Exploring the Remains of an Enaree Priestess

Yay, it’s another video on the Enarees! Geez Sophie, obsessed much? Get over it, would ya?

Look, there’s a lot to say about them! I could do one big video, but then I wouldn’t have material to Feed The Algorithm. And besides, it’s exhausting to film and edit hours-long video essays. Bite sized stuff is a nice change of pace.

(Dear past Sophie, as I edit this script for the last time and look at its 24-page length, I’m laughing at you. Sincerely, present Sophie.)

Who are the Enarees?

If you’re asking that question, you’re probably new here. And so, welcome. I’m Sophie, and this is We Have Always Existed. It’s a show where we explore the wealth of transgender history in the ancient Mediterranean.

The Enarees are a group of trans feminine priestesses from the Scythian culture. If you want to know why I think it’s reasonable to interpret them as trans, we won’t be discussing that today.

THE TRANSGENDERS DEMAND YOU BELIEVE EVERYTHING THEY DO! THIS IS A GROUP WHO DEMANDS IDEOLOGICAL FEALTY WITHOUT EVIDENCE!

No, it’s just that I’ve already made that argument, and I don’t care to retread that ground again. It’s in the main video on this topic, which I’ll link below. This video assumes you’ve already seen that one, but I’ll do my best to keep this kindasorta self contained.

RELATED: The Enarees: Scythian Ancient Transgender Priestesses REMASTERED

Anyway, today we’re talking about physical remains.

Not just grave goods – though we’ll be talking plenty about that – but the actual human remains of actual human people. It’s wild to think about, but you can actually preserve human remains for a very long time.

Remember Otzi the Iceman? He got lucky – relatively speaking, I mean. He did die, and not in a very pleasant way – seems like an arrow wound to his back pierced an artery (Swaminathan, 26). But he was preserved in ice, which is why we know about him today.

Other times, we have mummies. Actually, Otzi is a mummy too, he was just mummified by accident. But we’ve got plenty of deliberate mummies from Egypt, and some of them weren’t even eaten (Dolan)!

This video isn’t about mummies.

It is about burial practices, though.

Thus far in this series, we’ve only talked about literary evidence for the Enarees. I know I’ve referred to them as “Enarei” in the past, and this form does occur in literature. But based on the Indo-Iranian roots of this word, “Enarees” is a more appropriate plural. So that’s what I’m going with from here.

Anyway, we’ve only looked at literary evidence so far. But do we have any physical evidence of their existence?

Great question. Let’s take a look.

The Remains of an Enaree Priestess

There are plenty of illiterate cultures across the ancient Mediterranean, so why do we talk so much about the Scythians? Why don’t we talk about the Bastarnae, the Silurii, or the Tectosages – sounds like a sci-fi faction, doesn’t it? Awesome name, Strabo talks about them a bit (IV.I.XII-XIII).

Anyway, why are the Scythians so much more interesting than the Tectosages? Equally cool names though. Knocked it out of the park there, both of you. Top shelf. I know it’s not pronounced like Tectosages but it sounds cooler this way. Deal with it.

Part of it has to do with their burial practices. The Scythians buried their dead in burial mounds called kurgans, and there are tons of them scattered across Eurasia. Ever since the conquest of Siberia by Ivan the Terrible beginning in the 16^th century, it was rumoured that these burial mounds held gold artifacts, and Russian expeditions spent centuries digging them up (Cunliffe, 1-4). But unfortunately, a lot of these early excavations were done by essentially grave robbers, not archaeologists, so the burial context and even the location where a lot of these items were found has been lost.

There are tens of thousands of these things, stretching from the Pontic Steppe across Siberia, and even into northern China (Simpson, British Museum Blog). And we’ve learned a lot about the Scythians from them.

We know they were buried in coffins made of hollowed out logs, for example. They had some pretty intricate tattoos as well – one burial mound was found high in the Altai mountains, where the ice preserved their bodies, like with Otzi. They tattooed themselves with all sorts of different scenes relating to their life and mythology. The British Museum has a short little video showing more details.

So we do have the physical remains of quite a few Scythians. But have we found any enarees?

Let’s take a look.

But before we go any further, Like the video. Just do it. C’mon, it only takes a second. I don’t like asking for it, you don’t like it either, so let’s just get this over with alright? Like the video. Then subscribe, it’s right beside the Like button. Don’t complain, just do it. Quit your whining.

