Daisy Dunn

The icemen cometh

The British Museum’s latest exhibition is an exhilarating look at a ferocious people with a unexpectedly delicate side

issue 23 September 2017

You wouldn’t want to stumble upon the Scythians. Armed with battle-axes, bows and daggers, and covered in fearsome tattoos, the horse-mad nomads ranged the Russian steppe from around 900 to 200 BC, turning squirrels into fur coats and human teeth into earrings.

At their mightiest, they controlled territory from the Black Sea to the north border of China.

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