The Ancients - Kazakhstan's Valley of Kings

Episode Date: November 16, 2023

Gold and horses! Few ancient civilisations were greater masters of metalworking and horse riding than the Saka culture of Central Asia. Also known as the ‘Eastern Scythians’, these peoples ruled over a large area of the Great Steppe more than 2,000 years ago. And recently, new archaeological initiatives in Kazakhstan have started to reveal so much more about these horse lords and their way of life. Great burial mounds have been excavated, revealing a wealth of extraordinary artefacts. From golden sword scabbards to richly-decorated horse gear, it’s fascinating evidence of the long-lasting and rich history that Kazakhstan possesses.In this very special episode, join Tristan on his venture to Kazakhstan. He visits the remote Altai Mountains in the far east of the country to see an incredibly rich group of Saka tombs, popularly known as Kazakhstan’s Valley of Kings. He interviews Kazakh archaeologist Zhanat Erlanova about the amazing archaeology that has so far been unearthed in this highland valley and what it has revealed about these ancient horse lords of Central Asia.Following this we return to the UK and Cambridge University, where Drs Rebecca Roberts, Saltanat Amir and Rinat Zhumatayev explain the wider Saka culture, and why the archaeology of Kazakhstan deserves to be much better known.This episode was edited by Aidan LonerganDiscover the past with exclusive history documentaries and ad-free podcasts presented by world-renowned historians from History Hit. Watch them on your smart TV or on the go with your mobile device. Get 50% off your first 3 months with code ANCIENTS sign up now for your 14-day free trial HERE.You can take part in our listener survey here.

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and welcome to a very special episode. It's one of our most adventurous episodes to date, all about these ancient, gold-abundant horse lords of Central Asia, the Saka culture.

A quite mysterious group of ancient peoples that new archaeological research is revealing so much more about, it's all really exciting. Over the next hour, we'll be taking you from the Altai Mountains in East Kazakhstan, near the border of China, to Cambridge University in the UK. I really do hope you enjoy, and without further ado, off we go to Kazakhstan's Valley of Kings. So I've just woken up. It's a beautiful morning in East Kazakhstan. I've just come out of my room and right in front of me I can see the sun rising above the Altai Mountains to the east. It is absolutely stunning. Now I have been invited here to Central Asia, along with a group of other journalists from across the world, to see some of this country's most beautiful sights. Already, we spent a couple of days in Astana, the capital. Then yesterday, we flew out to Ust-Kamenogorsk in the east, and then took a six-hour bus ride to here, deep in the countryside of East Kazakhstan, not far from the border

with China. And today is what I have been most excited for, because this area of Kazakhstan is rich in archaeology and ancient history. More than 2000 years ago, this great steppe was the home of extraordinary nomadic civilizations such as the Saka or Eastern Scythians and the Pazarics. Masters of the horse, you can imagine bands of these people riding across this Central Asian landscape in antiquity, riding over rolling hills and lush plains, navigating their way up fertile river valleys in the great Altai mountains before me. Now I've become fascinated with the story of nomadic peoples such as the Sarka and the Pazariks

in recent years and where I'm going to take you today, where I'm going to take you now, well it's a dream come true because just up the road from where we're staying is one of the great jewels of Kazakhstan's archaeology. It deserves to be better known. It's popularly known in this area of the world as Kazakhstan's Valley of Kings. And that's where we're heading today. So we've just got off the bus and immediately you can't help but be blown away by the surrounding scenery. There is next to no one here in this most eastern part of Kazakhstan and we are standing in a fertile river valley on a great terrace near the Bukhtama river more than a thousand meters above sea level. The small town of Beryl is a bit further up the road

and beyond that you've got this mountain resort with alpine lakes in the distance. And here, located in the natural amphitheater of the Altai Mountains, well here you have Kazakhstan's Valley of Kings, the Beryl Necropolis or the Beryl Burial Mounds. With these great mountains overlooking the site, it is breathtaking and it was here that archaeologists in the 19th century discovered countless ancient burial mounds of various sizes called Kergans. Predominantly associated with the ancient Paziric culture that dwelled in this area of the world in the 4th and 3rd centuries BC, these burial mounds contained an incredible array of rare artefacts. There's the remains of ancient clothing, there's wood, there's food, there's lots of gold and animal-style art,

there are human remains, and also, well, there are a lot of horses in the tombs as well. Because that's right, these ancient warlords, these elites, were interred with their horses, more in some Kurgans than others. It's called Kazakhstan's Valley of Kings for a reason. And to learn all about it, I'm off to the nearby museum down this long track to interview archaeologist Alenova Zanat Alenova. Zanat, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today. Thank you. We are glad that you visited our museum and that we can now discuss it on the podcast. So first of all, to set the whole scene, what are the Berel Mounds? The Berel Mounds are Berel Mounds located in the Katon Karagai district,

eight kilometers from the village of Berel. That is where the area gets its name. It is an incredible site. It is such a pleasure to come here. I can only imagine what it's like to work here on the archaeology that has survived. What ancient culture created this site? It was the Pazarik culture. The oldest burials date back to the 4th, 3rd century BC. The big mounds belonged to the Sakha people of the Pazarik culture. And so who were the Pazariks? What was the Pazarik culture? The Pazarik culture is characterized by their burials. These are large burials with zones dedicated to sacrificed horses. dedicated to sacrificed horses.