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Our journey today will bring us to a site in Jowzjan (jowzz-jinn), a province in what’s now northern Afghanistan, but modern nation states aren’t that old – its history goes back a lot further than that.

But before we get into the site, let’s take a look at the area in general. It’s a region with a pretty fascinating history, and honestly, I’ve kinda been looking for an excuse to talk about it, so here we go.

Chapter I: The Region of Bactria

You’ve heard of The Silk Road, right? It wasn’t actually a road, but a collection of trade routes that allowed for the flow of goods and information from east Asia to the Mediterranean, and back (Britannica, Silk Road Map). The first section of it follows the Great Wall of China before heading off into the wilderness of the Great Steppe.

It’s a long route – more than 6,400 kilometres from end to end (National Geographic). And yeah, travelers would be relatively protected while they were still within the borders of Han China, but once they left, there was a lot more to contend with. A combination of robbers and the tremendous distance meant it was rare for anyone to travel the entire route. Instead, they would sell their wares, and resupply, at a series of trading posts along the way. If you positioned yourself at key points along the Silk Road, you could reap the benefits of trade, and of providing life-or-death service to caravans.

One of these trading posts was the city of Bactra, in what’s now northern Afghanistan, about 100 kilometres south of the border with Uzbekistan (Sarianidi 1985, 7). Bactra had a pretty substantial Greek population, but it’s really far from mainland Greece. According to Google Maps, it would take you 1,051 hours to walk from Athens to Bactra, if you took a ferry across the Aegean. Assuming you walked about 8 hours a day, that’s more than four months. To put this in perspective, if you’re a North American, it’s roughly the same distance to walk from Quebec City to Seattle. If you’re South American, you could start in Tierra Del Fuego and end up near La Paz, in Bolivia. If you’re an African, it’s about the equivalent of walking from Fes, Morocco to Amman, in Jordan. And if you’re a European, imagine walking from Gibraltar to Moscow (Google Maps). It’s a hell of a trek.

If you’re familiar with the broad strokes of Greek history, you might assume it was Alexander who brought a Greek presence out this far. And yeah, he did bring a bunch of Greeks to the area, but when he and his army arrived in the area in around 329 BCE (Arr. Anab. XXIX), they would have found Greeks there already.

Herodotus tells us the Persian King of Kings Darius the Great conquered a Greek city in modern day Libya called Barca, and enslaved most of its residents. Then, he shipped them off to Bactria (Her. 4.200-205). Since Darius died in late 486 BCE (Lenderling), this must have been before then.

The area stayed under Persian control for more than 100 years before Alexander showed up, so a lot of Persians ended up there as well. When Alexander died and his generals carved up his empire, the area fell under the control of the general Seleucus. Then, it became the Greco-Bactrian kingdom when Diodotus I, the satrap of Bactria, rebelled and declared independence around 256 BCE (Just. Epit. XLI.IV-V). It wasn’t ruled by Greeks forever, but Greeks were always present.

Who else was present?

The Parthians.

The historian Justin tells us the Parthians were actually a group of Scythians who’d been exiled from their home. In fact, the word for exile in the Scythian language was “parthi,” so I guess they just reclaimed the term and went with it. After leaving their homes, they ended up in the same area we’re looking at today – the Bactrian region. They weren’t much to speak of at first – ruled by whomever happened to be in charge of the area at the time. But after Alexander’s conquests, they began to consolidate their power, and at its greatest extent the Parthian Empire covered a pretty big chunk of former Persian territory, including Bactria (Just. Epit. XLI.I-XII). They reached their height during the reign of King Mithradates, who, incredibly, is not one of the SEVEN different Mithradateseses we talked about in the video on Mithradates, and believe it or not there are plenty more of them we haven’t talked about yet (Smith). I guess Mithradates was like the Muhammad of the region before Muhammad was the Muhammad of the region.

RELATED: Who Was Hypsikrates, the Transgender Spouse of Mithradates?

If you’re familiar with the history of the late Roman Republic, you might remember the first triumvirate – Julius Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus. Let’s take a look at Crassus quickly here, he was a real son of a bitch. He was one of the wealthiest guys in Rome, if not the wealthiest, and here’s how he built his wealth. He created a fire brigade, who’d show up at houses that were on fire. Then he’d offer to buy the place from the owners for a pathetically small amount. If they agreed, Crassus would put out the fire, then rent it back to the owners at an inflated price. If they didn’t, he’d let it burn t the ground (Plut. Crass. 2.3–4). What a piece of garbage.

