New Sketch on the Saka/Scythian theme

Salve,
it has been a while since i visited the Great Eurasian steppe. So let us return for a few moments, to take a look at the warriors' trophy taking amongst the first horsemen - the Indoeuropean or Iranian tribes of II and I millenia BC - Saka or Scythians  dariocaballeros/2009/08/skudra-irst-horsepeople.html
Ancient chronicler and story teller par excellance, good Greek named  Herodotus reports (4.64) that Scythians scalped and flayed their fallen enemies, using such 'hide' for a a cape, or even a  horse blanket etc. They also used fallen enemy skulls for drinking vessels, once such skull was fashioned into one (a custom carried by many later nomadic chieftains and warriors).
 More detail from this 1829 English translation:

Every Scythian drinks the blood of the first man he overthrows in battle ; and he cute off the heads of all he kills, and carries them to the king; for not until he has brought a head, does be take his share in the booty that may be won. The Scythian scalps a head in this way—he makes a gash round by the ears, and then giving the head a shake, separates it from the skin : having scraped away the flesh with the rib of an ox, he kneads it (the skin) with his hands, and when it is well softened, uses, it as a towel, or attaches it boastfully to the bridle of his horse. He who possesses the greatest number of these towels of skin, is held in the highest honour for valour. Many Scythians sowing these skins together, form cloaks of them, like the leathern hoods worn by shepherds. And many, taking the skins with the nails from the right hand of those they have slain, form with them coverings to their quivers. The human skin is in fact thick; and when tanned, excels almost all other skins in brilliancy and whiteness. Many taking the entire skin of their enemy, and stretching it upon pieces of wood, carry it on horseback.—Such are their customs.
The heads, not indeed all, but those of their greatest enemies, they dispose of in this manner:—They saw off the skull just above the eye-brows, and cleanse it. If the man is poor, he contents himself with stretching over its external surface a piece of bullhide, and so uses it; but the rich Scythian, besides the piece of hide, lines the skull" with gold, and then it serves him for a drinking cup. In this way they serve the heads even of their nearest relatives, if on occasion of some disagreement, they have gained the advantage over them in an appeal to the king. When strangers of any importance visit a Scythian, he produces these skulls— recounts how, though his relatives, they attacked him, and how he vanquished them; and upon such actions they confer the praise of virtue.
Once in every year the governor of each district mingles a cup of wine of which those Scythians only drink who have destroyed enemies; while those who have not achieved so much, taste not the wine, but sit disgraced apart: and this is deemed an extreme ignominy. Those who have slain great numbers quaff a double cup...


Well, lately  I have done a series of sketches showing such ancient custom of headhunting... there is one of them:

Gallic sketch

Salve,
a bit of improvement work on this old painting that has never been finished - purports to show Gallic horsemen of the second half of I century BC.
Hopefully I will finish this one and another that shows a horseman hunting a wild boar

another Gallic horseman

Salve,
I just 'cartoonized' another of my Gallic horsemen. Time frame is around  the Wars of the Second Triumvirate  ( 43 BC – 33 BC ), with the great battle of Philippi  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Philippi  as the largest land battle of the Second Triumvirate (eg the life of one of the principal actors -Brutus by Plutarch here Plutarch Brutus   ).  HBO series 'Rome' season 2 did attempt to show the battle, but it was not the greatest reconstruction I daresay.

Polish readers can find a nice book on the battle of Philippi authored by Maciej Milczanowski titled 'Filippi 23 X 42 p.n.e.'  published bye Wydawnictwo Inforteditions from Zabrze  in 2006.


English readers can read Osprey's book by Si Sheppard amply  titled 'Philippi - 42 BC' osprey Philippi-42-BC 
 Reviewed on Amazon.com by R. Forczyk  - the entire review here:
amazon.com Forczyk Philippi

The great podcast (actaully just one great history of Rome in lectures) on the subject is here:  historyofrome the-second-triumvirate

Wounded Gaul

Salve,
 Several years ago I did a number of illustrations for a book on the battle of Philippi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Philippi
Amongst many drawings and paintings I  did this particular of a  one wounded Celtic warrior on his equally grievously wounded horse.
I did it somewhat in a comics(cartoon, bande dessinée) style.