These burials were located in permafrost, meaning that the stone mounds were constructed in a way that allowed water to seep into the tombs and freeze them. These burials were deliberately fashioned as a home, These burials were deliberately fashioned as a home. So these people believed that life continues in the afterworld and therefore would place grave goods in the tombs, such as household goods, weapons, jewelry, and bodies of the deceased would be also embalmed. And so why did the Pazaregs decide to build these mounds?

So, as I mentioned, they believed in their afterlife, and horses would essentially accompany the deceased to the other world, and the mounds themselves were created as a continuation of life. They believe that life carries on, and the chieftain retains his power even after his passing, and these large mounds were created specifically for this reason. Do we know why they decide to bury their people in this location of all the places? The Birel Mounds area spans 174 hectares on the third louvial terrace of the Bukhtarma River. So this is a triangular terrace

of 40-45 meters above the river and 1120 meters above the sea level in the Altai Mountains. So they chose this location as they believed that gods lived on top of the mountain and

they wanted the soul of the deceased to rise up towards the gods. Talk to me about these conditions. So the cold conditions, this has allowed archaeologists like yourself to discover all of this rare material inside these burials. Yes, exactly. All thanks to the permafrost. And what types of artifacts are we talking about? we talking about? Thanks to the permafrost, we were able to find items of organic material, so that felt, wool, animal hides, stomach contents, bone tissue. If not for the permafrost, only items made of bone or metal would have survived. This is what makes this site unique in Kazakhstan. It's so astonishing and rare for artifacts like wool to survive. So you can learn more about what these people wore,

about their clothing from more than 2,000 years ago. Yes, exactly. They were preserved by the permafrost that was created by these nomadic tribes. And alongside the burials themselves, you also have buried lots of horses. Do we know why? The horses were buried alongside the dead to accompany them into the afterlife. Since they believed in the afterlife and a horse is a nomad's companion, they deliberately created areas for the horses within the burial pit. And the horses were sacrificed, so killed, in order to preserve them in their original state.

in order to preserve them in their original state. And what types of decoration were these horses buried with? I mean, I see we have this example right in front of us, and they've got almost mountain goat horns on top. What types of decoration do they have? Most of the Sissian Saka ornaments depicted griffins, so they're mythical creatures with the body of a lion and the head of an eagle. And they would also combine characteristics of various animals to create mythical creatures and these mythical ornaments. So these were carved out of wood and covered in gold foil.

And this ancient mythology is conveyed through the animalistic style. And once again, is that to link to the afterlife and what these people believed came after they died? Yes, you could say that. Now, at the site of Berel with all of these mounds, first of all, how many mounds do we know of so far? Berel mounds area contains over a hundred Borels or Kurgans. They are all numbered, so Kurgan 11, Kurgan 10, Kurgan 5, and so on. These are the Saka Kurgans of the Pazarek culture. We also know of Kurgans from the Proto-Turkic and Turkic periods,

and we have also explored Kurgan 2 and Kurgan 1. And how did they build these various burial mounds in this area? And how did they build these various burial mounds in this area? The burial pit would be five, seven meters deep with stone structures created on top in a way that resembles fish scales. So this allowed rainwater to seep into the tomb. The size of the burial would depend on the social status of the deceased. In the Valley of Kings, large kurgans were built. So for these, the funeral ceremony and construction of the kurgan would last for several months.

And in regards to these burial mounds, are some of them bigger and more elaborate, rich than others? Yes, the Sakha period mounds are tombs of nomadic royals and elites, so these are large kurgans. But the size of the mound would still vary depending on the social status. And Turkic organs are very small next to the Sakha ones. So this site, it's important with the Pazariks more than 2,000

years ago, and then it's reused. Its importance continues for people who came here later too. Yes. The later cultures would also use this site for burials. Talk to me, because this is really amazing, about the gold. What types of gold artifacts have been discovered here?

In general, all mounds were plundered in antiquity. But nevertheless, the artifacts we found still give us information about the history and culture of these peoples. So the gold ornaments that we found would have been sewn into clothing. So these would be gold embroidery threads or teardrop-shaped and square-shaped ornaments. Other gold artifacts include gold-foil griffins,

but those would be horse harness ornaments. So segments of the tombs where the horses were buried were left untouched by the looters, which is why we see these animalistic-style ornaments depicting griffins and other creatures, while the part of the tomb that would contain the human body, say, in a wooden sarcophagus, would have been plundered. There were a lot of geometric patterns, and gold threads were used as well.

