Francfort, H.-P., 2020, “Scythians, Persians, Greeks and Horses: Reflections on Art, Culture Power and Empires in the Light of Frozen Burials and other Excavations”, in: , Londres, British Museum, p. 134-155. (original) (raw)
Related papers
Acta Via Serica, 2020
The Scythians are the forgotten people of history. Almost every expert, including Cunliffe, mentions how little we know about them. It has been decades since a new academic work on the Scythians emerged. The ancient Greeks coined the term Scythia to refer the vast stretch of land from the Danube River in the west to the Altai Mountains of Mongolia in the east. Since Scythians left behind neither a major city nor a significant written record, historians and archeologists must gather scattered information about the Scythians either from archaeological findings or from the records of Scythian neighbors, the Greeks, Persians, and Chinese. Turning the fragments of information on Scythians into a coherent work is certainly a daunting task and Barry Cunliffe did a great job to put the pieces of this puzzle together in light of the latest archaeological discoveries.
NETSOL: New Trends in Social and Liberal Sciences, 2021
The Scythians is an expansive study of a lost civilization with everlasting characteristics and a rich cultural and artistic heritage. It provides a sympathetic account of a nomadic civilization encompassing a wide variety of sources. Most significantly, it utilizes interdisciplinary methodology to exemplify a model of how to research a nomadic culture doing justice to its historical understanding. The book is arranged into twelve chapters, each focusing on a different aspect of the Scythians: its people, geography, culture, military, art, and history. Rather than following a chronological format, Cunliffe focuses on tracing the evidence in historical records as well as archeological findings in compiling a picture of the Scythians as complete as possible with available material. The book is rich with visual material: pictures, illustrations, maps, images of objects and crafts, as well as an addendum gallery with ten objects presented and interpreted in detail providing depictions of the Scythian life.
Masters of the Steppe: The Impact of the Scythians and Later Nomad Societies of Eurasia, 2020
How and why major museum exhibitions are put together are rarely explained in detail, let alone in print: this introduction to a volume of studies arising from a joint British Museum and State Hermitage Museum exhibition and conference helps redress that. Here you can read the reasoning behind the 2017/18 exhibition 'Scythians: warriors of ancient Siberia', and see how research and international collaboration underpin these projects. The separate conclusions at the conclusion of the present volume discuss in greater depth approaches to Eurasian pastoral nomadism, compare with evidence from Arabia, and raise much bigger questions over cultural identity and the transfer of ideas and technologies.
The Scythians and Their Neighbors
Nomads as Agents of Cultural Change: The Mongols and Their Eurasian Predecessors, 2015
ncient authors and some contemporary scholars have used the name "Scythians" in two different meanings: a generic name for the an-"" cient nomads of the Eurasian steppes, semideserts and deserts, especially the Iranian-speaking ones; and for a particular ethnic group or several groups that, in the first millennium BCE, inhabited the East European steppes, which stretch from the lower Danube to the lower Don Rivers for roughly 620 miles, and from the area to the north from the Black Sea to the forest-steppe zone for over 310 miles. Although this chapter is devoted to the latter, there will also be a few cases where they will be discussed in the broader context of the ancient nomads.
Masters of the Steppe: The Impact of the Scythians and Later Nomad Societies of Eurasia
Masters of the Steppe, 2020
This book co-edited with Svetlana Pankova presents 45 papers offered for and/or presented at a major international conference held at the British Museum as part of the public programme associated with the 2017 exhibition 'Scythians: warriors of ancient Siberia'. Papers include new archaeological discoveries, results of scientific research and studies of museum collections, most presented in English for the first time. The volume also contains a lengthy introduction explaining how the conference was devised alongside the exhibition and how the exhibition itself was created. The book ends with a long concluding essay exploring the ramifications of the papers and other research into Eurasian nomads, and is followed by a comprehensive subject index. A full list of contributors and their affiliations is also provided. All papers were peer-reviewed. Papers are embargoed for two years but we hope that you can find copies through your institutions and personal Eurasian networks. The title page and main list of contents are attached for reference.
Masters of the Steppe: The Impact of the Scythians and Later Nomad Societies of Eurasia, 2020
This is the concluding essay to the volume of proceedings arising from a conference at the British Museum devoted to Scythians and other Eurasian nomads. It draws together the themes expressed in more detail in individual papers and addresses other questions raised during the course of development of the associated exhibition 'Scythians: warriors of ancient Siberia' and the separate catalogue published to accompany that.
Legacy of the Ancestors: Revitalization of the ‘Scythian Animal Style’ in Altaian Arts and Crafts
Kulturní studia, 2024
This study examines the so-called ‘Scythian animal style’, which has experienced a revival, particularly in contemporary Altaian arts and crafts, where it serves as a symbolic expression of ethnic identity and the Altaians' identification with the ancient Pazyryk culture of the Iron Age. The animal motifs from the Pazyryk culture, originating in the Altai region, are widely incorporated by Altaian artisans today and are used to represent and promote Altaian culture. The paper focuses on the role of this art style in Altaian crafts, exploring its interpretation and the reasons for its use from the Altaians' perspective. Alongside professional literature, the study draws primarily on data gathered during the author's field research conducted in 2018 and 2019 in the Altai Republic, Russian Federation. The theoretical framework of the study is grounded in ethnosymbolism.