Press releases

MINSK, 1 December (BelTA) - The project entitled “March of the Golden Man across the world” started in Belarus, Kazakhstan’s Ambassador to Belarus Yermukhamet Yertysbayev noted at the opening of the exhibition “The art of the Great Steppe nomads” at the National Art Museum of Belarus on 1 December, BelTA informs.

The exhibition is dedicated to the Day of the first Kazakhstan President Nursultan Narzarbayev and the 25th anniversary of Belarus-Kazakhstan relations. It is timed to the visit of the Kazakhstan president to Belarus. The exhibition project is meant to introduce a wide audience to the cultural heritage of the Great Eurasian Steppe of the Early Iron Age.

The project gets underway in Minsk on purpose, noted Acting Director of Kazakhstan’s National Museum Leonid Kochetov. Belarus’ National Art Museum and Kazakhstan’s National Museum are bound together by longstanding cooperation. The decision to launch the project in Belarus was evident. In general, the project will be on display for three years. It is expected to come to China, South Korea, Japan, India, in Spain in 2018. Then, the exhibition will head for Europe and the USA.

It features the gold of Saka, a nomadic Scythian tribe, dating back from the 7th to 3rd centuries BC. The project comprises 232 exhibits. It will stay open till 28 December.

In 1969, Kazakh archeologists headed by Kemal Akishev discovered a burial chamber of a Saka chieftain in the Issyk mound located 50km east of Almaty. The costume and the headdress have remained untouched. The chieftain’s dress was embellished with a complicated arrangement of plaquettes with images of animals, plants, and geometric shapes. All of them are considered to be pieces of art, specimen of the Scythian-Siberian feral style. The warrior buried in the mound was truly “golden”. Archaeologists have found a total of 4,800 jewels in the chamber. This is the second largest number of gold objects ever found in a tomb, trailing only Tutankhamun’s burial chamber.

Today, the Golden Man is well-known throughout the world as Kazakhstan’s symbol. From 1969 to 2013, Kazakh archaeologists discovered six Golden Men which make part of the cultural heritage of the Great Eurasian Steppe.

Another unique thing found in the mound is a small silver cup which has two lines of 26 runes engraved on it. Scientists have previously thought that a writing system appeared in Kazakhstan much later.

Over 40 years have passed since the Issyk mound was discovered. Several books and dozens of scientific articles have been published. Historians, archaeologists, culturologists, linguists, and art historians are still studying the find.

The exhibition also features crafts from the Berel mound of ancient nomads, which belonged to noble men and were made in the Scythian-Siberian feral style.