Hello friends, thanks for joining me for another episode of Scholar Minor.
Before we get started this week, I wanted to once again thank everyone for their patience and concern over the last couple months. I am feeling greatly improved and have renewed energy - which is good timing, because this week marks Scholar Minor’s one year anniversary. I’ve got some big stuff coming up this year, there’ll be a couple announcements at the end of the episode.
The thought that so many people have been downloading and enjoying my humble little podcast sends me over the moon. Thank you, thank you for listening and sharing. I look forward to what will be an interesting and, I think, pretty eventful year for us. So stay tuned, friends!
Our tale this week begins at the Ukok Plateau, a frigid stretch of grasslands in Siberia's stark and beautiful Altai Mountains. This rugged and remote region is located at the intersection of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia. The plateau became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1998, the Golden Mountain of Altai, preserved in part for the multiple endangered species that live there - including the elusive snow leopard and steppe eagle.
The area is also home to some of the world's most ancient anthropological artifacts: petroglyphs from the iron and bronze ages, some even older - possibly from the Paleolithic area, 10,000 years ago. Barrows - or mounded burial sites - dot the area, and are referred to as kurgans.
The Altai Mountains were home to an ancient people, the Pazyryk, horse-riders who believed the Ukok Plateau to be a sacred place. It remains sacred to this day, and inhabitants of the area believe raising your voice risks offending the many Pazyryk ancestors buried there.
In the early 1990s, archeologist Natalia Polosmak determined to examine the burials of the Ukok Plateau. Pazyryk tradition depicted the afterlife as a serene mountain plateau, and Polosmak believed the kurgans of the Altai were probably home to history-changing artifacts.
And she was correct. Despite many of the kurgans having been looted for profit over the centuries, one was found largely undisturbed, in a stretch of “no-mans land” between the Russian and Chinese border. They carefully removed the stones that covered the kurgan, and after digging through the permafrost discovered a wooden burial chamber frozen in time. Their discovery there would become one of the most impressive - and controversial - in recent archeological history.
The terrain of the Eurasian Steppes is stark and unforgiving. Treeless and windswept, the average low temperature for the winter months is -27' below zero - that's about -32' in celsius. High temperatures in the summer rarely pass 60' Fahrenheit - or 15' celsius. It is an astonishingly beautiful and harsh environment.
To stay one step ahead of the bone-chilling winter temperatures, many peoples of the steppes - ancient and current - were nomadic, including the Pazyryk. The ability to decipher even the subtlest changes in weather patterns or other environmental signs allowed peoples like the Pazyryk to avoid stormfronts and move to warmer areas where herding animals could be better fed and protected.
During the seasonal travels of the Pazyryk, two thousand five hundred years ago, one of their number - a 28-year-old woman - fell from her horse, succumbing to her injuries several months after the accident. This woman - whose tomb Polosmak’s team unearthed in 1993 - turned out to be very important. Today, she is known as the Siberian Ice Princess, the Ice Maiden, or Ochy-bala.
The Ice Maiden’s impressively preserved remains are the result of the perfect combination of unlikely factors. Her burial chamber was made of wood - notched together, like the walls of a cabin, and buried beneath two meters - or, about six and a half feet - of earth.
As the Ukok Plateau has been considered sacred land for thousands of years, many burials have taken place there - and years after the Ice Maiden's internment, another nomadic group buried one of their own honored dead just above and adjacent to the Ice Maiden's chamber. This disturbance allowed water to flood the chamber, filling it and freezing solid, and preserving the Ice Maiden and her belongings within - just as they were.
In 1993, Polosmak and her archeological team located the mound and began the lengthy and difficult process of unearthing its contents. This required careful removal of the rocks protecting its surface, digging away what dirt they could, and once they reached the wooden burial chamber - melting the ice. Large drums of water were heated and poured over the layers of ice, over and over again, until its contents were slowly revealed.
It was clear to the team almost immediately that the burial was that of a high-ranking person. They first discovered six horses - incredibly valuable animals to the nomadic peoples of the steppes - which, upon further inspection, appeared to have been sacrificed prior to their burial. There were saddles and equipment used to take care of the animals, containers full of foodstuffs, textiles, even a table.