Do we know much about the people themselves, about who these people were? Anthropological reconstruction of the skull suggests that the people were Europoid with Mongoloid admixture. These were nomadic Saka tribes that had well-developed metalworking and jewelry-making crafts, as indicated by the items that we found. The burials tell us about the advanced technology and sophisticated culture that they had and about their belief in their afterlife.

And so, why is this site, is Berel, so important for archaeology and in the history of Kazakhstan? The Berel mounds are a unique site containing permafrost. These large burials, The temples, kurgans that were created as the continuation of life are highly important for the history of the whole nomadic culture. So not just of Kazakhstan and the Kazakh Altai, but of Central Asia as a whole. And the Paziric culture spanned and bordered other countries as well, Russia, for example. And all these finds tell us about the history of the nomadic civilization, the history of their royalty and nobility, and about their culture, worldview, and religion. They show us the level of craftsmanship that these people had

despite living as far back as 4th-3rd century BC. This is why this site is unique and of great importance to Kazakhstan, the whole world, and of course to our museum as well, because these artifacts enrich our museum's collection that we can display now to visitors and also pass on to future generations. And Jeannette, lastly, how exciting is it for you to be involved in the archaeological work here,

in such an incredible and important site in world ancient history? I am very happy and proud to be working in such a place where I can experience history. This is a unique place and all of my colleagues are dedicated to preserving the museum collection. We are genuinely very happy to be working here, because this is a part of history that is known worldwide, and I am able to see and experience it. I am a historian myself and have taken part in archaeological excavations, so I appreciate how important this is to world history and to me personally. I am happy to dedicate my life to working at the museum and in the field of archaeology in general. Wonderful. Jeannette, thank you so much for your time.

Splasiba. I would like to thank you so much for your time. Splasiba. I would like to thank you for taking the time to visit our museum. We appreciate every guest and we are very glad to have you here as well. We hope that this isn't your last visit to our museum. You are always welcome back here.

Thank you. Berel is one of the greatest sites of Saka archaeology in the world. And yet, for a long time, it was little known outside of Kazakhstan. However, thanks to the work of Jeannette and her colleagues, it is starting to get more attention and it's wonderful to see. As are several other equally rich Sarkar sites in East Kazakhstan that archaeologists have been working on in recent years, sites such as Shalitki and Yeliki Sezi. It's a project that archaeologists

at Cambridge University have been closely involved with, especially Dr Rebecca Roberts and Dr Saltanat Amir. Working closely with the East Kazakhstan Regional Museum, Rebecca and Saltanat curated an exhibition on Kazakhstan's Saka archaeology at the Fitzwilliam Museum in 2021 called Gold of the Great Step. You might remember, if you're a long-time Ancients listener, that I interviewed Rebecca all about it some two years ago. This exhibition was the first time that any such exhibition had occurred in Britain. It was groundbreaking. And so Rebecca and Sauternat were the perfect guests for me to interview after I returned to the UK to find out a bit more about these

ancient horse lords of Central Asia. Rebecca, Sultanat, it is wonderful to have you both on the podcast today. Thank you. Thank you very much. And it is very exciting. I mean, Kazakhstan's archaeology is incredible. Having already been to Barel and chatted to Jeannette all about the archaeology that they have there from those particular Pazirik burial mounds. I want to learn a bit more about the larger culture of the Saka and that area of the world. Now, do we think that they originate from the Altai mountain region? What do we know about their background as a people?

Well, we know that the Sarka people were actually one of the earliest of the Scythian groups to emerge in the Eurasian steppe zone. And there's been a recent genetic study that actually looked at skeletons that took samples of DNA, ancient DNA from skeletons of the Sarka population, including from Yelikissazi, and identified that these are actually people who originated from a Bronze Age group in the Altai region. So these are people who actually came from this region, and indeed the Sarka and the beginning of the Scythians is in the Altai region. And when you look at their burials and you see the horses, those beautifully decorated horses that they're buried with at places like Barel, should we imagine them being horse lords roaming over

the landscape or do we know much about their lifestyle? Well, let's not forget that this is a culture and a people who endured for hundreds of years. So they emerged from around the first millennium BC. So let's say we've got them from at least 900 BC starting to emerge onwards. And then they were gradually replaced from around the end of the third century BC. So we're talking about hundreds of years of people moving and living in the landscape. So it's hard to talk about, it's not a monolithic culture. There are shared cultural traits. There are things which identify different groups as being part of that Saka world, part of the Scythian world. But actually, we do see some changes over time and we see different groups doing different things depending on where they live. And I think the main thing that we understand so far from the archaeology is that actually these were really adaptable and highly sophisticated people in their landscape.

