Burials of Pazyryk Culture: Social Differentiations

Introduction. Specialists dealing with the Pazyryk culture keep posing questions about its social structure. Traditionally, scholars ― with due account of outer parameters of kurgans, depths and areas of graves, numbers of buried horses, quantities and qualities of burial utensils ― have tended to identify three groups within the Pazyryk. Goals. The paper aims to analyze Pazyryk burial rites for social differences within the culture. Results. When it comes to social classifications, researchers usually form respective hypotheses on the bases of dimensional and quantitative properties of examined burial facilities. Still, the paper specifically focuses on positions of the buried and on how crouched their legs are. In common burials from minor kurgans, all bodies are placed lying on their right side with heads to the east (faces to the north), and with legs strongly doubled up, i.e. in crouched positions. In elite princely burials from large Pazyryk kurgans, bodies lie in similar positions ― on the left side with heads to the east ― but are stretched to their full heights with slightly bent legs. Conclusions. So, the buried elites can be imagined doing a ‘curtsy’ with legs ‘slightly bent in the knees’, while the commoners would be seen paying deep knee bends or even prostrating themselves. This feature was never viewed as essential since the stretched position matched the shape of coffins carved from single tree trunks. The work compares widths of coffins and heights of mummies to conclude that the stretched position was determined by rites rather than by shapes or sizes of the coffins. Proceeding from previous studies, the paper examines and interprets the discovered aspect in the context of Pazyryk burial rites and related ideas about the world of the dead.

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