Iron Age vehicle burials of tattooed Saka (Eastern Iranian) Pazyryk culture in the Altai Mountains
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Sino-Platonic Papers is pleased to announce the publication of its three-hundred-and-sixty-ninth issue:
“The Pazyryk Vehicles: New Data and Reconstructions, a Preliminary Report,” by Victor A. Novozhenov, Kyrym Altynbekov, and Elena V. Stepanova. (free pdf)
ABSTRACT (English-Russian bilingual)
The article proposes new reconstructions of vehicles from the Pazyryk burial mounds, based on the finds of the joint State Hermitage and Altai University archaeological expedition in 2019–2021 at the excavation site and an analysis of all the material stored in the museum’s reserves that was not included in the existing reconstructions. Two types of wheeled vehicles are distinguished – two-wheeled A-framed carts and a prestigious four-wheeled carriage with a superstructure in the form of a removable frame covered with felt and decorated with bird figures. It was established that the vehicles were actively used in antiquity, their design was demountable and universal, their parts were interchangeable, and they could be adapted according to the specific needs of the mobile pastoralists. They were made by local craftworkers, based on developed woodworking technologies, as evidenced by the active use of wheeled transport by the local population in previous historical periods. The proposed reconstructions have analogies in archaeological finds and pictorial evidence.
В статье предложены новые реконструкции повозок из Пазырыкских курганов, выполненные на основании находок археологической экспедиции Государственного Эрмитажа и Алтайского университета в 2019–2021 гг на месте раскопок курганов и анализа всех материалов, хранящихся в фондах музея, не задействованных в существующей реконструкции. Выделены два типа колесных средств – грузовые А-образные двуколки и парадная четырехколесная представительская повозка с надстройкой в виде каркасной съемной конструкции, покрытой войлоком и украшенной фигурками птиц. Установлено, что повозки активно эксплуатировались в древности, конструкция их была сборно-разборной, универсальной, детали взаимозаменяемыми, они могли трансформироваться в соответствии с конкретными потребностями кочевников. Предложенные реконструкции имеют аналогии в археологических и изобразительных памятниках, изготовлены местными мастерами, на основе развитых технологий деревообработки, о чем свидетельствуют факты активного использования местным населением колесного транспорта в разные исторические периоды.
Keywords: Two-wheeled A-framed cart; prestigious four-wheeled carriage; triangular frame design; frame superstructure; chassis; wheel pair; side poles
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Selected readings
- "Tattoos as a means of communication" (9/1/12) — must read, especially the fifth paragraph about wén 文 ("tattoo") on the oracle bones, which later acquired the meanings of "culture, civilization, writing"; tattoo was a precursor to writing; N.B.: some of the Pazyryk bodies were completely covered with tattoos
- "From Chariot to Carriage" (5/5/24)
- Barbieri-Low, A.J. Wheeled vehicles in the Chinese Bronze Age (c. 2000–741 BC ). Sino-Platonic Papers, 99 (February, 2000). i-v, 1-98, 9 computer-generated color plates (free pdf)
- "Archeological and linguistic evidence for the wheel in East Asia" (3/11/20)
- "Horses, soma, riddles, magi, and animal style art in southern China" (11/11/19)
- "Horse culture comes east" (11/15/20)
- "Of chariots, chess, and Chinese borrowings" (6/27/24)
- "Parsing of a fated kin tattoo" (11/29/25)
- Caplan, Jane, ed., Written on the Body: The Tattoo in European and American History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000). My emphasis added to the first word of the title.
- Gilbert, Steve, ed. and intro. Tattoo history: a source book (New York: Juno Books, 2000. An anthology of historical records of tattooing throughout the world.
- Hesselt van Dinter, Maarten, Tribal Tattoo Designs (Amsterdam: The Pepin Press, 2000). This is a beautiful little book of drawings and paintings (many of historical vintage). See also the author's The World of Tattoo (hesseltvandinter.com).
- Mayor, Adrienne, "People Illustrated: Tattooing in Antiquity," Archaeology (March-April 1999), 54-57.
- Phoenix & Arabeth http://www.tattooheaven.com/
- Reed, Carrie E., "Early Chinese Tattoo," Sino-Platonic Papers, 103 (June, 2000), 52 pages.
