The Scythians were a fearsome people. Men with “blue eyes and fire-colored hair,” as defined by the Roman historian Pliny the Elder, dominated the Pontic-Caspian steppe, between the northern Black Sea and the Caucasus and the southern Ural Mountains, between the years 700 and 300 BC.
Fierce warriors and excellent horsemen, they stood out for their specialization in archery and their nomadic lifestyle. The famous Herodotus dedicated an entire book to describing Scythian history and customs. He said of them that they drank the blood of their slain enemies and that they sometimes used their scalps as a means to clean the blood from their hands.
“A Scythian drinks the blood of the first man he has defeated. He brings the heads of all those he has killed in battle to his king […]. He tears off the scalp by making a cut around the ears […], keeps it as a towel, attached to the reins of the horse that he himself rides and is proud of that: because the one who has the most scalps for hand towels is considered the godfather,” said the famous Greek geographer and historian.
Many warriors even make clothing from these scalps, sewing them together like fur coats. Or they removed “the skin, nails and everything, from the right hands of their dead enemies, and made covers for their quivers.” It turned out that human skin was thick and shiny, you could say it was the brightest and whitest skin of all,” he added.
For centuries this statement seemed like a macabre exaggeration, but recent analyzes have confirmed that these people made leather from human skin. Anthropologists from the University of Copenhagen discovered up to 45 pieces from 18 burials in 14 sites in Ukraine and, as they explain in an article published in the journal PLOS ONE, they have been able to identify the origin of all these samples. Most were made from horse, cow, goat or sheep skin. But there were two made with human skin.
“Leather was one of the most important materials of the Scythian nomads, used for clothing, shoes and quivers, among other objects. However, our knowledge about the specific animal species used in their production remains limited,” say the authors of the study.
Closer analysis of the two pieces of leather made from human skin suggested that they were used only in the upper parts of the quivers. The rest of these portable arrow cases that were slung over the shoulder or waist were made of animal leather. According to experts, their findings not only confirm the stories about the ancient Scythians, but also that the warriors created their own quivers and used the material they had at hand.
“These people mainly used domesticated species such as sheep, goats, cows and horses for leather production, while skins were made from wild animals such as foxes, squirrels and felines. The surprising discovery of two samples of human skin to make trophies such as quiver covers demonstrates that the Scythians had sophisticated production technologies that ensured a stable supply of leather,” they conclude.
And this is not the only description of Herodotus about the Scythians that has been confirmed recently. Excavations at one of the four largest royal kurgans in southern Ukraine, the Aleksandropol burial mound, led to the discovery of a large banquet area nearby and also 11 burials of men, women and children who appear to have been murdered and buried there as part of a ritual for the death of the royal occupant of the mound, as the Greek historian already described detailing the funeral of a Scythian king.
The appearance of six phalanges of human fingers, two of them with cut marks, during work on the Chortomlyk kurgan, belonging to three or four different peoples, suggests “that the Scythians actually mourned their kings by cutting their fingers,” something that was also reviewed by Herodotus.
