Preservation+-+Deliberate+AND+Accidental...

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** Preservation – Deliberate AND Accidental... **

The Siberian Icemaiden was intentionally preserved as well as accidentally preserved. It is no doubt due to this accidental preservation that her body has remained so intact to this day. According to various studies and chemical tests, the Icemaiden had been firstly defleshed and eviscerated, then embalmed and stuffed with peat and bark (which provided a small amount of preservation due to its tannic acid content), her skin restitched using horse hair (Note: Herodotus described similar preservation practices when discussing the Scythians, to which the Pazyryk have some connection). However, the main factor in her preservation was flooding occurring soon after the burial, which encased the Ice Maiden in ice (the technical name of this process called 'permafrost'). It is through this ice preservation that her hair remains blonde, her height remains around 5'6 as it would have been 2500 years ago, and her pale skin still bears intricate and fantastical vivid blue animal tattoos. Icemaiden's coffin was fashioned from the hollowed-out trunk of a larch tree, a type of pine. Surrounding the outside of the coffin were depictions of deer and snow leopards carved leather. She was also found buried along with offerings of horse-meat and mutton, leather and textile items, beads and clothing, metal ornaments and a polished hand mirror.



Other Pazyryk bodies were found in other areas of the region, which were protected from the sun's heat by rock piles. This meant that the bodies were kept in cold storage after their burial. These bodies also underwent the same process of embalming and preservation in which a hole was cut at the back of their necks to remove the brains, and internal organs were removed from a long abdominal cut in their sides. They were then stuffed with grass embalmed with spices, and buried under a mound at the bottom of a shaft. These bodies also froze due to cold conditions, preserving them in blocks of ice.



It is assumed that these bodies were of noble rank, as many historians, such as discoverer, Sergei Rudenko, believe that only those of noble rank were embalmed and tattooed. It is also well known that bodies could only be buried in summer, as the ground was too cold to complete the process during the rest of the year. This supports the fact that the bodies intentionally preserved and buried were noble, because if they died when it was not summer, the bodies had to be carried around by the tribe until the summer arrived. Usually, the bodies were found with the internal organs and musculature purposely removed, however two of the Pazyryk bodies found were only skeletons (barrow three and four). One body found (barrow two) was probably a concubine or junior wife buried with her master.



Horses were often preserved with their noble masters. In burial mound 2, seven horses were buried as grave gifts, similar to the contents of Icemaiden’s burial site and other burial mounds. Medical studies found that blows to their heads killed the horses, so it is obvious that there burial was intended to be at the same time as their masters.



The horses, uniformly dark in colour, were buried under beams, earth and rocks. They lay high up in the shaft and weren’t very well frozen as some other items in burial mound and were crushed somewhat by the weight of the logs. The horses were carefully placed in a row, lying on their left or right side with their heads facing east. Their manes had been clipped and the hair of their tails plaited or twisted together. Four of the horses had wooden cheek pieces, covered with a tin or gold foil, on their reins that ended in animal heads such as a cat-like animal, a goose, sheep, or ibex. Two of the horses had headgear of felt and leather. Saddles were made of leather cushions covered by felt saddlecloths and stiffened by wooden frames; felt designs covered the saddlecloths.



Visit: [] to find out more about the five different Pazyryk burial mounds discovered by Rudenko!