Anyway, his wealth was what bought him into the first triumvirate. This was an alliance where the three men agreed to work together to build each other up and gain more power. Having the richest guy in town seems helpful in that regard, huh?

Anyway, Crassus eventually became governor of the Roman province of Syria, where he came to blows with the Parthians. He was a terrible leader, as it turns out, so the Parthians handily defeated his forces in battle. After the Parthians killed Crassus, they poured molten gold down his throat (Cass. Dio, 40.27).

But they were being helpful, I think! Crassus had a thirst for wealth, and they were helping him sate it. If anything, the Parthians are allies to the wealthy community, the world’s truly oppressed minority. I hope today’s obscenely wealthy people involved in politics can look back to these inspiring events and know that at certain moments in history, their community got such helpful treatments as they truly deserved.

Who else we got?

Han China had been expanding east for some time, and around 176 BCE they started to push the   out of their territory. This is kinda like dominos but I’ll do my best to keep it simple. At first, the Xiongnu were pushed into the traditional lands of the Yuezhi. The Xiongnu were much more powerful than the Yuezhi, so they were able to push the Yuezhi out. The easiest option for the Yuezhi was to head west – after all, south and east would take them right back into Han territory, and north would take them into Siberia with its harsh winters. As they moved, they themselves displaced another group – the Saka.

But shortly after, the Xiongnu displaced another group from near where the Yuezhi originated – the Wusan. They headed west as well, into the area where the Yuezhi had displaced the Saka, and displaced the Yuezhi as well.

Han’s comin’ baby
Push you out’ the place where yr born
We ain’t fakin’
Whole lot displacin’ goin’ on

The Saka, along with the Yuezhi, went south, ending up in, you guessed it, Bactria (Cunliffe, 313-315).

So, who were these people? The Yuezhi, the Saka, the Wusan, the Xiongnu – each was a group of nomads who lived in the area north of China – the Great Steppe.

Were they the same as the Scythians we know of from the Black Sea? No, they probably didn’t even know each other existed. But there are some strong similarities. For example, all of the above were renowned horseback archers. They also had similar burial practices. But also, a team of 25 researchers led by Martina Unterländer examined a variety of DNA samples across the steppe, from near the Black Sea to near the Altai Mountains, and found no notable differences (Unterländer et al.). So in many ways, these were the same people, though they weren’t united as a Scythian Empire or anything.

But even if different groups of people have some ethnic and cultural similarities, that doesn’t mean they’re homogenous. Think of the rivalries between different cities in your home province or state, for example. Like Toronto and Mississauga, for example – they’re not the same place. Sorry Mississaugans, you’ve gotta stop telling people you’re from Toronto. You’re not. You’re one of the biggest cities in the country. It’s time to get your own identity. You can’t keep riding Toronto’s global credibility. Does San Jose do that with San Francisco? No, they’ve got their own personality. The free ride’s over.

Oh, you don’t have a personality of your own? Well maybe you should have thought of that before you decided to be a whole bunch of condos with a single gigantic mall in the middle. Not our problem. Build some culture, work your own stuff out.

(I actually don’t hate Mississauga, I can’t be a mississanthropist some of my friends are Mississaugans!)

So my point is that even if these were the same people ethnically, and they had some cultural similarities, we shouldn’t view them as a monolith. If they were, then the Xiongnu wouldn’t have displaced the Yuezhi, y’know?

So, let’s recap.

Even accounting for regional differences, Scythian culture was widespread across the Steppe.

It was a multicultural region, with Scythians living alongside Greeks, Persians, and others. Each of them ruled the area at different times.

Trade flowed through the region quite a bit, from Western Europe all the way to Han China. This made the people there pretty wealthy.

That should give us a good idea of what the Bactrian region was like.

Now, let’s get to Tillya Tepe.

Chapter II: Now, Let’s Get To Tillya-Tepe

There wasn’t much in the way of formal relations between the Roman Empire and Han China, but there was plenty of trade in commercial goods. Chinese silk was quite popular among the upper classes in Rome (Thorley, 71), and in China they were big fans of Roman glassware (Hoppal). But Han China isn’t modern China – it was a lot smaller (Britannica, Han Dynasty Map), and the trip between the two powers was a long and dangerous one. So if you were traveling by land, it was important to have a safe place to stop, rest, and resupply along the way.

