Kazakhstan’s national symbol might be a woman

In 1969, archaeologists working on a burial mound (kurgan) near the town of Issyk (Esik), about 50 km east of Almaty, found a side chamber that tomb robbers had missed. Inside lay the remains of a young person dressed in extraordinary clothes: a tall pointed headdress, a jacket, belt, trousers and boots covered with about 4,000 gold ornaments, many shaped like animals such as snow leopards, horses and birds.

The burial belongs to the Saka, Iranian-speaking nomads of the steppe (cousins of the Scythians) and dates to around the 4th–3rd century BC. The person was about 18 years old.

A nation’s symbol

Restored and reconstructed, the figure became known as the Golden Man (Altyn Adam). After independence it became one of Kazakhstan’s most important symbols: a statue of the Golden Man stands on top of the Independence Monument in Almaty, and the image is reproduced widely across the country. It stands for an ancient, sophisticated steppe culture and for the idea that Kazakhstan’s history goes back far beyond the Russian and Soviet periods.

Man or woman?

The skeleton was badly preserved, and the sex is uncertain. Some researchers argue that the costume and grave goods are consistent with a high-status woman: Saka and Scythian women were sometimes buried with weapons, and warrior women appear in ancient Greek accounts of the steppe. Others hold to the original identification as a young prince.

Without better-preserved remains or DNA testing, the question stays open. It shows how much of what we “know” about ancient people depends on assumptions made at the moment of discovery.

The mysterious bowl

The grave also contained a small silver bowl with a short inscription in an unknown or disputed script. It is one of the earliest known writings from the region, and scholars still disagree on how to read it.