronze bridle ornaments, but also a gold necklace with horse-head finials and a

magnificent gold phiale (cup) decorated in high relief with six horse heads rotating in

open- mouthed agitation around a central amber inset (fig.2).

Horses, however, are not the animals most commonly depicted in Scythian art; far more

prevalent are the stag, feline and bird of prey, which can be seen on everything from goldplaques, to bronze poletops, to a bone bow-tip. Scholars believe these are meant to

represent red deer, spotted and snow leopards and the golden eagle, all animals whichinhabit the forested region of the Altai mountains, not the grassy steppes of the Ukraine.

The depiction of these animals thus appears to reflect a concern with prey and predator

from when the Scythians originated as a hunting society in eastern lands.

When more than one animal is depicted in a scene, they are often shown in mortalcombat, as in the gold quiver cover presenting a stag under attack from a feline, eagle and

snake (cat. #50). This scene also demonstrates one of the central tendencies of Scythian

art, that of transformation from one form to another, probably reflecting the centrality of

movement and evolution in this nomadic society. In this case, we note that the lion's jawemulates a bird's head, while other birds' heads can be seen in both the hooves and antlers

of the fallen deer. This transformation of antlers to birds' heads is apparent in a number ofother objects in the exhibit, and may express the Scythian belief in rebirth and

regeneration, and probably stems from the observation that the male red deer sheds his

antlers every year, only to grow them anew the next spring. Some scholars thus believe

the antlers were seen as branches in the Tree of Life, which themselves evolved into birdsin an eternal life-cycle, a hypothesis which certainly makes sense of an unusual bronze

staff finial in which a man is surrounded by four 'branches' or antlers, each topped by an

eagle with outstretched wings (cat. #39). The nude, phallic figure, unusual in Scythianart, is probably a deity (perhaps Papaeus, next in importance to Tabiti in the Scythian

pantheon). Attached pendants and bells were undoubtedly meant to chime as the finial

was carried in some religious ceremony, reflecting the Scythians interest in sound as wellas movement.


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The remainder of the exhibit focuses on Scythian contacts and relationships throughout

the ancient world. Early in their wanderings

westward, it is known that they played aconsiderable role in the power struggles of the

Near East, becoming enough of a military

threat to the Assyrians that the kingEsarhaddon (681-668 BC) married his

daughter to a Scythian noble. The influence of

the Near East clearly shows in both Scythianart and daily artifacts, including such motifs as

the griffin (which fit well with the Scythian

fondness for both felines and eagles, and their

conceptions of transformation between thetwo) and objects such as the rhyton, or

drinking horn.

[Fig.2: Cup with horse heads, 5th c BC (Inst. of Archaeology, Kyiv).]

The establishment of Greek trading colonies, including Olbia, Cheronesos andPantikapaion on the Black Sea coast in the 7th century BC, brought additional influence

from the Greek world on Scythian culture. Greek objects become increasingly common

in Scythian burials, as the Scythians exchanged local resources such as grain, sturgeon,animal pelts, honey and amber for imported Greek wine, oil and luxury items. A striking

example of how deeply Greek trade-goods penetrated into Scythian territory is the

discovery a large cache of Greek bronze vessels in a peat bog 300 miles (500 km) up the

Dneiper River. All of the finds were manufactured in Greece, but include decorations,such as an eagle-headed griffin attacking a stag, which undoubtedly were chosen to

appeal to popular Scythian tastes (cat # 84).

While Greek items such as helmets, amphoras and even rings made from Greek coins, aswell as locally-manufactured copies of Greek objects, become increasingly common in

Scythian tombs, equally noteworthy is the growing Greek influence on Scythian art. It is

difficult to determine the exact ethnicity of the craftspersons who created many of the

finest gold and silver objects, since the Scythians themselves were already skilledmetallurgists, while the prospect of wealthy customers must have attracted metal-workers

from regions as far as southern Italy. Most scholars, however, now believe that many of

these objects were produced by Greeks living in Pantikapaion, the capital of the kingdomof Bosphoros. Catering directly to the Scythian market, these metalworkers often

modified their style to local preferences. In the gold gorytos described above, for

instance, the artist must have been aware of Scythian modesty, for the genitalia of themale figures are carefully covered in a manner the Greeks would not have thought

necessary. In many cases it is also seems that local craftspersons worked in collaboration

with Greek masters; thus, on the gold helmet discussed earlier, we can note the difference

between the detailed, skilled rendering of the heads of the combatants and the lesspracticed hand evident in the depiction of the garments.


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One of the final objects in the exhibit, a brilliant, 4th century BC, gold pectoral (cat.#172)

shows influence from both the Near East and Greece, in style and subject matter. Yet in

its own way, it is uniquely Scythian. In its outer register we see, finely sculpted in theround, a world that evolves from wild and mythical death-struggles to everyday,

mundane conflict: in the center, griffins attack horses, flanked by scenes of leopards and

lions assailing a boar and a stag, towards the edge a hound chases a hare, and finally, twograsshoppers face-off. Quite different is the top register which depicts rare scenes from

daily peaceful Scythian life: at center, two men stitch a fleece, their bow and quiver cases

at rest near-bye; they are surrounded by horses and cows with their young, some of whomare nursing. Then on each side, shepherds are at work, one milking, while the other holds

an amphora, followed by goats, kids and a bird. Perhaps here we are witnessing the

domestication of the Scythian people, who, at the time the pectoral was created, were

becoming increasingly sedentary and eventually, vulnerable to attack from newerimmigrants from the east, the Sarmatians

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Gold of the Nomads