- "Des tatouages sophistiqués retrouvés sur une momie de glace sibérienne vieille de 2000 ans",
Sciences-Tech, RTS (8/7/25) - Gino Caspari, Aaron Deter-Wolf, Daniel Riday, Mikhail Vavulin et Svetlana Pankova (2025), "High-resolution near-infrared data reveal Pazyryk tattooing methods", Antiquity, 99 (407).
- "Altaic languages" — Wikipedia
AFTERWORD
The Pazyryk culture was an Iron Age culture, flourishing from the 6th to the 3rd centuries BC in the high steppes of the Altai Mountains of Northern Central Asia. They were nomadic, Saka (East Iranian) peoples, known for their rich burial sites with mummified bodies and artifacts preserved in the permafrost. Their genetic makeup was a mix of Western Steppe Herders and local East Eurasian groups.
The Pazyryk people, who were part of the Eastern Scythian horizon (associated with the Iranian-speaking Saka peoples), were later absorbed by subsequent populations. The region eventually came under the influence of Turkic peoples, but this occurred centuries after the Pazyryk culture declined.
The Pazyryk people were succeeded by expanding Xiongnu (Hunnic influence, an empire that dominated the eastern steppes from the 3rd century BC onwards.
Turkic presence exerted itself from the post-6th century AD onward: The emergence and major migrations of Turkic peoples into the broader Altai region occurred much later, with significant movements beginning in the 6th century CE, long after the Pazyryk culture had disappeared. Modern genetic studies show some continuity from the eastern Scythians to contemporary Turkic-speaking populations of the Altai, suggesting mixing and assimilation over time rather than a direct, immediate succession in the Pazyryk period itself.
In summary, Pazyryk was not immediately occupied by Turkic peoples after the Scythians; the Xiongnu expansion intervened, and Turkic groups became prominent in the region centuries later. (AIO)
Chris Button said,
December 15, 2025 @ 11:09 pm
I actually struggle with this interpretation of 文.
– The graph is barely attested. Shima (1971) notes five cases without a cross in the middle as the direct graphic ancestor of 文, and there is no evidence that it meant or represented a tattoo or tattooing.
– Shima notes four cases of 文 with a cross in the middle and one with a heart (all but one with barely any context), and he wisely does not transliterate them as 文 or conflate them with it.
– Fowler (1989) does not include 文 in his analysis of the human figure in the oracle-bone inscriptions, although Qiu (1983-1985; translated by Fowler) notes it to be an abbreviation of 交 (also overlapping with 黃) in 烄.
There does seems to be evidence for tattooing in Shang culture elsewhere in the oracle-bone inscriptions. But I'm not sure 文 forms part of that evidence.
Yves Rehbein said,
December 16, 2025 @ 4:44 pm
Legally speaking , witness is evidence, including expert witness, @ Chris Button. Wiktionary is citing the ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese by Schüssler, which see.
I am no expert, but there are similar characters in the semantic field. Getting my trovel, brb.
– hēi "black", MC xok, OC /*m̥ˤək/ (B–S), OBI 黑: "a person (大) with a tattooed face …
– wǎn "evening", MC mjonX, OC /*m[o][r]ʔ/, Shuowen Jiezi 晚: 莫*也. 从日，免声.
+ phonophore miǎn, MC mjenX, OC /*mr[o][r]ʔ/, BI 免: "a man wearing a ceremonial hat …
* etymology of 莫 OC /*mˤak/: "From 無* (OC *ma, “there is no”) + distributive suffix *-k (Schuessler, 2007)
** OBI 無: "A person dancing with ox tails held in both hands to pray for rain. … the character 舞 (wǔ) is used for the original sense." 舞 (wǔ): "to dance".
*tableflip*
Victor Mair said,
December 17, 2025 @ 12:44 pm
I stand firmly behind the interpretation that the earliest form of the graph 文 is based on the depiction of a man with a tattoo on his chest. Primarily, I follow Axel Schuessler's publications (A Dictionary of Early Zhou Chinese; ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese; etc.) for the comprehensive graphological, etymological, and phonological research on which they are based; Bernhard Karlgren's Grammata Serica Recensa 475 b, c, d, e, f, g; 李乐毅，汉字演变五百例; 漢典 (please read to the bottom of the page for 文); and dozens of other authorities writing in half-a-dozen languages.
Something else very important that must be taken into account is that "tattooing the body" was written as wénshēn 文身 already in 禮記 (Warring States period and early Han period), whereas the silk semantophore / radical was added to form wénshēn 紋身 many centuries later.
