Finding of Human Skin on Quivers and Other Scythian Objects Confirms Herodotus’ Claims

Herodotus, the Greek historian of the 5th century BC, described in his writings various customs of the Scythians, a nomadic people who inhabited the Eurasian steppe between the 8th and 4th centuries BC. This included practices such as drinking the blood of their enemies and using human scalps as trophies.

Among these, he mentioned the unusual practice of some Scythians using the skin of defeated enemies in battle to line the quivers where they kept their arrows. This account was so brutal that archaeologists doubted it for a long time, unable to confirm it with direct evidence.

A Scythian drinks the blood of the first man whom he has taken down. He carries the heads of all whom he has slain in the battle to his king; for if he brings a head, he receives a share of the booty taken, but not otherwise. He scalps the head by making a cut around it by the ears, then grasping the scalp and shaking the head off. Then he scrapes out the flesh with the rib of a steer, and kneads the skin with his hands, and having made it supple he keeps it for a hand towel, fastening it to the bridle of the horse which he himself rides, and taking pride in it; for he who has most scalps for hand towels is judged the best man. Many Scythians even make garments to wear out of these scalps, sewing them together like coats of skin. Many too take off the skin, nails and all, from their dead enemies’ right hands, and make coverings for their quivers; the human skin was, as it turned out, thick and shining, the brightest and whitest skin of all, one might say. Many flay the skin from the whole body, too, and carry it about on horseback stretched on a wooden frame.
Herodotus, Histories, 4.64

However, recent research has shed light on this aspect of Scythian culture through the application of modern scientific analysis. A team analyzed 45 samples of archaeological leather found in Scythian burials at 13 sites in Ukraine, most of them dating back to the 4th century BC.

To identify the animal species from which each leather sample originated, researchers used a technique known as “zooarchaeology by mass spectrometry” or ZooMS. This innovative method involves analyzing the proteins and molecules preserved in the leather through mass spectrometry, then comparing the results with a reference database to determine the species accurately.

ZooMS proved to be an ideal tool for this work, as it allowed the identification of the species even when the leather was highly deteriorated and external features such as feathers had disappeared, which are typically used for this purpose through microscopy. Thanks to this, unprecedented information was obtained about the use of animal resources by Scythian nomads.

The analysis revealed that most samples came from domestic species such as sheep, goats, cattle, and horses, which were fundamental animals in the Scythian pastoral economy. Sheep and goat leather were the most common, probably due to their tough yet flexible qualities, ideal for clothing, footwear, and containers. Some samples also corresponded to the skins of wild animals hunted, such as foxes, squirrels, or felines.

Surprisingly, two of the analyzed samples turned out to be remnants of quivers composed partially of human skin, thus confirming Herodotus’ controversial claim.

Our results seem to confirm Herodotus’s claim. The proteins from samples 7 and 21, from quivers found in burial 2 of Ilyinka kurgan 4 and burial 2 of Bulhakovo kurgan 5, indicate a human origin, according to ZooMS and LC-MS/MS analyses. As far as we know, the only other recorded case of human skin use in a quiver was identified in burial 1 of Yakovlevskiy kurgan 3 (4th century BC) in Russia through counterimmunoelectrophoresis, say the archaeologists.

Although macabre from our modern perspective, other Scythian customs described by Herodotus have also been corroborated by archaeological findings. For example, the recent reinvestigation of one of the four major Scythian royal kurgans in southern Ukraine, the mound of Aleksandropol, led to the discovery of a large area of funeral feasting near the kurgan and, within it, 11 accompanying burials of men, women, and children, all of whom seem to have been killed and buried there as part of the funeral rites of the royal occupant of the mound.

These details closely match Herodotus’s description of the funeral of a Scythian king (Histories 4.71-72). The description of how mourners mutilated themselves during the burials of kings to express their grief has also been confirmed by the excavation of the funerary mound of Chortomlyk. Here, six phalanges of human fingers were found, two of them with cut marks, belonging to three or four different individuals, suggesting that the Scythians mourned their kings by cutting their fingers.

Sources

Brandt LØ, Mackie M, Daragan M, Collins MJ, Gleba M (2023) Human and animal skin identified by palaeoproteomics in Scythian leather objects from Ukraine. PLoS ONE 18(12): e0294129. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0294129