Ancient Scythians Did Make Leather Out of Human Skin After All
21 December 2023
By MICHELLE STARR
A silver bowl from a Scythian royal burial depicting Scythians wearing leather garments. (Ørsted Brandt et al., PLOS One, 2023)
The ferocious Scythians, according to the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, were a terrifying and bloodthirsty lot.
With an alacrity and level of detail that could be described as avid, he describes the treatment awaiting the conquered foes of the Scythian warriors – the many uses to which their slain corpses will be put.
Their hides, Herodotus says, will be tanned into leather, and fashioned into quivers to hold Scythian arrows, a final, devastating insult.
Herodotus has been accused of fanciful flights of fib-telling, but on this he appears to have been at least somewhat accurate. An analysis of scraps of leather obtained from Scythian burial sites across southern Ukraine has revealed that some of the samples from quivers are, indeed, of human origin.
More:
https://www.sciencealert.com/ancient-scythians-did-make-leather-out-of-human-skin-after-all
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