Chris Button said,
December 17, 2025 @ 7:25 pm
The traditional analysis of 文 as a man with a tattoo on his chest could be true. And the handful of instances in the oracle bones, both with and without the tattoo marked, do seem to carry through into the bronze inscriptions–hence the identification of the character in the oracle-bone script despite the paltry evidence.
But I don't see an inkling of evidence that 文 unequivocally meant, or even depicted, a tattoo:
– The word 文身 seems to be the only clear example of 文 with a meaning of tattoo. But it is in compound with another syllable, and it occurs long after the Shang dynasty. If 身 "body" is needed to specify a meaning of "tattoo", then perhaps 文 did not mean tattoo on its own?
– If the handful of oracle-bone instances without a "tattoo" are indeed abbreviations of the handful of instances with a "tattoo", then it's worth noting that we do get a form without a tattoo in a period 1 inscription. If "tattoo" is the meaning of 文 in the oracle-bone script, then why would that very tattoo already be being deleted in the earliest attested forms of the script?
Victor Mair said,
December 17, 2025 @ 9:00 pm
I will have much more to say about 文 and tattoo, but with many final papers to grade and the holidays coming on, I won't go full Monty on it till the week after New Year's.
Chris Button said,
December 18, 2025 @ 6:23 am
Looking forward to it!
By the way, there is a comment you share from Wolfgang Behr in the first of the selected readings that references this useful article:
Falkenhausen, Lothar von (1996). "The Concept of Wen in the Ancient Chinese Ancestral Cult". Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews. 18: 1–22.
Chris Button said,
December 18, 2025 @ 9:27 pm
I should clearly caveat that I'm referring to the use of 文 outside of its use as an epithet in the name of the later period-IV Shang king "Wen" Wu Ding 文武丁.
There are numerous examples of 文武丁 with and without the cross, which does support the idea that the version without the cross is an abbreviation of the version with the cross.
Despite some later distortions, 文 doesn't really accord with any of the shapes used for human figures in the oracle-bone inscriptions.
If anything it just looks like some kind of crisscross pattern, and it is notably listed in oracle-bone indexes under the "X" radical, where characters like 五 are found. That interpretation chimes quite well with the use of a cross in the middle and also with the omission of the cross in the middle (as something redundant).
Sean said,
December 20, 2025 @ 11:23 pm
There is some evidence for tattoos or brands with Aramaic letters as slave- and serf-marks in Late Babylonia and the Achaemenid Empire (neither Babylonian nor Aramaic has a clearly distinct word for "tattoo")
Chris Button said,
December 29, 2025 @ 7:49 pm
@ Yves Rehbein
黑 is actually really interesting. The MC reflex is irregular based on the B-S OC reconstruction above. They attribute it to a "dialect", but the explanation seems rather to be associated with the history of 墨 "ink" and how it pops up as a loan in Burmese and from there onto Mon.
Incidentally, the Sino-Korean reflex apparently represents an early borrowing from Chinese since its reflex is supposedly irregular. Meanwhile, the Sino-Japanese on-reading seems regular, but the native kun-reading "sumi" may even be associated as an early loan. That is tough to confirm though.
Separately, the word represented by 海 "sea" is sometimes assumed to be irregular in the same way as 黑. But the explanation is in the phonetic, which is the 來 abbreviated above 母 in 每. That evidence is a good example of why the oracle-bone inscriptions are so important when reconstructing Old Chinese.
Chris Button said,
December 29, 2025 @ 8:53 pm
"Incidentally the Sino-Korean reflex of 墨 apparently …"
Yves Rehbein said,
December 30, 2025 @ 6:48 pm
@ Chris Button, 黑 may be part of a bigger allofam. Another allofam of a similar shape which includes anthroponyms is rebuked in SPP 331 by Bettina Zeisler in favor of an Iranian connection (I found this incidentally by searching for Proto-Sino-Tibetan prefixes).
On a separate note, I misunderstood Shuowen Jiezi where 莫 means dusk, now 暮.
Regarding OBI 文, pareidolia makes it easy to see a manequin. Comparison with other scripts may be a case of apophenia, but that's better set aside. The silhouette, I thought, could equally well show the back. That meaning is well known from OBI 北 (cf. PST *bu(q) "back"), but if you let those back-to-back figures turn around so as to face each other, it is barely possible to see this in the structure of OBI 文. I expect you disagree, because it would be weird if the limbs are entangled.