Introduction: Amazons and Dianas? Female Burials in Perspective

Introduction: Indigeneity and Sovereignty in Russia

Were classical Greek legends of Eurasian steppe heroine-warriors and female hunters mythic fantasies or based on reality? Was Herodotus, who wrote about them in the fifth century BCE, more accurate in his historical descriptions and wiser in his analysis than previously thought, despite being interpreted for many centuries as sensational?¹ What can lavish graves of gold-bedecked females buried with weapons reveal about our own projections and assumptions regarding status and gender? Using the lens of gender-sensitive archeology, our stereotypes of male warrior-leaders have rarely been as challenged, as when a Scythian period grave found in Tuva, initially viewed as that of a male youth, proved to be female after DNA analysis.

My fascination with female hunters was sparked in the 1970s when I first learned about them in Ob-Ugrian Khanty villages, where they were anomalies who had gone extra milesto feed their families in times of trouble. At the same time, I learned that a secret “traditional Khanty burial” in the early 1970s, against all Soviet prohibitions and practices, had been conducted for a revered male elder, complete with a horse sacrifice. Could any woman ever have been buried with such honor? The logic of female role flexibility was palpable and confirmed many years later in Turkic Sakha (Yakut) villages of the Far North, where other female hunters flourished and were admired. Harder to confirm were historical traces of women buried with horse sacrifices, although this too has been documented beyond doubt in the case of the famed royal Pazyryk “Altai princess,” discovered in 1993 and discussed ahead.

Questions of a range of female roles and statuses existing in numerous nomadic societies over the huge swath of territory from the Black Sea to Mongolia are broached in this issue, which also ranges widely in time. Besides potential hunters and warriors, female claims to respect or fame appear more often to have come from priestess-like roles, as evident in some female burials with altar-like stone stands.

Beginning with the Current Era (CE), our first article features female burials found in the area of Northern Khövsgöl, the largest freshwater lake of NorthernMongolia, sometimes compared to Lake Baikal. The Nogoon Gozgor 1 burial complex dates from the thirteenth–fourteenth century CE, when the inhabitants of this famed cultural crossroads area were on the cusp of integration into the Mongolian Empire. The necropolis was discovered in 1999, and has been analyzed periodically since then in productive, collaborative Mongolian–Russian projects, led by our lead author Artur V. Kharinskii. The article highlights a possible increase in status differentiation within the society, evident in traces of relatively lavish female graves, despite ghastly plundering of the cemetery. Especially striking in one burial were the remains of a female headdress, possibly correlating with high status markers of married women elites found in the wider Mongolic-Turkic cultural region. Remains of a sheep in this burial may be evidence of animal sacrifice, or funerary rituals of farewell feasting and respect.² Women wearing elaborate headdresses were signaling the status of royal-like dignified leisure, rather than active warrior or hunter prowess.

Our next article, by Kazakh archeologist and museum director, Yana A. Lukpanova, brings us to the exciting opening of a new outdoor museum complex south of Ural’sk city in Kazakhstan, featuring kurgan burial mound finds from the Zhaiyk Fortified Settlement, occupied over a considerable time period, from the fifth–fourth through the fourth–third centuries BCE. Lukpanova discusses the finds that inspired the museum complex, graves of men and women in a circular necropolis with each gender in its own zone. Here too plunder was evident, including in antiquity, as well as the depredations of rodents and construction equipment. Nonetheless, thieves left enough behind to allow archeologists to ascertain that some of the female graves contained weapons as well as jewelry and household items. The cultural identification of these kurgans is documented as Sarmatian, a conglomerate of people known to have battled the Scythians in around the fourth–third centuries BCE.³

Cited by Lukpanova, a more comprehensive survey of Sarmatian, Sauromatian and Sargat (Sauro-Sargat) female burials with weapons is presented here by Natalia A. Berseneva, of the Ural Branch (Cheliabinsk) of Russia’s Academy of Sciences. Berseneva, who checked our translation of her complex and nuanced work, makes an important distinction between burials of women with weapons being indicators of women as warriors or hunters, versus being symbols of diverse social status and power. Her analysis is a corrective for those who may wish to “read” all objects found in burials as direct correlations of their occupants’ occupations. We should acknowledge the degree to which we do not know full meanings behind ritual objects and adornments found in graves of ancient peoples, especially including the graves of famous and wealthy nomadic Scythians and their contemporaries. Berseneva’s article is valuable for the orientation it provides to life in the Eurasian steppes of the early Iron Age. Livestock-breeding societies had settlements and forts that provided some security, allowing mostly male warriors to be more mobile at the same time that women’s labor could include considerable activity, skill on horseback, and responsibility for maintaining households while the men were away, possibly on raids. Berseneva also mentions the salience of a female goddess of war, and the possibility of all-female military detachments, although it is unclear how large or frequent these were.⁴

Several articles that have appeared recently in Russian on women’s burials, for example on the Baltic region by Olga A. Khomiakova, could not be published with this thematic set, due to ongoing copyright negotiations. That more articles were available on this theme than could be published is testimony to heightened attention to the study of gendered evidence in archeological sites, as well as to increased numbers of impressive female archeologists, some of whom have become expedition leaders providing new perspectives and open minds.⁵

The issue of open minds is very much on the mind of our finale author, Indigenous scholar Nadezhda A. Tadina, who manages to critique nearly all “outsider” scholars, whether archeologists or ethnographers, who have written on the famed “Altai Princess.” Her article provides significant insight for those of us who wish to understand Indigenous perspectives, and not just give lip service to the value of collaborations and consultations with local peoples. Who speaks for the Altaians? Why have some of them asked for the “princess,” also called “Ice Maiden,” and “Princess of Ukok,” to be reburied? Why has the vast gap between local and outsider views on the border between life and death become so acrimonious? These and many other questions about the context of archeology practiced in the sacred Altai mountains are answered with flair and cogency by Nadezhda Tadina. While explaining traditional worldviews of Altaians based in villages, she avoids categorizing all Altaians as having a single understanding of the “princess” debates, or a single ethnogenetic origin. However, she insists that the current inhabitants of this magnificent mountainous land feel an important sense of place, rootedness, and kindred spirit with the rich and powerful royal kurgan occupants of Pazyryk culture that far transcends any DNA analysis.