Bactria became incredibly wealthy as a result, and so did the people who lived there. In spite of this wealth though, they seemed to have held on to their cultural traditions, as we can see at Tillya-Tepe.  

Tillya-Tepe is an archaeological site a few miles northeast of Sheberghan, the capital of Jowzjan (Peterson, 43). It’s near the base of the Hindu Kush mountains. And one of the things it’s known for is the incredible amount of gold it held – in fact, the name Tillya-Tepe itself means “Golden Mound”. We’ve pulled more than 20,000 pieces made of gold and turquoise out of it (Srinivasan, 16, Sarianidi, 15), and yeah I know that sounds like an absurd amount but the source I used was Viktor Sarianidi, who was actually there doing the digging and cataloging. So when I say the Silk Road made this area incredibly wealthy, I’m not kidding.

Among them we’ve found some coins, which helps us date the site to between 100 BCE and 100 CE, depending on the grave (Srinivasan, 16). For context if you’ve watched any previous videos on this channel, Mithradates Eupator died in 63 BCE (Mayor, 343-351) and Ovid died in 17 or 18 CE (Boyle and Woodard, intro), so roughly around the same time.

The site was excavated by a joint Soviet-Afghan expedition in the 1970’s, and best we can tell it was first inhabited in the late 1000’s BCE. Originally, we think it was a fire temple, but unfortunately the details of it aren’t known, which is a real shame because think of how many cool stories involve a fire temple. Ocarina of Time, Avatar: The Last Airbender… uhh… I’m sure there are more than two…

Anyway, it might have been an early form of what would later evolve into Zoroastrianism. Nearby Bactra was considered one of the main centres of Zoroastrianism for a long time (UNESCO), and fire temples are an important part of that belief even to this day.

So, an ancient fire temple. Neato. But that was a long time before the period we’re looking at today. By the time Alexander arrived in the area, he’d have found a small village built around some ruins. Eventually even that village was deserted, and by the 1^st century BCE, it was turned into a burial mound, which is what we’re interested in (Sarianidi, 18).

In particular, the graves of six individuals were excavated. Five of them were what we’d consider to be assigned female at birth, while the sixth was assigned male at birth. Sort of. I don’t know how the Scythians would have designated such things. Maybe it’s more appropriate to call their genders assigned at dig – AFAD and AMAD. Yeah, let’s go with that. They’ve numbered the burials from 1 to 6 – number 4 is the AMAD one.

They ranged in age – the youngest was around 15-20, and the oldest was age 30-40 (Davis-Kimball, 226). And it’s in these graves that we found the immense wealth of gold objects from Tillya-Tepe.

These include things like mirrors, different coloured minerals, pendants, crowns, daggers, swords, belt buckles, and a lot more. Based on the iconography on this stuff, scholar Jeannine Davis-Kimball believes the AFAD graves include three priestesses, and two warrior priestesses.

What about the other one? It’s labeled Grave IV, so that’s what I’ll call it from here.

Within Grave IV, we found some weapons. But we found weapons in two of the other graves as well, which is one of the reasons Jeannine Davis-Kimball decided they were warrior priestesses. We’ve also found quite a bit of stuff that’s not typically associated with male burials as well (Davis-Kimball, 226-227). In fact, we’ve got a lot of great photos of it, thanks to the work of the aforementioned Viktor Sarianidi, who was part of the expedition to excavate Tillya-Tepe.

Let’s take a look at this one.

Tree of life depictions were associated with the goddess Artimpasa, which is one of the sources of Aphrodite’s mythology. That’s a LONG story though, which I’ll cover in a future video. But Aphrodite has different aspects – Aphrodite Ourania, or Heavenly Aphrodite, is the one related to Artimpasa (Cunliffe, 276). In the main video on the Enarees, we looked at a quote from Herodotus who tells us that Heavenly Aphrodite was the one who gave the Enarees the “female sickness,” quote:

When the Scythians came on their way to the city of Ascalon in Syria, most of them passed by and did no harm, but a few remained behind and plundered the temple of Heavenly Aphrodite… and all their descendants after them, were afflicted by the goddess with the female sickness, and so the Scythians say that they are afflicted as a consequence of this.

Herodotus, Histories, Book 1, chapter 105

Alright! So Grave IV has a crown with a symbol devoted to the goddess who made the Enarees feminine.