So in places where it was opportune to carry out some agriculture, they were doing that. In other places where it made sense to develop this specialised stock breeding economy and be more mobile with the seasons, and that's what we see emerging. So we're talking about people who are actually really adaptable and using the landscape to the fullest. So it's an incredibly complex picture, but we just see the idea of the sophistication of this economy, of the culture, and we assume of the politics. And you should not forget about metallurgy, because of course, they have a lot of resources,

metal resources. They have a lot of resources, metal resources. And we can talk about the Bronze Age already because they started to mine and smelt and produce, for example, bronze already in the Bronze Age. So we have this continuation of metallurgical traditions from Bronze Age to Iron Age. And I think that it is also important to look at the landscape because we have perfect pastures plus metallurgical resources so there were pasturates at the same time there were metallurgists so it's just like a absolutely the most pathetic way of using the landscape the resources and get just most out of what they have at the same time to be sustainable. Because whatever we see from even from the metallurgical point of view, we do not see, for example, deforestation, we do not see

any substantial pollution of the environment and so on. So they try to do it and they actually achieved to do this sustainably at the same time very successfully. That's so interesting. First of all, thank you for highlighting the issue that sometimes we get into the mindset of a whole culture being exactly the same, even though they were living in very different environments. So as you mentioned, you know, you shouldn't imagine one lifestyle for all of these different groups. They were adaptable, and so on. And don't you worry, I hadn't forgotten about metallurgy. But before we get to the gold, which I know we're going to get to, if we keep on the bronze a bit longer, so did they have the copper resources and the tin resources available in that area of East Kazakhstan? Actually, Kazakhstan is one of the richest countries, for example, from the copper point of view. One of the largest copper deposits is located in the territory of Kazakhstan, central Kazakhstan. It's called Jaskazgan. And one of the largest tin deposits in the world is also located in the territory of Kazakhstan and in the Altai Mountains, the Kalbanar region.

So we have this absolutely perfect match of copper and tin to make bronze. There's this tin bronze, and of course they did it. And one of the, for example, feature of the East Kazakhstan in the Bronze Age, that they produced very highly, very high content tin bronze up to 30-35%, which is very unique to this region. Very unique indeed. And it's fascinating when you look at other Bronze Age cultures, civilizations in the ancient Near East, for instance, where they might have had access to copper. But for them to get tin, they had to go thousands of miles away. And here, at the same time in Central Asia, they had those resources much closer to hand.

So it's fascinating to draw those comparisons. I'd like to ask a bit about settlements before we go on to gold. We have these amazing burial grounds. Beryl is just one of them, and we'll get to the others in a bit. But nearby these burial grounds, have archaeologists found any evidence of Sarkar or Pazirik settlements at all? So one of the big problems, I suppose, in how we understand what's going on in the archaeological record at this time, and in general, is that because they built such monumental burial mounds, and these are so dominant on the landscape even today, there's been a real focus on

excavating these burial mounds and understanding the landscape from the perspective of burial mounds and graveyards. And there's traditionally been less focus on settlements and understanding the day-to-day dynamics of life ways and also people interacting with their environment. And traditionally in sort of previous archaeology in the region, there's been less of a focus on this interaction between people and their environment, but that's changing now. So we're starting to see new excavations that are trying to explore how people are using the landscape for settlement and understanding what they're doing. So there are a few settlements that have been excavated. There have been a couple of temporary summer campsites, for example, that have been discovered. And also the settlement, for example, of Akbaor that appears

to be a late Bronze, early Iron Age settlement. So we're talking about the time of this transition when people move from the Bronze Age activities that we see towards this Sarka culture. And there we find things like grinding stones, for example. There are loom weights which are being used to make textiles and there's pottery and hoes and things to work the land. So we're seeing people who are starting to understand more about that economy and what people are doing. people who are starting to understand more about that economy and what people are doing. But I think that's one of the new directions, really. And the really exciting directions that we can start to take in the region will be to understand more about these dynamics between the environment,

how people are using it. Seltzner mentioned this sustainability angle. Was it sustainable? What we understand so far, there's the people and cultures who are surviving for hundreds of years. It appears sustainable, but what's really going on? How do we understand those local dynamics? And I think it's bringing in the latest archaeological science is really going to answer those questions in the future and something I hope that we'll all be working on long in our careers.

I remember, it must have been two years ago now, but when we had our last chat at your exhibition, Gold at the Great Step, looking at one of those grinding stones and realizing just the size of it and the stones that we're using to grind down the grain how strong these people were they were much stronger than us too weren't they absolutely absolutely they were stronger they were probably more creative and more resilient i guess so it's uh it's amazing how much, for example, again, we'll talk about metallurgy, of course, because I'm a metallurgist.

