page_title: Prehistory of Siberia
section_title: Art
hierarchical_section_title: Prehistory of Siberia / Cultures / Iron age steppe people of central and eastern Asia / Art
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Teppich aus dem 5. - 4. Jahrhundert v. Chr.. Er wurde aus einem Hügelgrab in der Nekropole Pasyryk (Russland, östlicher Altai) geborgen und gilt als ältester Florteppich (aufstehende Fasern) der Welt. Aufbewahrungsort: de:Eremitage (St. Petersburg). English: The most ancient carpet in the world. Found at en:Pazyryk and dated to ca. 400 BC. On exhibit at the en:Hermitage Museum.
context_page_description: The Prehistory of Siberia is marked by several archaeologically distinct cultures. In the Chalcolithic, the cultures of western and southern Siberia were pastoralists, while the eastern taiga and the tundra were dominated by hunter-gatherers until the late Middle Ages and even beyond. Substantial changes in society, economics and art indicate the development of nomadism in the Central Asian steppes in the first millennium BC.
context_section_description: While the art of the settled cultures of the Asiatic steppe in the Bronze Age was dominated by anthropomorphic motifs, the advent of the horse nomads was accompanied by the development of the Scytho-Sarmatian animal style, which all the steppe people of Asia and eastern Europe shared. Its basic motifs were taken from a repertoire of wild animals, with a remarkable absence of animals which were significant to the daily life of the horse nomads. Thus depictions of horses and of people are extremely rare. Instead, the common motifs are deer, mostly lying down, elk, big cats (which must indicate Near Eastern influence), griffins and hybrids. Individual animals sometimes appear rolled up together as a "rolled animal",  pairs of different animal species may be interlaced in a purely ornamental way, or depicted fighting one another. A line of the members of the same species often appear in borders, while individual parts of animals, like their heads, often serve as ornaments.
  Especially in the western steppes metal wares are found almost exclusively decorated with elements of the animal style; in the permafrost of south Siberia and Transbaikal, felt carpets and other textiles with elements from the animal style are also found, among which a felt swan stuffed with moss deserves special attention. Stone was only used a little, mostly in the so-called "deer stele," probably anthropomorphic grave stele, which were decorated with deer and are found in south Siberia, Transbaikalia and Mongolia. Finally, the bodies of important people were tattooed with motifs from the animal style.
  The origins of the animal style are unclear. Based on possible interactions with ancient eastern art, a strong influence from the south has been proposed. The early dating of some pieces from southern Siberia however, makes a local development on the steppes themselves more likely. It is certain however that especially in central Asia and the area north of the Black Sea, Greek and Persian art had a great influence on the art of the steppe peoples.
caption: Carpet with elk in a line (Pazyryk rug)
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