The coffin containing the Maiden was very large, and made of larch wood and copper nails - the larch tree being sacred to the Pazyryks. As the layers of ice melted away, the occupant of the coffin was revealed - a woman in her late twenties, about 5 foot 6 inches tall, very thin, wrapped in blankets and furs.
Protected from the thawing sunlight by the reflective stones above the kurgan and the many feet of frozen earth, her chamber remained undisturbed until Polosmak and the archeological team's arrival. In addition to the natural factors that preserved her, analysis of her remains show that the Ice Maiden was prepared before her burial. Her internal organs, including her brain, had been removed - the incisions meticulously stitched back together with horsehair thread. The empty cavities had been filled with herbs, peat, and wool. Her skull and eyesockets had been filled with pine marten fur.
The Ice Maiden's head was shaved, and over it she wore a wig of human hair and a headdress measuring nearly a meter - or just over 3 feet - tall. It was decorated with carved creatures covered in gold leaf, including many wooden birds and a griffin. She was dressed in fine clothing - made from silk, wool, and camel hair - dyed and decorated with belts, tassels, and other ornamentation. Analysis of the Ice Maiden's silk shirt suggests that the Pazyryk may have been in trading relationships with peoples as far away as India.
Many of the Pazyryk artifacts recovered at the kurgan containing the Ice Maiden closely resemble those of another ancient tribe, the Scythians, who were skilled warriors and horsemen from the Western steppes.On her hip, the Maiden wore a bag containing cosmetics - including a vivianite eye pencil, an iron phosphate that appears blue-green when applied to the skin, and a decorated hand mirror.
One of the most astonishing attributes of the Ice Maiden, however, is her tattoos. She has beautiful tattoos depicting various animals - snow leopards, deer, a griffin, and intricate floral patterns. The presence of these tattoos cements her place as a high-ranking woman. Though what exactly that rank was, archeologists are still unsure.
Initially, it was believed that the Ice Maiden was a princess - or at least very high-born. However, the fanciest of the kurgans were usually occupied by men of high status. If women were buried alongside them, they were usually wives or concubines. It was very uncommon for a woman of status to be treated with such reverence for her own sake - though unmarried young women could be warriors in nomadic society, and were sometimes buried in their fighting garb alongside their weapons. But the Ice Maiden had no weapons. Many suspect now, given her lavish burial, the nature of her tattoos, her ornamental headdress - that the Ice Maiden may have been a shamaness, entrusted with communicating with the spirit world on her community's behalf.
The shamaness theory is supported by Polosmak herself, who remarked to Nova: "This young woman, buried with such ceremony, with her body covered in tattoos, was no ordinary member of society. She may have held a special position because she was blessed with a talent valued in that society. She could have been a shaman. She may have had the ability to heal people or predict the weather. It is also likely that this woman was a storyteller, someone who told stories and memorized the history and myths of her people. This would have been very important for the Pazyryk as it is for all non-literate cultures."
After the exhumation of the Ice Maiden, strange things started to happen. Just before her coffin was opened on the site, several of the archeologists began to feel that they were unwelcome. Speaking to NOVA, American archeologist Jeanne Smoot - who was part of the excavations - recounted: “Many people experienced nightmares - pretty violent ones actually. In my nightmare, I was clawing - like hooking the eyes out of people. And the speculation was, perhaps, that the place was testing our will to be there."
Once the Ice Maiden was removed, the archeological team intended to take her elsewhere for further research. The helicopter that carried her body experienced major difficulties and nearly crashed, having to make an emergency landing. Every minute that the Maiden was not properly stored was contributing to her long-delayed deterioration.
She was hastily stored in a freezer in a small town - a freezer that had been previously used to store cheese, and in which the resulting fungi were still present. This fungus began to eat away at the Ice Maiden's delicate tissues and fade her beautiful tattoos. She was quickly transported to Moscow, where her remains could be further analyzed and the rapid degeneration of her body hopefully halted.
