- Issyk kurgan
The Issyk
kurgan , in south-easternKazakhstan , less than 20 km east from theTalgar alluvial fan , nearIssyk , is a burial mound discovered in1969 . It has a height of six meters and a circumference of sixty meters. It is dated to the 4th or 3rd century BC (Hall 1997). A notable item is a silver cup bearing an inscription. The finds are on display inAstana ."Golden man"
Situated in what was at the time eastern
Scythia , just north ofSogdiana , the burial contained a skeleton of uncertain sex, in all probability an 18-year-oldSaka (Scythian ) prince or princess, interred with warrior's equipment, variously dubbed "golden man" or "golden princess", and with rich funerary goods, including 4,000 gold ornaments.The "golden man" was adopted as one of the symbols of modern
Kazakhstan . A likeness of the "golden man" crowns the Independence Monument on the central square ofAlmaty . Its depiction may be found on thePresidential Standard ofNursultan Nazarbayev .The Issyk inscription
The inscription is in a variant of the
Kharoṣṭhī script, and is probably in a Scythian dialect, constituting one of very fewautochthonous epigraphic traces of that language. Harmatta (1999) identifies the language asKhotanese Saka , tentatively translating "The vessel should hold wine of grapes, added cooked food, so much, to the mortal, then added cooked fresh butter on" (compareNestor's Cup andDuenos inscription for other ancient inscriptions on vessels that concern the vessel itself).Gallery
References
*Hall, Mark E. Towards an absolute chronology for the Iron Age of Inner Asia. Antiquity 71 (1997): 863-874.
*Harmatta, Janos. History of Civilization of Central Asia. Volume 2, Motilal Banarsidass (1999), ISBN 8120814088, p. 421 [http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN8120814088&id=DguGWP0vGY8C&dq=issik+inscription] [http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN8120814088&id=DguGWP0vGY8C&pg=PA420&lpg=PA420&ots=y_41j-abm0&dq=issik+inscription&sig=LwuIEyVirfpvAwWWSNb0qzqQgYQ#PPA421,M1]External links
* [http://www.archaeology.org/9709/abstracts/gold.html Archaelogy magazine - Chieftain or Warrior Priestess?]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