 Next shall be a horseman of Iberia of the same battle - :)

Massagetan warrior I

...this is a version of my original Massagetan horseman.
   ... according to the already mentioned archaeologist, who is not my friend even by a longest Mongolian bow shot ;) , named Marek Wozniak the armor corselet consisted of leather plates or plaques sewn together and 'needle work' covered with leather 'ribbons' - somewhat similar to the Orlat warriors of the Orlat bone plaque http://www.transoxiana.org/Eran/Articles/mode.html or Kumbuz-Tepe http://www.antiquemilitaryhistory.com/images/khumbuztepe.JPG , helmet based on the Samarkand find , sewn onto his hat aka ''bashlik.'' This type of reconstruction was proposed by the Kazakh archaeologists before but for much later dates. There is an English translation of Yablonsky article on the Massagetan warrior find http://s155239215.onlinehome.us/turkic/27_Scythians/Massagetan_Warrior_En.htm

The shoulder protectors are based on the prof. Olbrycht discussion as have been reconstructed by  dr. Gorelik (his book on Alexander of Macedon and the Iranian world) of the Chirik-Rabat and the Gorelik's intepretations of the Chirik-Rabat and Saka in general.
find Chirik-Rabat here http://www.antiquemilitaryhistory.com/images/chirikrabat.JPG

... already mentioned Wozniak suggested the sword to be a typical longer Scythian version, as shown in 'The Golden Deer of Eurasia' or . I picked the battle ax  upon perusing  my Scythian and Saka book collections and it belongs to the southern Siberia finds published by Gryaznov (V century BC).

     Horse whip is my own 'imagination'  (if you read 'Tyrant' novels you may find out how deadly this 'nahayka' whips could  have been) while his belt is of south Siberian origin I saw in Gorelik's article on the Saka armor. The sword sharpening stone aka whet stone is a typical steppe tool, hung from nomads belts, typical find in the Pontic and Caspian steppes, also my own addition. The same with the choice of a bashlik type based on the Siberian Saka finds by the Soviet and  Russian archaeologists.

      This particular armour concept, especially choosing of Orlat bone plaques (variously dated to II c. BC to V c. AD  and do find this great article about the plaques  http://www.transoxiana.org/Eran/Articles/mode.html  )  as basis  for the armour reconstruction and type of neck guard - segmented instead of one metal sheet (segmented is used by the later Saka, Yuezhi, Kangju or Huns, while single sheet was developed and used by the Saka being the earliest steppe collar),  has been heavily but substantively criticized by Ruben aka Mein Pantzer on the romanarmy.com and my friend Patryk Skupniewicz.  Ruben pointed to a Taraz find

Having read (mostly) the Polos'mak book on the Pazyryk Saka's clothing I think that pants, boots, and tunic need to be reworked a lot. I am going to add a later Saka gorytos - longer and much more powerful bow as found by the Chinese in the former Saka and Uigur lands in the Chinese Turkestan (Xinjiang) - there is this delightful  article on Atarn archery website http://www.atarn.org/chinese/scythian_bows.htm
Another set of elements are missing here, those are the cultural,  ritual and religious items always found in the Siberian kurgans of the Saka and related to their believes. Other items I could add here are the feathers and animals skins, especially snow leopard, wolf or tiger pelt adornments as natural part of the Scythian, Saka, Yuezhi, Hun, Turkic, Uigur, Mongol  warrior 'wolfbands. '  In this particular Saka aka North Iranian case the deer, wild boar and wild felines imagery shall find itself added here. After all, as my friend Patryk always points that  Shahnameh's Rustam was a Saka...
I shall correct them too, I hope.

Saka and Skuda in one steppe dwelt

Sketches of the 1st millienium BC steppe horse masters - I know the ladies are missing, they should come shortly :) patientia virtutem est, amici mei.

working.. the Parthians of sorts

...some sketches of proverbial Parthians, in various stages of 'undress' :)

Skuda - the horsearchers of Eurasia

Skuda, Skula, Skolotai, Saka (Skify, Skithian, Scythians, Skudra, Sogdian, Скифы, Саки, Scytowie, Sakowie ) or the Archers were the very first mounted 'Scourge of God' that had burst in the ancient world of Europe and Asia around beginning of the VII (7th) century BC. Mounted on swift horses ( according to archaeological finds - eg Pazyryk - and Herodotus mostly 130-150cm at withers geldings, armed with bow, arrows, klevetz (war ax or war hammer), spears and javelins, short and long swords they were pursuing another branch of the big Iranian nomad family- the Kimmerians or Cimmerians (yes,author of Conan the barbarian got his name from them) - and having finished with their cousins then they incidentally pillaged Anatolia, Syria, Palestine and Northern Egypt..
Defeated by Medes (who themselves might have been part of these archers and local population) and later Persian (their southern 'cousins') settled north of Caucasus - in the so called Caspian-Pontic steppe until replaced by the new wave of their Iranian cousins - the Sarmatians - at the end of the 1st millennium BC.
These Indo-European nomads of Iron Age created the most amazing art and most original culture, artifacts surviving in numerous kurgans (earthy mounds) throughout the Eurasian steppe, from southern Poland and Romania to China and Korea.