The scale of mining and scale of the metal that they melted, it's incomparable with any, for example, the examples that we have in Europe or somewhere else. It was massive, for example, in the Ural Mountains as well. So, yeah, they were really, really strong. Well, come on then, let's talk about metallurgy. So how important was mining, was metallurgy, do we think, to the whole Saka-Pasarik economy around that area of the Altai Mountains? It definitely was one of the main activities, I can say. We can talk about

some kind of shift from bronze to iron as well. So, it was also, we're talking about the early iron age, right? So, it was also such an important discovery and such an important skill to know, new skill. From the gold point of view, for example, there's also an interesting change happened because we do not see a lot of gold that was used in the bronze age. And we see absolutely amazing shift to massive use of gold by the Saka population. I still do not understand the reason. It was because they, in the Bronze Age, for example, they used a lot of silver, also the gold. But then we see at the early Iron Age, we see the shift from gold, absolutely no silver.

So it is interesting. And when we say about the massive, for example, use of gold, in the, for example, Argentu, we're talking about more than 20 kilograms of gold in one burial. It's just amazing. In the nowadays, for example, money point of view, it will cost you more than one million pounds. It is incredible.

And also to think that for these people, this gold was quite, in the scale of things quite locally acquired to have these resources available in the nearby mountains alongside as you've highlighted earlier copper, tin, iron, silver and then gold. Do we know much about how they acquired the gold or where exactly in the mountains they acquired it from? We know that there are actually two main sources of gold, either alluvial or placer gold, or the core gold from the, how to say, easily mined core deposits, like, for example, quartz vein.

And they use both of these because we know that, for example, in central Kazakhstan, we have archaeological evidence of mining the gold deposits like Stepnyak. But, for example, in East Kazakhstan, what I see at the moment, they mostly used alluvial or placer gold. But East Kazakhstan, at the moment, East Kazakhstan holds about 40% of all gold resources of Kazakhstan. And Kazakhstan is very rich in gold. So the Altai Mountains is actually a big, big gold region. Do we know how, let's say more than 2,000 years ago in the Iron Age, these people would have acquired the gold from the Altai Mountains. Do we know the process from acquiring the gold to

them creating some of this iconic, amazing gold jewellery that we find in these Kurgans, whether at Barel or anywhere else? I think they just use these mountain rivers where they get this gold. That's why, for example, not in the majority, but in a substantial amount of the gold artefacts that I was researching, we see the so-called intermetallic compounds of gold and tin. So it seems that the gold, the alluvial gold and tin, or cassiterite, for example, they ended together in these rivers. And then they took this gold and then made this object. So it is presence of tin is one of the evidence that this gold was local. And they used different techniques, goldsmithing techniques like hammering, like casting, like granulation, whatever goldsmith techniques, you know, they used absolutely everything. And this is right to the floor to either of you to answer, but why do we see time

and time again when they're decorating, when they're creating the designs of these golden objects, do they seem to depict animals and sometimes mythical creatures too? The question for the ages, why do we do anything? Why do we make any art? What's interesting actually is, well, for the first point really is we don't know exactly why because they didn't write anything down. So we don't have any written accounts about why this happened, why they did it. So what we can do is look at what

animals they were depicting, how they're depicted, where, for example, animals are being used. Is it that you put a certain type of animal on your horse tack and you wear a different type of animal on your own clothing? So that's how we can maybe try and get to some answers. But what's interesting is that most of the animals that are depicted are actually wild animals. We sometimes do see domesticated animals, but majority are actually wild animals. So we have an inclination there that it's looking to the wild and looking to the animals that they encountered, not perhaps in daily life, but certainly in significant moments in their life. So for example, we see high mountain species, you know, we see the high mountain goats, which obviously you wouldn't be encountering every day, but you might encounter as part of, you know, a special visit to the mountain, either for hunting or for getting gold. And we also see what's, you know, an organisation as well of the animals.

There are animals from the sky, animals from the ground, and you see fish and animals that you find in the water as well. So there does seem to be an organisation of the different realms, as it were. But I think the answer to the question why is something that I think we'll never really know. But the more we understand not only about what we're looking at, but how it was put together and how it's being used. So that's, I think, where the context becomes so important. So understanding, was this decorative plaque placed on a man's costume? Was it placed on a woman's costume? Was it placed on the head of the horse? Was it placed on a horse's leg? Do we find these things on shoes or do we only find them in the upper body? And that's why it's so important for archaeological research

and this sort of scientific excavation, which is really recording the context becomes so important. Because one of the big problems is that so many of these beautiful gold objects were just looted and they're without context. So all we can do at that point is just talk about pictures and it just limits us so much in our understanding. Whereas when we actually find objects which are in their original context, they're placed on the body, they're placed in the burial chamber and they haven't been disturbed, then we just start to understand so much more about that relationship. Just another aspect is that we see till the 6th century BC, the Saka population didn't use and didn't depict any mythical creatures.

