Fantastic Fauna from China to Crimea
Journal: Edinburgh University Press eBooks
Year: 2024

Numerous Iron-Age nomadic alliances flourished along the 5000-mile Eurasian steppe route. These pastoral societies are mostly known to us through the distant echoes on the pages of Classical Greek and Chinese historiographies which mostly paint the nomad as the “Barbaric Other” living in the shadows of sedentary empires. In reality, early Eurasian nomads were capable and independent makers, designers and inventors. From Crimea to the Mongolian grassland, nomadic image-making was rooted in metony