I drew/copied this king or using Iranian term - a shah - after a reconstruction by Russian archaeologist and artist Mikhail V. Gorelik. I used crow quill pen and ink, while colors come from colored pencils. Later I added background using GIMP etc.
This particular warrior with his entire golden martial outfit was found in the Solokha (Солоха) kurgan located on the Dniepr River, near Nikopol in Ukraine.
He has a iron scales cuirass, bashlik (felt or leather cap) and Greek helmet adopted to his Scythian use and taste, golden Scythian belt on which two most important attributes of the Scythian male costume were hung - a Scythian sword in scabbard, and a Scythian gorythos or gorytos - a leather or felt container for both a bow and arrows, where some extra arrow points and sharpening tools could also by carried.
He wears typical nomad pants - designed for riding, and soft leather boots.
He is also wearing shins protectors or greaves (there were of bronze).
He carries a bronze mace or 'buzdygan' - a weapon and a sign of his authority (this symbolic aspect buzdygan of was to survive in the Eurasian steppe military cultures until the XVIII (18th) century AD, eg 'hetman's bulawa' in Poland and Ukraine).
Riding whip or nahaika - they used no spurs - was another aspect of their horse culture.
Finally he carries two shafted weapons - a short spear and a javelin - and iron laminated shield.
This find was dated to the early 4th century BC, and was one of the richest finds ever in Ukraine... Westerners aka Europeans and Americans call the western Saka by the name - Scythians - taken after the Herodotus Histories' name usage (which a Greek term) but our nomads called themselves Skuda. Persians of the Darius the Great times (end of the 6th century BC) used term Saka, and differentiated between their northern cousins by adding different names related to their locations in the steppes and relationship to the Achaemenid Empire- Saka paradraya, Saka tigraxauda, Saka haumavarga, Saka para Sugudam.
I've got to draw a horse for him, with the full Scythian outfit.

Back to Iranian Asb (horse and ... GIMP)

Czolem,
this time I am going to return for a moment to the subject of Ancient Iranians and their horses.
A couple years ago my friend Kaveh Farrokh wrote a book titled "Shadows in the Desert", on the military history of pre-Islamic Iran, and he asked me to paint a Parthian for his book. Happily and quite honored by his request I did this little watercolor for this Osprey book, see the link to googlebooks preview of the book. Coincidently his book has become quite popular.
http://books.google.com/books?id=p7kltwf9yrwC&pg=PA134&lpg=PA134&dq=persia+at+war+wielec&source=bl&ots=1BDxjEmyky&sig=6uR0ZfzX4PZwb1WeQrq63xjM_pA&hl=en&ei=9b6-SYLOOtKJtgfoubD4Cw&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result
Lately, after a long hiatus in my own artistic work, I first scanned and have been 'redoing' my old drawings and paintings using this quite fine graphic manipulation program known as GIMP. Instead of a mouse Iam using a device known as the Wacom tablet with gripen.

This new 'painting' technique is quite enjoyable and I am learning, and since this post is on the Iranians and their horses, I will start with this older image of a Parthian archer, and it was published by Inforteditions military book publisher from Chorzow Poland, in their book on the battle of Philippi (42 B.C) http://www.wanax.pl/index.php?p456,filippi-23-x-42-p-n-e .
Anyway, both sides to this battle, Octavian-Marcus Antonius and Brutus-Longinus, employed cavalry units drawn (hired) from across the Roman frontier, i.e., the Parthian Empire.

Whereas it is unknown if there were any Parthian cathaphracts (heavy-armored cavalry with long lances and armored horses ) in this battle, it is quite known that Parthian archers were present, for they were hired with a blessing form the High King. And my watercolor was to show one of the archers, using a horned saddle (Peter Connolly reconstructed one almost 20 years ago) and riding a stallion with a cranellated (cut) mane and fabric-wrapped tail, ancient Central Asian custom...