The deterioration of the Ice Maiden ceased after scientists in Moscow employed more modern embalming techniques - those same techniques used to preserve the body of Vladimir Lenin since his death in 1924. A combination of chemical baths, carefully monitored lighting, temperature, and humidity allowed the Ice Maiden to once again be preserved.
Soon, scientists were able to take a closer look at the Ice Maiden and attempted to determine her cause of death. It was discovered that at her passing she was very underweight and had been bedridden for several months. An MRI revealed advanced breast cancer that had traveled to her lymphatic system, likely causing her a great deal of pain and weakness in her final years. Found in her chamber were small containers of cannabis, which she would have been using as an analgesic.
Though she was clearly suffering from the effects of her cancer, tests also showed evidence of a serious fall - likely off of a horse - resulting in multiple fractures. Her injuries did not appear to have healed over the course of several months, and it’s possible that the added stress was too much for her body to bear. Scientists also found evidence that the Ice Maiden had suffered from osteomyelitis as a child - inflammation and swelling in her bones. This would have weakened them and increased their susceptibility to injury.
While scientists were at work examining her remains, her removal from her homeland was not sitting well with many. The archeological team had not asked permission from the Altai peoples living there, despite the Ukok Plateau still being regarded as a holy, ancestral place. Already the Plateau has been victim to warming temperatures - the layers of permafrost, many thousands of years old, is beginning to melt. Jeep and off-roading enthusiasts have also taken a liking to the place - destroying the tiny, delicate plants of the steppes in the process.
Following her removal, there have been earthquakes - some very destructive, and flooding. Shamanic practitioners in Altai communities contend that her removal has brought an imbalance, and that it is vitally important she be returned to her burial place. Tradition in the area holds that the leaders and healers buried on the plateau continue to protect their people in death. As an Altai elder told the Siberian Times, "Today, we honour the sacred beliefs of our ancestors like three millennia ago. We have been burying people according to Scythian traditions. We want respect for our traditions."
Reconstruction of the Ice Maiden's features and DNA analysis suggest she may, genetically, not be directly related to the Altai peoples today. She was, however, a Pazyryk - and it's important to note the many ancient nomadic cultures were multi-ethnic: a result of their frequent movement and trade.
There is still contention between those who wish to keep the Ice Maiden in a museum, and those who believe she should be returned home. Currently, she is on display in an exhibit at the Anokhin Museum in Gorno-Altaysk, in the Altai Republic, Russia. In keeping with Altai traditions, visitations of the Ice Maiden's remains are scheduled only during the New Moon and its waxing phases - when the moon is waning, "the days of the black moon", public access to the Ice Maiden is not allowed. To the disdain of Polosmak and others in the archeological community, the Ukok Plateau itself is no longer accessible to archeologists.
That concludes our discussion this week regarding the wonderful Siberian Ice Maiden. If you woud like to learn more about the Altai and the Ukok Plateau, you can visit www.altaiproject.org for some great information on efforts being made to preserve this special place.
As always, thank you for listening - my contact information is in the show notes. You’ll also find a bibliography of my sources there. If you haven’t already, consider subscribing to Scholar Minor wherever you find your podcasts.
Now that my energy-consuming surgery is behind me, I’m looking to do a bit of a relaunch this week: so a few housekeeping notes. Next month, I begin my classes for my Master’s Degree in Public History. Wish me luck! Since work and graduate school will be a bit time consuming, I want to make sure that the quality of Scholar Minor episodes can increase this coming year - not decrease. So I’ll be coming out with an episode every other week instead of each week, on Fridays.
Secondly, on my website, www.ursaminorcreations.com, you’ll find some of my pyrography has been added once again to my shop inventory for your perusal. I have also made it an early New Year’s resolution to start utilizing my social media again - I am notoriously bad about it, so if you’re an Instagram user, please consider following me @ursulalynnsongs to me to continue keeping up with all that good modern networking.
More announcements to come, but that’ll do us for now. Stay safe, friends, and I look forward to next time.