Gold of the Great Steppe
A new exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge presents an array of artefacts from the Iron Age Saka culture of East Kazakhstan. Amy Brunskill visited to find out more.
East Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan’s golden burials
The Greek historian Herodotus tells us that among the Scythians, the nomads of the Eurasian steppe, there was a group of ‘gold-guarding Griffins’. Were these people the Saka, whose elite filled their tombs with golden depictions of griffins and other creatures? As a new exhibition on the Saka opens, Rebecca Roberts and Saltanat Amir explore one recently discovered burial and what its contents can tell us about this ancient culture.