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Frozen tombs in the Altai preserved Scythian textiles
Permafrost kept felt, wood, leather and tattooed bodies intact for over two thousand years Excavations at Pazyryk in the Siberian Altai from the 1920s onward uncovered burials of horse-riding people from about the fifth to third centuries BCE. Water seeping into the graves froze, preserving objects that normally rot away, including a felt swan, a wooden chariot and the oldest known knotted pile carpet. The finds are held in the Hermitage Museum. It sits in Mondo's history collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.
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Tags: scythians, archaeology, permafrost
Frozen tombs in the Altai preserved Scythian textiles: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- Permafrost kept felt, wood, leather and tattooed bodies intact for over two thousand years. The figure is taken from The State Hermitage Museum, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a history fact?
- Yes. It sits on the History shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.