So it happened only most probably after contact with the Achaemenids. So as soon as we know that... Achaemenids, you mean the Persians? Yes, yes. So we see there's some kind of effect of this context. see some kind of effect of these contacts, mythical creatures, griffons. Before this time, I mean, from the 9th up to 6th century BC, wait, 6th century BC, they depicted only real animals. Well, keeping on that a bit longer, looking at the metalwork and other artifacts, do we know how far reaching the connections, the contacts were of Saka populations that lived in East Kazakhstan

more than 2,000 years ago? It's a very good question because we just recently discussed it with Rina Jumataev about what actually depicted on the Persepolis friezes of the Saka. We think that's an embassy, some kind of visit. And whether, for example, they were from East Kazakhstan, because what we know and what they actually present to the Khamenei, I don't know, king or someone, it was horse, it was gold, and it was some textiles. long distance probably not trade but the connection but whether they were i mean from east kazakhstan or probably from the rl region or from somewhere else we do not actually know because the sake is also quite a generic term it's very very interesting how much is still shrouded in mystery and as you said earlier rebecca because they don't have their own writings surviving so

there are still so many questions that abound, but I love that potential link to how far in places like Persepolis, which is awesome. Now, earlier on in this chat, I was chatting with Jeannette at Berel, which is known as Kazakhstan's Valley of Kings. However, would you argue that there's actually more than one Valley of Kings in Kazakhstan related to the Sakha culture? I mean, absolutely. It's a country of the Valley of Kings. There are so many cemeteries which are made up of these enormous burial mounds. And they are located in really dramatic and beautiful landscapes. So for example, the cemetery of Yeleklekisazi, where much of the gold that we exhibited at the Gold of the Great Step exhibition came from, is a high mountain plateau that's almost like a hidden valley. So it's really difficult to access.

Even with motorised transport, it takes a huge amount of time to get there. And then you sort of drive through a narrow pass and then come out into this plateau, which is surrounded by mountains. So it's a real amphitheatre and a sort of stage really for these burials. And the burial ground itself, I mean, has been occupied. There's Bronze Age occupation, so there's a Bronze Age settlement there, but there are burials which go right up to the Kazakh period. So it's been used as a burial ground. It's been a significant place for thousands of years. And that's just one. There's also Shilikty, another large cemetery. And you find this time and time again across the territory of Kazakhstan. Do you find them often, their locations in high up places,

and you mentioned they're surrounded by mountains and almost in this natural amphitheatre kind of environment, a beautiful scenic place for the burial of these people? Yeah, I mean, there seems to be a sense of drama and beauty, I think, with the choices, but I think they are also linked to use of the land. So thinking about whether they're located in summer pastures or winter pastures might be significant, but also perhaps they're located maybe on the borders of different political entities. So it might be that the fact that they're so prominent and, you know, you can see them today. If you drive around Kazakhstan, you can, you know, spot the burial mounds. So there's certainly a relationship between visibility in the landscape, but also what the place signifies in terms of perhaps its economic

use as well. Okay, and let's focus in on one of these particular burial grounds, Sultanat, what is Yelik-i Seze? Amazing artefacts from here. And I know a lot of them have recently been at this awesome exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum. But what kinds of artefacts are we talking about? We're talking about different types of artefacts because we should explain and should understand the question of preservation, of course.

And 3,000 years ago, we cannot expect anything to have a good preservation of the organic materials, but we still have organic materials, some of them. We have metals, and we have, of course, gold, the first thing that is most resilient, I can say, from the whole assemblage. So we have gold, and gold not only from the burial itself, because as already Avrupek mentioned, the vast majority of all Kurgans have been looted. And unfortunately, the looting is ongoing. So we have the gold objects from the burials itself, but also as some kind of hordes

that are located and found nearby the Kurgans or inside of Kurgans, but not with the diseased people. So it's like a commemoration gift or something like this, we think at the moment. And of all of these burials at that particular site, Atiyah de Quesayzi, there's one that I know you did a lot of work around, which was surprisingly and brilliantly undisturbed, even though it was of an actual figure. And there was lots of gold still found in that intact tomb. We are very, very, very lucky about this finding. It was made in 2018.

Wow, recently as well. Very, very recently. And unfortunately, it is not fully unlooted. It was partially looted, unfortunately, in the main burial of a girl, most probably about 13 years old. It was looted. But the burial of a boy was found absolutely intact. So the DNA analysis showed that they were siblings, most probably. So what was found is about, as usual, like a metallurgist, I mean numbers.

So over half a kilo of gold objects were found, were unnosed from this burial. And I think over 30 objects, including absolutely beautiful, made of solid gold torque. Also scabbard and decorations of the garitas and beautiful, beautiful things. And you were fortunate enough to have these artifacts up close and to work on them in a lab, weren't you? As I said, I'm absolutely lucky. I'm so lucky that actually this burial was found in 2018. Then the exhibition was organized and sponsored,

and then we managed to bring all this stuff to Cambridge, and then we're able to make all this analysis in our fantastic labs. So, yes, yes, it was, I mean, four months of hands-on session for me, making research, different techniques, different labs. Not only the lab of the Department of Archaeology, but also the lab of the Department of Zoology. So we have an access there as well. And Earth Sciences. Yeah, we used many, many techniques and many labs. And what was it like using all of those techniques

and being able to really see the detail of these golden artifacts? I mean, what sorts of information was revealed? Have you discovered by being able to look at them, figuring out where the gold was from, their metalworking? Has it given you a greater insight into these communities and goldworking? Absolutely. Because as I mentioned already, that this is the first time from what I know that we identify the presence of intermetallic compounds of gold and tin. And I think this is quite an important thing, an argument of the provenance analysis of this gold, because we know that the

