The Golden Deer of Eurasia

Spectacular works of art have recently been excavated in Filippovka, Russia. They were created from about the fifth to the fourth century B.C. by the nomadic people who lived on the steppes of the southern Ural Mountain region. The objects include wooden, deerlike creatures overlaid with sheets of gold and silver, as well as gold attachments, with representations of animals, for wooden vessels, leather, and fabric. These unique works of art are the focus of this stunning book. The subjects represented in the Filippovka works are similar to those in the animal repertoire of contemporary Scythian art, but the exuberant and highly ornamental Filippovka style is unmatched in the area and resembles that of artworks found much farther east, in the frozen tombs of the Altai Mountains region of Siberia and in western China. An introductory overview by Ann Farkas and essays by Russian authorities explain the history and archaeology of the nomads of Eurasia, the Filippovka kurgans, cults and rituals of the steppe nomads, and conservation of the Filippovka finds. The volume also includes a catalogue of the more than two hundred objects, both Filippovka works from the collection of the Archaeological Museum in Ufa and related Scythian, Sarmatian, and Siberian art from The State Hermitage in Saint Petersburg.