Glittering Bodies: The Politics of Mortuary Self-Fashioning in Eurasian Nomadic Cultures (700 BCE-200 BCE)

Abstract

Non-sedentary cultures have existed on the scholarly fringes and historiographical outskirts of the art-historical canon: there they remain to this day, buried between dated opposites like “east” and “west,” “high” and “minor” arts, torn by interdisciplinary tensions in art history, archaeology and ethnography. Nomadic societies are usually considered in cross-cultural studies only insofar as they can act as sufficiently expedient intermediaries linking settled empires in the designated “East” and “West,” hence the recent fascination with the Pontic Scythians who bordered, traded and fought with ancient Greece, or the Xiongnu whose nomadic confederation became a geopolitical threat to early imperial China. Yet, early pastoral nomads bordering China and Greece left behind a rich corpus of gold adornment which points to an elaborate system of image-making and highly conceptual designs rooted in zoomorphism. The following article focuses on the strategies of self-fashioning and funerary decor employed in the entombment of the elite in the early nomadic societies of Central Eurasia. Golden suits, composed of metonymically conveyed animal images, along with foreign exotica, were the normative elements of a noble’s funeral. Adornment had to showcase the elite’s life on earth as that of a daring, globally recognized politician and a proud steppe resident.

Keywords:

• Eurasian nomads
• body adornment
• funerary art
• zoomorphism
• audience
• gold

Acknowledgements

The research was supported by a fellowship from the India-China Center at the New School and the Penfield grant from the University of Pennsylvania Board of Trustees.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 Reinhard Wenskus developed the theory of Traditionskern (kernel of tradition) to describe the small nucleus of military elite in Germanic tribes during the Migration Period in Europe. This elite core set the standard for forming and maintaining alliances, and they alone controlled their collective memory, often falsely claiming that all tribes in the union originated from a common ancestor.

2 The term “collective” is used here to refer to a nomadic alliance of diverse clans, which was often opportunistic, reluctant and based on a common enemy or economic objective.

3 A remarkably similar horse image exists in the earliest nomadic complex in Central Eurasia—the cemetery of Arzhan in Tuva (South Siberia).

4 The image inspires many couture collections on the contemporary fashion scene of Kazakhstan.

5 The tree recalls the Persian Gaokerena, or Tree of Life, which, in many Zoroastrian myths was identified as the haoma plant, the source of an immortal elixir. According to the Avesta, the haoma plant has roots, stems, and many branches; it is tall and fragrant and can sometimes personify a deity called Duraosa.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Petya V. Andreeva

Petya V. Andreeva is an Assistant Professor of Asian Art and Design History at Parsons School of Design. She studies body adornment and image-making in the funerary art and design of early nomadic societies in Central Eurasia. Her research explores the transmission of design strategies and esthetic concepts across the Silk Roads and other pre-modern trade networks. [email protected]