Altai Mountains is a tin-rich region. So it's most probably just from this gold was from East Kazakhstan, from the Altai Mountains. And also we see the techniques differently, how they, for example, made the joints, whether it was cast, whether it was hammered. And of course, one of my favorite artifacts are microbeads, how they were made, how they managed to make them. So microbeads, so the smallest, smallest pieces. We are talking about, because for example, we're talking about the microbeads, the diameter of which is not exceeds two millimeter. So there, for example, if you just in comparison, if you just take the grain of rice, it is about 7 millimeters.

Just these microbeads are smaller three, four times than the grain of rice. And they are made of gold. And some of them do not have any joints. And they are individually made using the hot temperature techniques. So, they're absolutely fantastic. We're talking about absolutely massive production because, for example, only in the hoard that was unearthed from this golden boy burial, they found more than 10,000 of these microbits. And if we're talking about the undisturbed burials, for example, the Argentu they found 250,000 two kilograms of these microbeads that were used

to decorate the whole the trousers the shoes the skirt of these people so they were really really posh and fancy people very blingy weren't they in one in very much that in in that sense and it is it's a great insight isn't, into the variety of different things that they could create with gold, with their gold working. And you see that variety in Beryl too, with the different kind of gold ornaments that survive there.

And also to take a step back when you have the figure there as well, you mentioned clothing, to try and draw more of a picture of how these people looked, not skin colour or anything like that, but the clothing themselves. And to imagine these, I'm presuming we can believe that they're elite figures in these societies, they are showing off their bling, whether it is big golden scabbards

or it's smaller pieces of gold, whether small or whether big. That gold is on display and they're probably showing it to their peers. And there's a really important point actually is that, I mean, pretty much all the gold artefacts were made to be worn. These are not decorating vessels or static objects that are being placed in a home, for example. These are wearable objects. You are wearing your wealth. And I think this is really significant, partly because they were mobile people and this movement and connectivity was so important. But also it shows the importance of horses to Sarkar society because many of the objects were designed to decorate horse harnesses. So that really shows that importance of the horse, not only as a mode of transport, but horses accompanied people into the afterlife.

And the horses had their own specific costumes as well. So the horses themselves have their own identity. They seem to have their own status, which is really, really important. They're not just beasts of burden. These are an integral part to Sarka life. I know this is a difficult question. You did highlight earlier how they adapted to different lifestyles depending on the environment that they were in. But to what extent, Rebecca, can we call, and Sultanat, feel free to say as well if you have an opinion on this, to what extent can we call the Saka culture nomadic? It's a really interesting question because the term nomadism, I think, has so many assumptions tied in with it. And I think it's probably more appropriate to talk about them as being a very mobile people in the sense that they were using the landscape to get the maximum economic value out of the livestock. So out of the sheep,

for example, that they were herding and the horses that they were herding. Because horses not only used for transport, but also for milk and for food as well. So we're talking about a really important economy with these animals really are the life for these people. So I think obviously nomadism, as we might understand it from, for example, a Near Eastern perspective, is different to nomadism as we would understand it in Central Asia, because the landscapes are different, the economies are different. But these are, this is a highly successful mobile pastoralist society, which is based on the movement of animals according to seasons. but it depends on where you

live if you live near the mountains you can go up the mountain in the summer to the lovely summer pasture and come down to your winter camp at the foot of the mountain if you live a little bit further west in Kazakhstan you're more likely to be moving then across the landscape you haven't got the mountains so you're perhaps moving a little bit further to get between the different pastures and different cropping. So again, even within a single mode of existence, so even nomadism itself, this is not monolithic. We're talking about different adaptations of an economic model. to that difficult question as we begin to wrap up. At Berel, Jeannette mentioned how for most of the year back then, it was below zero temperatures, so the permafrost kicked in, and so that's allowed so many of these amazing organic artifacts to survive. Do we see a similar thing at these other burial grounds of the Saka culture,

that they are buried very high up, and maybe were they aware of those sub-zero temperatures taking over the tombs for most of the year? I actually think that it is a very... If we're talking about the Birel or Pazarik or any other of these classical sarcopores, I think it's quite unique that they have this condition of permafrost. Because for example, in southern Kazakhstan, despite the fact there are also the mountains, right, the Alatau Mountains, there are no such conditions. And we do not have this kind of preservation of the materials. So whether it was intentionally, it's a good question.

