Horse images in art of the scythian epoch in steppe Eurasia

The paper reviews horse images in the Scythian animal style of the classicalScythian period (the second half of the 6th-4th centuries BC) from the Eurasian steppe areas.The study focuses on images of unbridled horses with a ’natural’ mane as representativesof wild nature. It is only these images that can be used as a source for identifying the roleof the horse in sacral concepts of the culture. It has been established that horse images aredepicted in the animal style rather rarely and not more than several dozens of such imageshave been found across the entire Eurasian steppes. No canons for depicting horses havebeen developed as is the case for ’popular’ images of the Scythian animal style such asdeer, predators, and birds of prey. It may be argued that horse images are irregular; theydo not form canonical groups and typological lines. Images of bridled horses with a rideras well as horses with a short trimmed mane account for a substantial share of the images,which reflects the role of the horse as a combat or draught animal. Extremely rare imagesof horses with a natural mane as representatives of wild nature in the Scythian animalstyle, especially, in the scenes featuring animals locked in combat, demonstrate that thehorse did not form part of the pantheon of the Scythians and other population groups thatinhabited steppe Eurasia during the Scythian period.