Uploaded September 2023 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
The Scythians were a semi-nomadic & nomadic people who ranged from the Danube & Don rivers in Europe, deep into Siberia in modern day Russia. As more and more archaeology was conducted pertaining to the Scythians in the late twentieth century, it became apparent that the form of nomadism that typified the Scythians and later cultures was a sharp break from patterns which were found in the Bronze Age on the steppe. The search for the origins of these changes eventually led archaeologists to the kurgan of Arzhan 1, located in the Uyuk Valley in the Republic of Tuva. Here, nestled among dozens of other kurgans, a tomb of a Scythian was discovered, and the trappings and burial rites strongly indicate that whoever was buried here was quite possibly the first Scythian king.
SOURCES:
The Scythians: Nomad Warriors of the Steppe, Cunliffe
Chronology of Key Barrows Belonging to Different Stages of the Scythian Period in Tuva, Van Der Plitch et al
Burial Mounds of Scythian Elites in the Eurasian Steppe: New discoveries, Parzinger
The Bronze Horse bit from the central burial chamber of the kurgan Arzhan-1, Veronika
The Scythians were a semi-nomadic & nomadic people who ranged from the Danube & Don rivers in Europe, deep into Siberia in modern day Russia. As more and more archaeology was conducted pertaining to the Scythians in the late twentieth century, it became apparent that the form of nomadism that typified the Scythians and later cultures was a sharp break from patterns which were found in the Bronze Age on the steppe. The search for the origins of these changes eventually led archaeologists to the kurgan of Arzhan 1, located in the Uyuk Valley in the Republic of Tuva. Here, nestled among dozens of other kurgans, a tomb of a Scythian was discovered, and the trappings and burial rites strongly indicate that whoever was buried here was quite possibly the first Scythian king.
SOURCES:
The Scythians: Nomad Warriors of the Steppe, Cunliffe
Chronology of Key Barrows Belonging to Different Stages of the Scythian Period in Tuva, Van Der Plitch et al
Burial Mounds of Scythian Elites in the Eurasian Steppe: New discoveries, Parzinger
The Bronze Horse bit from the central burial chamber of the kurgan Arzhan-1, Veronika
