Gold of the Great Steppe - Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
From their astounding burial mounds to their dazzling horses dressed up as mythical beasts, this exhibition about Kazakhstan’s ancient nomads shows the power of archaeology to revive the dead
A young archer was buried around 2,700 years ago in the foothills of the Tarbagatay mountains of eastern Kazakhstan. In 2018, his bones were found preserved in the permafrost, surrounded by exquisite ornaments and weapons: beautifully observed figures of deer, finely crafted holders for his bow and arrows and dagger, myriad tiny beads – “and everywhere”, as Howard Carter said of Tutankhamun’s tomb, “the glitter of gold”.
Great archaeological discoveries don’t have to be full of gold, but it helps. That warm yellow metal catches your eye almost wherever you look in the Fitzwilliam’s stunning snapshot of archaeology in action. Gold scabbards, gold torques, gold animals – they all light up a display that also includes miraculously preserved felt and leather, as well as reconstructions of the ancient people of Kazakhstan in their woollen finery, on horses dressed up to resemble mythical beasts.
And it is all new. Well, newly on show – most of the objects date from the eighth to sixth centuries BC, but they are freshly excavated. Many items were discovered just last year. The exhibition has been created in close collaboration with Kazakhstan’s archaeologists as they worked through lockdowns to head off tomb-raiders and ensure these ancient wonders are unearthed before global warming destroys the permafrost that preserves organic materials.
It is moving to look on the gold traces that surround the dead archer, thought to have been 17 or 18 when he was buried. His bones are not here but his body is outlined by his funeral possessions. Archaeology has this power to let the dead speak to us across space and time – “and I rose from the dark”, as Seamus Heaney says in the voice of a victim in one of his vivid poems about ancient bog burials. This exhibition grasps and communicates the poetry of archaeology, giving plenty of scientific fact but preserving a lucid sense of encounter.
More at
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/sep/23/gold-of-the-great-steppe-review-fitzwilliam-cambridge-barbarians
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