The Issyk kurgan, in south-eastern

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...

, less than 20 km east from the Talgar alluvial fan, near Issyk, is a

burial mound Burial, also known as interment or inhumation, is a method of final disposition whereby a dead body is placed into the ground, sometimes with objects. This is usually accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing the deceased and objec ...

discovered in 1969. It has a height of and a circumference of . It is dated to the 4th or 3rd century BC. A notable item is a silver cup bearing an inscription, known as the Issyk inscription. The finds are on display in

Astana Astana is the capital city of Kazakhstan. With a population of 1,423,726 within the city limits, it is the second-largest in the country after Almaty, which had been the capital until 1997. The city lies on the banks of the Ishim (river), Ishim ...

. It is associated with the

Saka The Saka, Old Chinese, old , Pinyin, mod. , ), Shaka (Sanskrit (Brāhmī): , , ; Sanskrit (Devanāgarī): , ), or Sacae (Ancient Greek: ; Latin: were a group of nomadic Iranian peoples, Eastern Iranian peoples who lived in the Eurasian ...

peoples. "The dress of Iranian-speaking Saka and Scythians is easily reconstructed on the basis of... numerous archaeological discoveries from the Ukraine to the Altai, particularly at Issyk in Kazakhstan... at Pazyryk... and Ak-Alakha" The burial complex located on the left bank of the Issyk Mountain River, to the east of the city of

Almaty Almaty, formerly Alma-Ata, is the List of most populous cities in Kazakhstan, largest city in Kazakhstan, with a population exceeding two million residents within its metropolitan area. Located in the foothills of the Trans-Ili Alatau mountains ...

. The unique archaeological complex found by a small group of Soviet scientists led by archaeologist Kemal Akishevich Akishev in 1969. The burial ground consists of 45 large royal mounds with a diameter of 30 to 90 and a height of . The Issyk barrow is located in the western half of the burial ground. Its diameter is , and its height is .

"Golden man"

Situated in eastern

Scythia Scythia (, ) or Scythica (, ) was a geographic region defined in the ancient Graeco-Roman world that encompassed the Pontic steppe. It was inhabited by Scythians, an ancient Eastern Iranian equestrian nomadic people. Etymology The names ...

just north of

Sogdiana Sogdia () or Sogdiana was an ancient Iranian civilization between the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, and in present-day Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. Sogdiana was also a province of the Achaemenid Empire, and l ...

, the

kurgan A kurgan is a type of tumulus (burial mound) constructed over a grave, often characterized by containing a single human body along with grave vessels, weapons, and horses. Originally in use on the Pontic–Caspian steppe, kurgans spread into mu ...

contained a skeleton, warrior's equipment, and assorted funerary goods, including 4,000 gold ornaments. Although the sex of the skeleton is uncertain, it may have been an 18-year-old

(

Scythian The Scythians ( or ) or Scyths (, but note Scytho- () in composition) and sometimes also referred to as the Pontic Scythians, were an ancient Eastern Iranian equestrian nomadic people who had migrated during the 9th to 8th centuries BC fr ...

) prince or princess. The richness of the burial items led the skeleton to be dubbed the "golden man" or "golden princess", with the "golden man" subsequently being adopted as one of the symbols of modern

. A likeness crowns the Independence Monument on the central square of

. Its depiction may also be found on the

presidential standard The presidential standard or presidential flag is the flag that is used in many countries as a symbol of the head of state or president (government title), president. In some countries it may be for exclusive use of the president or only raised w ...

Nursultan Nazarbayev Nursultan Abishuly Nazarbayev (born 6 July 1940) is a Kazakhstani politician who served as the first president of Kazakhstan from 1991 to 2019. He also held the special title of Elbasy from 2010 to 2022 and chairman of the Security Council of ...

Symbol of Kazakhstan

The treasures of the Issyk mound and an exact copy of ''The Golden man'' are located in the Kazakh Museum of archaeology in Almaty city and in the State Museum of gold and precious metals of the Republic of Kazakhstan in Astana city. ''The Golden man'' on the winged leopard is one of the national symbols of Kazakhstan. Copies of the Saks warrior installed in many cities of Kazakhstan. One of the copies crowns the Independence monument on the Republic square in Almaty city. Altogether, in the excavations, found five tombs with the so-called ''The Golden man'': the second ''The Golden man'' found in the Araltobe barrow, the third in Chiliktinsk Kurgan Biglobe, the fourth near Astana city and fifth found in the burial ground Taldy Karkaralinsk district.

Burials

There were two burials in the grave complex: the Central one and the Southern one (to one side). Unfortunately the Central burial site had been robbed but the side grave was undisturbed. The burial chamber in the side grave was constructed from

spruce A spruce is a tree of the genus ''Picea'' ( ), a genus of about 40 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal ecosystem, boreal (taiga) regions of the Northern hemisphere. ''Picea'' ...

logs. The tomb and its contents remained intact and buried. The skeletal remains were found in the Northern half of the chamber. More than 4,000 gold items were found in the chamber, as well as iron sword and dagger, a bronze mirror, vessels made of clay, metal and wood, shoes, headdresses, gold rings, statuettes, bronze and gold weapons, and an inscribed silver bowl dating from the 6th to 5th century BCE. Many clothing ornaments made of gold, a headdress and shoes were found on and under the remains. Next to the remains were an arrow with a gold tip, a whip (the handle of which was wrapped with a wide ribbon of gold in a spiral pattern) and a bag containing a bronze mirror and red paint. Scientific research, particular that of the anthropologist O. I. Ismagulov, shows that the remains belong to a member of the

peoples of Semirecheye, who have a European appearance with an admixture of Mongoloid features. The age of the body at death is estimated at 16–18 years, and its sex is indeterminate. The form of clothing and method of burial suggest that "The Golden Man" was a descendant of a prominent Saks tribe leader, or a member of the royal family. Some Kazakh historians suggest that the burial belongs to Usun.

