Ferocious Scythians used human skin to make leather: Researchers

Researchers have discovered scraps of leather from Scythian burial sites spread across southern Ukraine. While analysing those scraps, they found that some of the samples from quivers actually had a human origin.

"Our results demonstrate that Scythians primarily used domesticated species such as sheep, goat, cattle, and horse for the production of leather, while the furs were made of wild animals such as fox, squirrel and feline species," said a team of archaeologists, headed by Luise Orsted Brandt of the University of Copenhagen, Science Alert reported.

"The surprise discovery is the presence of two human skin samples, which for the first time provide direct evidence of the ancient Greek historian Herodotus' claim that Scythians used the skin of their dead enemies to manufacture leather trophy items,” he added.

Scythian warriors used skin of foe

As per ancient Greek historian Herodotus, the ferocious Scythian warriorswere bloodthirsty and terrifying people who used the skin of slain corpses of foes. He describes their hides were tanned into leather and used in covering quivers which contained Scythian arrows.

The Scythians have remained as mysterious people, who were famous for their warlike, nomadic lifestyle and ruled the Eurasian steppe between the time period of 700 BCE and 300 BCE.

An entire book was devoted by Herodotus in documenting the Scythians, which includes their customs and history. In one of the chapters, he spoke about how the enemies were decapitated by the Scythian warriors and their heads were used to prove their deeds to their kings.

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The historian said that once the heads were shown to the kings, their scalp was stripped by the Scythian warriors and the leather was used as a hand towel which was hung from the bridle of their steed. Depending on the number of hand towels possessed by a warrior, the status was granted to them.

"Many Scythians even make garments to wear out of these scalps, sewing them together like coats of skin," wrote Herodotus.

"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,” he added.

With the recent discovery, claims made by Herodotus regarding Scythians appear pretty accurate.

Researchers study 45 scraps of leather

The team, led by Orsted Brandt, conducted the study on 45 scraps of leather which were excavated from 14 burial sites. In the past years, scientists used to depend onanalysis of the grain of the leather because the DNA got destroyed during the tanning of leather.

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However, now scientists have developed techniques which help in analysing the proteins in leather and theinformation is used for identifying the contributing species.

The researchers found that the entire quiver was not made of human skin. As per the study, most of the skin belonged to several animals, the human leather was present only on the top part of the quiver.

"We also identified up to two quivers composed at least partially from human-derived skin, supporting Herodotus' claim that certain parts of some Scythian quivers were actually made with human skin, perhaps from defeated foes,” wrote the researchers.

(With inputs from agencies)