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Rating: 
Summary: All the Fine Young Pazyryks
Review: Could the first horse riders swooping around Siberia about 2,500 years ago have been the mythological half-horse half-human Centaurs? We call them Pazyryk for the burial mounds they left in the Ukok plateau. Some of these ANCIENT HORSEMEN OF SIBERIA were women, such as the mummy known as Leti: about 25 years old, she was a tall 5'6", buried in a fine headdress and well-preserved clothing; with elaborate shoulder, thumb and wrist tattoos, was she a medicine woman or one of the legendary Amazon warriors? This fascinating read is all the more precious because there is so little available in English on the Pazyryk, other than Olga Kharitidi's reference in ENTERING THE CIRCLE, Nova's SIBERIAN ICE MAIDEN video, and Sergei Rudenko's out-of-print masterpiece FROZEN TOMBS OF SIBERIA. Author Janet Buell similarly combines clues and facts in ICE MAIDEN OF THE ANDES, the mummy found by mountaineers Johan Reinhard and Miguel Zarate (DISCOVERING THE INCA ICE MAIDEN) and the subject of David Getz's FROZEN GIRL, Nova's FROZEN IN HEAVEN video, and Susan Vande Griek's A GIFT FOR AMPATO.
Rating: 
Summary: Useful for Adults
Review: The book is nicely illustrated with photos of Pazyryk grave goods and mummies. It had a few major omissions. It starts talking about the Scythians but doesn't show a map of where the Scythians lived. It also doesn't explain whether the Scythians were Asiatic like the Pazyryk probably were. An ancient felt painting of a Scythian that the book shows suggests that the Scythians were not Asiatic. So what is the connection between the Scythians and the Pazyryk? Why is the Scythian material included? The photo of the tattoos on the 2500-year-old mummy was stunning. It was a glimpse into an alien world.
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