We also found these neato shoe buckles (Sarianidi, 172, pictured above). Pretty, yeah, but what’s the story with them? Each of them depicts a figure riding in a chariot, pulled by winged lions. But what makes the figure noteworthy is that they have no visible breasts, but no beard either. That marks them as two different possible things – a youth, or a eunuch.

This one is from a different grave, grave 3 (Sarianidi, 130, above). But it’s got the same thing going on. A beardless warrior in women’s clothing, with long curly hair, like the shoe buckles. But this person is standing between two trees of life, which makes me think these are depictions not of youths, but of Enaree priestesses.

Not only is this also not commonly seen in male graves, it’s a depiction associated with the cult of Kybele. If you’ve watched the video on the Gallae, some lights might be going off in your head. If not, the Gallae were another group of trans feminine priestesses associated with the goddess Kybele. Go check it out, it’s even more blatantly trans than the Enarees are.

RELATED: Who Were The Roman Gallae Priestesses?

Now, there’s one more quote I want to read you before we go any further, from Pseudo-Hippocrates.

And, in addition to these, there are many eunuchs among the Scythians, who perform female work, and speak like women. Such persons are called Enarees. The inhabitants of the country attribute the cause of their impotence to a god, and venerate and worship such persons, every one dreading that the like might befall himself… They put on female attire, reproach themselves for effeminacy, play the part of women, and perform the same work as women do.

Pseudo-Hippocrates, On Airs, Waters, And Places, Chapter 22

So, let’s recap.

The Enarees were a group of Scythian priestesses who were assigned male at birth, but dressed, acted, and sounded like women, were eunuchs, and played a woman’s role in society.

The resident of Grave IV is what we might consider today to be assigned male at birth.

The grave was found alongside five women, was dressed similarly to the women, and has a bunch of items in it that aren’t generally found in male graves.

This includes depictions of eunuchs, and cultic associations with the goddess that made the Enarees effeminate according to Herodotus, as well as associations with another goddess who has trans feminine priestesses as attendants.

Is this the grave of an Enaree priestess?

There’s enough evidence here that I think this is a reasonable conclusion to arrive at.

Do you think this statement absurd? Laughable? Fantastic? Of course, you are privileged to dismiss it with whatever adjective you wish. But the evidence is there, if you care to examine it.

The resident of this grave was repeatedly referred to as a male in the literature, which was a little difficult to read at times. We’ve all heard the line transphobes love to parrot – that when archaeologists dig up our bones, they’ll label our graves as male. But if it weren’t for that, we wouldn’t be sitting here today, gazing into the past in awe at the remains of one of our beautiful sisters, and checking out all her cool stuff.

What was her name? We couldn’t possibly know. That’s been lost to the sands of time.

But we can tell a bit about what her life may have been like.

We know the Enarees served a woman’s role in Scythian society. We also know they were experts in divining. This is probably what she did.

But considering that half of these graves included weapons, clearly a woman’s role was in battle as well.

As we explore these grave goods, my dear trans siblings, take heart. Here lies one of our sisters and her belongings, reaching through time to help us understand our own place in the human story.

Here is a shallow bowl or deep plate, take your pick, that belonged to her (Sarianidi 138-9, 251). This is the item upon which her head lay inside her coffin. This was probably for ritual purposes – Herodotus tells us the Scythians used bowls in their rituals (Sarianidi, 37).

Here is the top of her quiver, two of the four clasps that would have held the quiver together, and her arrowheads (Sarianidi 4.32, 4.33, 4.37, 155-6, 251). The remains of her bow were found outside her coffin, and the arrow shafts, of course, would have rotted away centuries ago. But these are some of the items she would have used to hunt for food and fight her enemies. Within her grave, we found the remains of a horse as well. Knowing what we know about the Scythians and their horses, this shouldn’t be surprising. Our girl was probably a horseback archer.

And this…

This can’t be a coincidence. So many items in this grave are associated with women, and with the Enaree order.

There are so many more pieces to explore within this grave, and we shan’t look at all of them today. But as you explore these items, I hope you felt a similar sense of awe, of frisson, as I did.

Because it’s one thing to read the stories of our past trans siblings. There’s beauty in that. There’s power in that. But to gaze at the physical remains of one of us, to understand that we’re more than a footnote in the writings of a disinterested historian, but that we were once living, breathing, feeling individuals, just as we are today…

Like all Scythians, there’s nothing written here that helps us. And in fact, the region of Bactria in general is very poorly recorded in history. As a result, most of what we know comes from archaeology, including burials.