When the gold-laden and astonishingly long tomb of the Altai princess was uncovered, the female expedition leader Natalia Polosmak, based in Novosibirsk, hardly expected to find that its headdress-bedecked occupant, surrounded by sacrificed horses, was a tattooed woman. But Polosmak had been hoping for it, wanting to confirm that a “golden woman” could be honored in death as impressively as the headressed “golden man” Scythian burial of Issyk kurgan earlier found in southeast Kazakhstan, renowned and dated to fourth–fifth century Saka culture. Her find, like that of the golden man, has become legendary, and it is no surprise that its safekeeping and legacy is controversial.⁶

What can we learn from the controversy? Despite the ravages of grave plundering, the seemingly miraculous condition of some kurgan graves, well preserved through permafrost processes, has enabled cultures of beauty and terror to be literally unpacked. Is archeology little better than greedy grave robbing, only dressed in the cloak of scientific knowledge? Or are the riches of understanding the past and the intricate connections of peoples across Eurasia worth the moral peril of violating Indigenous worldviews and consent? Can appropriate, negotiated compromises be attained? I hope our readers can ponder these questions, knowing that the data uncovered shifts over time as our discoveries of grave mounds and their hidden treasures increase, and as our approaches and our awareness of our own biases become more sophisticated. One important bias we can put to rest is the assumption that because a grave is rich with adornment, sacrificial animals, and weaponry, including bows and arrows, it has to be a man’s.

The significance of shifting perceptions in gender-sensitive archeology raises basic and perennial questions about self-aware probing of our relationship to data in anything we study. We can augment this by learning to reread the classics with new eyes. Didn’t Herototus tell us about Scythians who revered the Goddess Tabiti, associated with the Greek goddess Hestia, and about sun reverence that peaked at the summer solstice, associated with horse sacrifices and priestesses? While not everyone was a Diana or an Amazon, the range of female roles and status possibilities was as great in antiquity as we can imagine and discover.

Notes

1. Herodotus is easily accessible in Herodotus, The History. David Grene, trans. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

2. Tall imposing headdresses, shaped with birchbark cones and covered with luxurious cloth or fur, could then be decorated with plaques or platelets of gold, silver, and other precious metals. Some included cones of precious metals. These and other heavy jewelry such as earrings, necklaces, and bracelets, representing wearable wealth for nomads, were targets of grave robbers. For a sense of headdress elaboration, see photographs of traditional Mongolian female dress, e.g. https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1455/clothing-in-the-mongol-empire/ (accessed June 23, 2021), or the Kazakh wedding headdress in Vladimir A. Basilov, ed., Nomads of Eurasia (Los Angeles Natural History Museum, [Soviet] Academy of Sciences, 1989), p. 112.

3. Compare Vladimir A. Basilov, ed., Nomads of Eurasia (Los Angeles Natural History Museum, [Soviet] Academy of Sciences, 1989), p. 41.

4. For perspective, see Marija Alseikaitė Gimbutas, and Joan Marler. The Civilization of the Goddess The World of Old Europe. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1991. Larissa Pavlinskaya discusses a female Massagetae (Sakian) queen of mid-6^th century BCE: “When the Persian king Cyrus II refused to bargain, the Massagetae queen attacked in fury with all her forces and destroyed the Persians almost totally.” Larisa R. Pavlinskaya “The Scythians and Sakians, Eighth to Third Centuries B.C.” In Vladimir A. Basilov, ed. Nomads of Eurasia. Los Angeles Natural History Museum, [Soviet] Academy of Sciences, 1989, p. 22.

5. Relevant articles include: Olga A. Khomiakova “Zhenskie pogrebeniia iugo-vostochnoi pribaltiki 1-VIII vv.” Rossiiskaia arkheologiia, 2020, no. 1, pp. 90–106; Al’fiia Enikeeva “Zagadka amazonok. Drevnie voiny-muzhchiny na samom dele okazalis’ zhenshinami” RIA-Nauki https://ria.ru/20200712/1574191615.html July 12, 2020 (accessed 11/19/2020); Zvezdana Dode “Predmety zhenskogo kostiuma iz zolotoordynskogo zakhoroneniia mogil’nika Tingutinskii 1” Tyragetia, vol. 12 [XXVII] (1), 2018, pp. 331–46.

6. The precious 2,500-year-old Scythian period Pazyryk female mummy of the sacred Ukok plateau is currently in a climate-controlled museum in Gorno-Altaisk, after extensive travels, while many of her grave goods remain in Novosibirsk. For further perspective, see Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer “Editor’s Introduction: Archeology and Nationalism” Anthropology and Archeology of Eurasia, 2013, vol. 52 (2), pp. 3–4, and the excellent article by Gertjan Plets et al. in that theme issue: Plets, G., N. Konstantinov, V. Soenov, and E. Robinsson, “Repatriation, Doxa, and Contested Heritages: The Return of the Altai Princess in an International Perspective,” Anthropology & Archeology of Eurasia, 2013, 52(2), pp. 73–98.