Researchers identify the oldest known drinking straws
Barley starch granules from the residue inside one of the straws hint that people were using them to drink beer.
kurgan
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.