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Early Iron Age horse sacrifice at a royal tomb in southern Siberia


A spectral cavalcade: Early Iron Age horse sacrifice at a royal tomb in southern Siberia - Volume 98 Issue 402

Beginning c. 1200 BC, a stark increase of horses at funerary and ceremonial sites of the Mongolian Deer Stone-Khirigsuur (DSK) culture is evident, radiating into areas of China, Tuva and beyond (Bayarsaikhan Reference Bayarsaikhan2022). The site then formed the beginning of a tradition that led to the construction of hundreds of large burial mounds in the Uyuk Valley during the early Scythian Period ( c. ninth–seventh centuries BC) (Caspari Reference Caspari2020). The scattered horse and human bones in combination with remains of birch wood stakes suggest the creation of sacrificial installations of “spectral riders” (Herodotus, Histories 4.72; Godley Reference Godley1920).

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