The Issyk inscription

A text was found on a silver bowl in Issyk kurgan, dated to approximately the 4th century BC. The context of the burial gifts indicates that it may belong to

tribes.

Sites with inscriptions in the unknown Kushan script

The Issyk inscription is not yet certainly deciphered, but was likely used by the

Kushan Empire The Kushan Empire (– CE) was a Syncretism, syncretic empire formed by the Yuezhi in the Bactrian territories in the early 1st century. It spread to encompass much of what is now Afghanistan, Eastern Iran, India, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbe ...

side by side with more common scripts such as Greek for the

Bactrian language Bactrian (, , meaning "Iranian") was an Eastern Iranian language formerly spoken in the Central Asian region of Bactria (present-day Afghanistan) and used as the official language of the Kushan and the Hephthalite empires. Name It was long tho ...

and

Kharoṣṭhī Kharosthi script (), also known as the Gandhari script (), was an ancient script originally developed in the Gandhara, Gandhara Region of modern-day Pakistan, between the 5th and 3rd century BCE. used primarily by the people of Gandhara along ...

for Gāndhārī during their rule from the western

Tarim Basin The Tarim Basin is an endorheic basin in Xinjiang, Northwestern China occupying an area of about and one of the largest basins in Northwest China.Chen, Yaning, et al. "Regional climate change and its effects on river runoff in the Tarim Basin, Ch ...

to northern India.

János Harmatta János Harmatta (2 October 1917 – 24 July 2004) was a Hungarian linguist. He deciphered the Parthian ostraca An ostracon (Greek language, Greek: ''ostrakon'', plural ''ostraka'') is a piece of pottery, usually broken off from a vase ...

, using the

script, identified the language as a Khotanese Saka dialect spoken by the

Kushans The Kushan Empire (– CE) was a syncretic empire formed by the Yuezhi in the Bactrian territories in the early 1st century. It spread to encompass much of what is now Afghanistan, Eastern Iran, India, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Kus ...

. A 2023 analysis suggests an affiliation with

Eastern Iranian languages The Eastern Iranian languages are a subgroup of the Iranian languages, having emerged during the Iranian languages#Middle Iranian, Middle Iranian era (4th century BC to 9th century AD). The Avestan, Avestan language is often classified as early E ...

, particularly "a missing link between Bactrian, Sogdian, the

Saka language Saka, or Sakan, was a variety of Eastern Iranian languages, attested from the ancient Buddhist kingdoms of Khotan, Kashgar and Tumshuq in the Tarim Basin, in what is now southern Xinjiang, China. It is a Middle Iranian language. The two ki ...

s, Old Ossetic/Alanic and ‘Old Steppe Iranian’ (and perhaps individual modern Iranian languages), participating in several

isogloss An isogloss, also called a heterogloss, is the geographic boundary of a certain linguistics, linguistic feature, such as the pronunciation of a vowel, the meaning of a word, or the use of some morphological or syntactic feature. Isoglosses are a ...

es with one or the other of these languages, but with none of them exclusively". Bonmann identifies the Kushan script in multiple locations shown right, most notably the Dašt-i Nāwur inscription and previously unknown inscriptions in the Almosi gorge, Tajikistan. Bonmann also theorizes that the script is a direct derivative of the

Aramaic alphabet The ancient Aramaic alphabet was used to write the Aramaic languages spoken by ancient Aramean pre-Christian peoples throughout the Fertile Crescent. It was also adopted by other peoples as their own alphabet when empires and their subjects und ...

, without the use of the

script as an intermediary.

Golden treasures in the kurgan

File:20. Elk. Burial mound Issyk (V.-IV. B.C.) Kazakhstan.JPG, Elk. Burial mound Issyk (5th–4th centuries BC) File:Issyk kurgan horse.jpg, Horse. Burial mound Issyk (5th–4th centuries BC) File:14. Head of tiger, burial mound Issyk (v.-IV. B.C.) Kazakstan.JPG, Head of tiger, burial mound Issyk (5th–4th centuries BC) File:Issyk kurgan Flying elk with griffin.jpg, Flying elk with griffin burial mound Issyk (5th–4th centuries BC) File:Gold plaques in tiger form, Issyk Kurgan, Kazakhstan.jpg, Gold plaques in tiger form, Issyk Kurgan, Kazakhstan File:Issyk Kurgan Tiger with mountain 4th-3rd century BCE.jpg, Leopard with mountain, Issyk Kurgan, 4th-3rd century BCE

Notes

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), , p. 42

https://books.google.com/books?id=DguGWP0vGY8C&dq=issik+inscription&pg=PA421] *

External links

Archaeology magazine - Chieftain or Warrior Priestess?
* :ru:Иссыкский золотой человек, Иссыкский золотой человек
К. А. Акишев «Курган Иссык, Искусство саков Казахстана» Москва Искусство 1978
*

* [https://camonitor.kz/31376-altyn-madam-novyy-vzglyad-na-znamenitoe-zahoronenie-v-issykskom-kurgane.html «Алтын-мадам»: Новый взгляд на знаменитое захоронение в Иссыкском кургане] {{DEFAULTSORT:Issyk Kurgan Buildings and structures completed in the 4th century BC Buildings and structures completed in the 3rd century BC 1969 archaeological discoveries Saka Scythia Archaeological sites in Kazakhstan Kurgans Tumuli in Kazakhstan Iranian archaeological sites