But it's worth remembering as well that the burial practices change over time. So you're still buried in a mound, but in the early Sarka period, they're actually building a chamber on top of the land surface. And then perhaps they build a dromos, which is a tunnel that goes into the burial chamber. So you can pop up in the middle of your burial mound. But when you get into the later, for example, at Bir El, which is the classical Sarka period, then they start to dig these huge shafts down into the ground. So there's a change in what's going on over time as well. So perhaps people, their understanding of what they were valuing in terms of burial and what needed to happen to the body or to the person

after their death, perhaps changed over time as an idea as well. Okay. Well, that was a pretty tricky question. I mean, so thank you very much for both answering that. I also had to ask about the end of the Saka culture. Do we have any idea what's happened to the Saka and their culture? What happened after them as well? Very good question. And I think that we should not consider, as already Rebecca mentioned, we should not consider them as one, some kind of type of population starting the 9th century BC to the, I mean, the 1st century BC. Definitely, there were changes, for example. The one of the change, substantial change happened on the age of 6th century BC.

We see this culturally, we see this genetically. And then changes happened. Changes happened. We see the massive migration to the territories during the whole Iron Age. In comparison, for example, it didn't happen during the Bronze Age. We have quite monolithic, genetically monolithic population. But many, many changes happened during the Iron Age. And I think it was connected also to the political situation around these territories.

So different empires, different states and massive migrations. Brilliant. Well, on that note, I think it just goes for me to say, Rebecca Sartanat, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today. Thank you. And we'd like to acknowledge the East Kazakhstan Regional Museum who lent all of the material to us and enabled us to conduct all of the scientific analysis here in Cambridge. So without their full support and collaboration, we wouldn't have any of this fantastic information. The modern country of Kazakhstan is still very young, only gaining independence following the

collapse of the Soviet Union just over 30 years ago. However, its people have an incredible history and amazing archaeology that stretches back thousands of years, and it's something that they are very keen to share with the wider world. Here are some final thoughts from Kazakh archaeologist Dr Rinat Zhumataev, who was also in Cambridge with Sauternat as translator. Rinat, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today. Yes, thanks. Now, with archaeology in East Kazakhstan and archaeology in Kazakhstan in general,

how important is it to be able to share this archaeology with the wider world? to be able to share this archaeology with the wider world? Till today, the Kazakhstani archaeology has not been introduced or not known to in the world. And there are a few reasons about it. And one of the main reasons, of course, is political reasons. But at the same time, the Kazakhstani archaeology has a lot to provide to the world because Kazakhstan is located between the east and the west and we were some kind of this cauldron right of different cultures that were connecting these two worlds. For example during the Bronze Age in each region of Kazakhstan

we see that the people who lived at that time, they were some kind of resembling each other or just similar, but at the same time absolutely different. So they just did different things. At the moment, it is so important to start introducing the Kazakhaka population, the Saka archaeology, it doesn't have its place still on the map of the world archaeology. So it doesn't have its proper place still. That's why this exhibition, Gold of the Great Step, that was hosted by the Fitzwilliam Museum, it is one of these very important steps of introducing the Saka culture to the world. And if we, for example, compare the Yelikisize and Shilikte burial grounds with the Pazarik, we can definitely just say that they are 200-300 years earlier than the Pazarik culture.

That's why they provide us the information about these two sites, right? There's the Sakha sites, they provide us information about the political structure, about the lifestyle, about the culture itself of the Sakha population. So one of the main aims of the Kazakhstan archaeologists at the moment is to find the workshops of all these goldsmiths or other craftspeople, soccer craftspeople, where they actually made these things. Because at the moment, as Rebecca said, not much attention was paid to the settlement. So it's very important to find the workshops that was made. Well, it sounds like you guys have still got a lot of work to do in the years ahead.

And I'm looking forward to seeing how that progresses and your work on this amazing area of archaeology that is overlooked compared to Greece and Rome and the Mediterranean. And it's wonderful to see more and more attention now getting to it. And hopefully this podcast is a little to help that too now last but certainly not least renat it just goes for me to say alongside sultanat and rebecca once again thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today thanks well there you go there was our very special episode exploring the archaeology, the story of these ancient horse lords, the Saka, Eastern Scythian culture that roamed across the Great Steppe in Central Asia more than 2,000 years ago. I hope you enjoyed the episode.

The first time that we've recorded part of an episode, an interview in the Altai Mountains in East Kazakhstan. It was quite the experience and I'm so glad that we've now been able to share it with you. My thanks of course goes out to Janata Lanova in East Kazakhstan at Sparel, but also to Rebecca, to Sauternat and to Renat closer to home too. to home too thank you also to Aidan our editor who spent a lot of time piecing this special episode together for you all today last thing from me if you have enjoyed the episode then please do drop us a comment let us know your thoughts it really helps us as we continue to grow the podcast make sure to follow and subscribe the podcast so you don't miss out when we release new episodes twice every week. But that's enough from me and I will see you in the next episode.