From the Kansas City Star: Forget ‘Borat’ — D.C. exhibit shows the real Kazakhstan
WASHINGTON — The first question might be, where is Kazakhstan? The second is, why go see an exhibit about it?
The answer is simple. Kazakhstan is basically unknown to Americans outside of the 2006 movie “Borat,” and has more to offer.
“Nomads
and Networks,” which opened Saturday at the Arthur M. Sackler museum in
Washington, D.C., provides a snapshot of this vast country and its
ancient history
Found to the south of Russia and the west of
Mongolia and China, Kazakhstan is slightly less than four times the size
of Texas. One third of it is steppe grasslands, where nomadic tribes
tamed horses and were formidable mercenaries in antiquity.
The
exhibit concentrates on Iron Age Kazakhstan from about 8th to 3rd
centuries B.C.E. There aren’t many written sources of that time outside
of Greek historian Herodotus, who “refers a little bit of what is going
on there,” says archeologist and curator Alexander Nagel. Herodotus
wrote in the 5th century
“Nomads and Networks” give us insight
into the nomadic culture that dominated the wide steppes. It starts two
large stones carved with petroglyphs. One glyph has two ibex, a
curly-horned mountain goat, obviously an animal very important in this
ancient culture since it re-occurs often in the exhibit. The other has
some kind of man.
As usual, the dead tell the most about life
thousands of years ago. Archeologists are now opening some of the
“thousands of kurgans — burial mounds — all over Kazakhstan,” says
Nagel.
“In the fourth millennium B.C., they drank horse milk, they
used horse bones for houses. Horses were very important for this
culture.”
Out of one kurgan came two coffins, an older woman and
younger man, and thirteen sacrificed horses. One was decked out with an
elaborate leather mask with ibex-style cedar horns, and a tiger
attacking an elk-patterned felted “saddle cover cloth.” Nagel says that
whether the horses actually wore them during ceremonies “has not been
answered yet.”
Ornamental horse tack items include a bit for a
bridle. Out of a kurgan came a number of tiny “Snow Leopard masks” made
of turquoise and gold that could be sewed on clothing. In the
mineral-rich area, “Gold was readily available all over the place.”
Many
of the kurgans were well preserved by permafrost. “As long as they are
in the earth, they’re safe,” Nagel says, but he doesn’t know if they
have been affected by the global warming.
It wasn’t all tiny items
for the nomads. One kurgan had a slender gold diadem with a horned
deer, chimera, wild geese and a horned dragon. Huge cauldrons, decorated
with curved-horned antelopes, were used either ceremonially or just
cooking the nightly meal.
In February 2012, Kazakhstan signed
UNESCO convention against illicit traffic in antiquities laws.
“Kazakhstan is fully aware there is a market there,” says Nagel. “In the
case of Kazakhstan, I haven’t heard about anything” being sold.
The
Sackler has added extras such as landscape photographs of Kazakhstan to
the original exhibit from New York. On the museum’s website, “Nomads
and Networks” plans to link to a running blog to archeologist Claudia
Chang, who currently is excavating in Kazakhstan.
Nagel was a
letterpress operator in East Germany but was able to study archeology in
his mid-20s, and has worked in Greece and Iran before coming to the
Sacker as an assistant curator.
He’s very enthusiastic about the
exhibit. “I love Kazakhstan. The people are so interested in sharing
their knowledge with other cultures.”
———
NOMADS AND NETWORKS: THE ANCIENT ART AND CULTURE OF KAZAKHSTAN
Arthur M Sackler Gallery, Washington D.C.
Through Nov 12
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