Grisly tableau of dead human sacrifices dubbed ‘display of extreme power&#
Source: Daily Star – World News
Archaeologists have discovered the shocking remains of human sacrifices they believed had been killed as part of a “display of extreme power”.
They had been digging at a site known as Tunnug 1 in Tuva, Russia, when they came across the “unique” find. The location, in southern Siberia, is in a huge burial ground and contains the remains of both humans and horses. The findings have been published in Antiquity.
In the journal, it is said that on the site a royal burial mound dates back to the 9th century. The broken remains of at least 18 horses and one human were found on the mound. According to Newsweek, there is evidence they were killed as sacrifices for someone important buried within.
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The remains had “Scythian-style” artefacts with them. The Scythians were an Iron Age people who lived on the Eurasian Steppe and had a culture focussed around horses.
Senior author of the study, Gino Caspari, with the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology and the University of Bern told Newsweek: “We discovered a unique burial ritual long thought to be an exaggeration of the Greek historian Herodotus aimed at making the steppe nomads look more barbaric.
“The archaeology allowed us to bring together written sources and material remains thousands of kilometres across the Eurasian steppes.
“People created a tableau [of] dead humans and of the most valuable domestic animals—it is a display of extreme power.
“While we can’t be sure about detailed meaning for the people involved, imagine riding across the steppes and stumbling upon such an arrangement of rotting corpses. Few things will tell you so clearly that the people of these lands are not to be messed with.”
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