The Many Ways of Being Human

3.1

The Scythians

On the Ukok plateau in the Altai, an archaeologist stood in a pit in the summer of 1993, looking down at ice. A looted grave had filled with meltwater that froze, and inside the block lay a young woman with a blue stag tattooed on her shoulder, six saddled horses beside her. The Scythians left nothing we can read, so what we know comes from graves and one Greek historian.