She may not have realized, but her remains can help those like her, far into a future she couldn’t possibly have imagined. She can reassure us that we’re not a historical aberration.

We’re not a modern invention created through the boredom and listlessness of 21^st century life.

We’re not a mind virus, created either through forces dedicated to destroying western civilization, or as a form of the hyper-individualized late capitalist self indulgence that pulls us away from the greater class struggle.

Before any of that, we were here.

We are part of the human experience, no more unnatural than any of the countless expressions of human diversity we see across the world.

We have always existed.

And so long as humanity continues to endure, so too shall we.

Ancient Sources:

►Arrian. “The Anabasis of Alexander”. Translated by E.J. Chinnock, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1883.
►Cassius Dio. Roman History (book 40)
►Justin, “Epitome of Pompeius Trogus’ Philippic Histories”. Translated by Rev. J.S. Watson, 1853.
►Ovid. “Fasti”. Translated by A.J. Boyle and R.D. Woodard, Penguin Books, London, 2000.
►Plutarch. Lives, Volume III: Pericles and Fabius Maximus. Nicias and Crassus. Translated by Bernadotte Perrin. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1916.
►Strabo. “Geographia”. Translated by H. L. Jones, Harvard University Press, 1932.

Modern Sources:

►Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Bactria”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 30 Aug. 2024.
►Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Han dynasty”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 30 Oct. 2024.
►Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Silk Road”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 27 Nov. 2024.
►Cunliffe, Barry. “The Scythians”. Oxford University Press, 2019.
►Davis-Kimball, Jeannine. “Enarees and Women of High Status: Evidence of Ritual at Tillya Tepe (Northern Afghanistan)” Kurgans, Ritual Sites, and Settlements: Eurasian Bronze and Iron Age, 2000, pp. 223-239.
►Dolan, Maria. “The Gruesome History of Eating Corpses as Medicine”. Smithsonian Magazine, May 6, 2012.
►Galef, Julia. “Iceman Was a Medical Mess”. Science.org, 2012.
►Hoppál, Krisztina Kinga. “Rome and China: Endpoints of the Ancient Silk Roads.” Orientations, March 2022.
►Lenderling, Jona. “Darius the Great: Death”. Livius.org, 2020.
►Mayor, Adrienne. “The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome’s Deadliest Enemy.” Princeton University Press, 2009.
►National Geographic Society. “The Silk Road”. National Geographic, 2019.
►Peterson, Sara. “Roses, poppies and narcissi : plant iconography at Tillya-tepe and connected cultures across the ancient world.” PhD thesis. SOAS University of London, 2016.
►Peterson, Sara. “Tillya-Tepe Burials Overview”.
►Sarianidi, V. I. “The golden hoard of Bactria : from the Tillya-tepe excavations in northern Afghanistan”. New York, Harry N. Abrams, 1985.
►Sarianidi, V. I. “The Treasure of Golden Hill”. American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 84, no. 2, 1980, pp. 125–31.
►Schilz, Véronique. “Tillya Tepe, the Hill of Gold: A Nomad Necropolis”. Afghanistan: hidden treasures from the National Museum, Kabul, 2008.
►Smith, Patrick Scott. “Parthia (Empire).” World History Encyclopedia. World History Encyclopedia, 22 Jul 2019.
►Simpson, St. John. “Scythians, ice mummies, and burial mounds.” British Museum Blog, 2017.
►Simpson, St. John. ” Scythians: tattooed people of the Siberian steppe.” YouTube, uploaded by The British Museum, October 25, 2017.
►Srinivasan, Doris meth. “Pre-Kuṣāṇa Art: A New Concept”. On the Cusp of an Era: Art in the Pre-Kuṣāṇa World. Brill, 2007, 1-29.
►Swaminathan, Nikhil. “What Ailed The Iceman?” Archaeology, vol. 65, no. 4, 2012, pp. 16.
►Thorley, J. “The Silk Trade between China and the Roman Empire at Its Height, ‘Circa’ A. D. 90-130.” Greece & Rome, vol. 18, no. 1, 1971, pp. 71–80.
►UNESCO. “Did You Know? The City of Balkh: Ancient Capital of Bactria and Centre of Buddhism and Zoroastrianism along the Silk Roads”.
►Unterländer, Martina et al. “Ancestry and demography and descendants of Iron Age nomads of the Eurasian Steppe.” Nature communications vol. 8 14615. 2017.

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