The Shabrak and the Mounted Warrior (Accepted)

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
My presentation at the 2019 AHEA conference (Csorba, M.: ‘Haute Couture in Ornamented Fur, Skin and Felt in Iron Age Burials’) surveyed the cache of organic material recovered from five frozen tombs (K I – V) dating from the fourth to the third century BCE at Pazyryk, in the Altai region of Southern Siberia. In this paper, I highlight specific commodities and motifs preserved in Pazyryk burials to demonstrate the kaleidoscopic but still selective nature of cross-cultural exchange with coeval neighbors extending beyond the Siberian grasslands into dynastic China and Achaemenid Persia. A prime example, highlighted by American scholar Karen Rubinson, is evidenced by an equestrian commodity -- the shabrak or saddle blanket—preserved in K5 in multiple versions with differing ornamentation and in materials of nomadic felt and exotic oriental silk. Further, the later appearance of the shabrak with its fleece construction on the Magyar puszta illustrates the tenacity of an element immanent to the csikósi lifestyle, while its subsequent spread among cavalry across Europe is arguably a more current case of cross-cultural pollination. Lastly, I use the insightful analysis of John Haskins, together with the authoritative parsing of the Ős legend of St. Ladislav by Helmut Nickel to link a narrative scene involving a mounted warrior represented on a felt wall hanging in K5 with an enigmatic scene on an ancient gold plaque in Peter the Great’s Siberian collection, elements of which later surface in the medieval folk ballad of Ana Molnár.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Art Historian Mrea Csorba received all three of her academic degrees from the University of Pittsburgh. She has been teaching courses in art history at the University of Pittsburgh and Duquesne University as an adjunct faculty member since the early 90’s. Her MA thesis (1987) investigated horse-reliant cultures associated with Scythian steppe culture. For her Ph.D. (1997) she expanded research of pastoral groups to non-Chinese dynastic populations documented in Northern China. Part of this research was published in the British prehistory journal ANTIQUITY (70, 1996, 564—587). Her research may be viewed at http://edtech.msl.duq.edu/Mediasite/Play/2ea00c36fc2b4050ba46072efc0b80111d and at http://www.duq.edu/academics/schools/liberal-arts/centers/interpretive-and-qualitative-research/video