Dazzling display of riches from the plains of ancient Kazakhstan
Exhibition
Gold of the Great Steppe
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
For more than seven centuries, the ancient Saka horsemen and horsewomen, semi-nomads, galloped over the Eurasian steppes from the Black Sea to Siberia and even Mongolia. Accompanied by dogs and armed with ornamental daggers, composite bows and skilfully sharpened arrows, they hunted beasts great and small under the arching skyscapes of this vast terrain. They took with them their herds of goats and sheep and raided other tribes’ livestock and stores. They gathered a large repertoire of leaves, seeds and grasses to use in their cooking and medicine, including an anaesthetic herb mentioned in ancient sources which is likely to have been cannabis.
Their richer families buried their dead within funeral mounds (kurgans), after dressing their corpses in gorgeous clothing and lovingly arranging priceless grave goods around them. Above all, as this beautifully curated exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge reveals, they created exquisite objects out of wool, wood, leather, lapis lazuli and different types of gold. These were no barbarians, as the ancient Greeks and Persians alleged, but sophisticated people with a sense of beauty and oneness with their natural environment.
It is to the credit of the government of East Kazakhstan that they have funded a large-scale archaeological investigation into their mysterious ancestors, who were akin to the much better-known and documented Scythians, in order to forestall further damage inflicted by the systematic looting of Saka burial sites. There have been spectacular new finds over the past three years, notably an intact kurgan at Eleke Sazy in which an archer (a youth of about 18), and a teenage girl a few years younger, were interred along with dazzling artefacts. This exhibition represents the first time that these finds have been brought to an international audience, through the Fitzwilliam’s collaboration with the Department of Culture of East Kazakhstan, notably the combined work of the curator, Dr Rebecca Roberts and Saltanat Amir, a Kazakh postgraduate student specialising in goldsmithing technologies.
The first impression made by the exhibition is of light and space: ceiling-high panels displaying photographs of the lofty mountains and dusty plains the Saka inhabited create an atmospheric backdrop. There are superb reconstructions of a horse, fitted with spectacular gold and scarlet riding tack, and the grave where
the young people were buried. Life-size mannequins stand proudly in elaborate costumes, enhancing the appeal of the exhibition to children (we know a considerable amount about the imposing appearance of the Saka in full regalia from some remains of cloth, hundreds of golden decorations and the descriptions and depictions of their costumes and distinctive conical hats left by the ancient Persians).
But it is the golden artefacts which are the stars of the show: clasps, earrings, headdresses, brooches, tiny beads and plaques for stitching onto leather and textiles, all glitter and shimmer under the well-designed lighting. These masterpieces include abstract designs, but it was stylised fauna that dominated the Saka’s aesthetic imagination: deer, bears, felines, rabbits and birds. There is even a saddle in the shape of a fish. Despite intensive research, some of their smiths’ techniques remain a mystery, especially the decorative detail – antlers, feathers, claws – on so minute a scale that it must have required unbelievably acute eyesight and the steadiest of hands.
Britain is fortunate to be the first host of these gorgeous artefacts outside their homeland. A visit could fruitfully be followed by watching the magnificent film The Legend of Tomiris (2019), directed by Akan Satayev, in which the lifestyle of the steppe semi-nomads is meticulously reconstructed. The ancient Greeks, despite attempting to dismiss them as savages, could not help admiring and even envying them. After immersion in this exhibition it is difficult not to follow suit.
Until Jan 30; fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk