This book examines the cultural heritage of Inner Eurasia (Central Asia) through the arts, from prehistoric times to the ancient and medieval golden ages. The manuscript features extensive analysis of multiple Inner Eurasian cultural groups, their artistic traditions, and the development thereof throughout the region’s history.

Spectacular works of art were excavated between 1986 and 1990 from burial mounds at Filippovka, in Russia, on the border of Europe and Asia. The objects were created from about the fifth to the fourth century B.C. by pastoral people who lived on the steppes near the southern Ural Mountains. The large funerary deposits include wooden, deerlike creatures with predatory mouths and elongated snouts and ears, overlaid with sheets of gold and silver, as well as gold attachments for wooden vessels and gold and silver luxury wares imported from Achaemenid Iran. These treasures are now in the collection of the Archaeological Museum, Ufa, in the Russian republic of Bashkortostan. The discoveries at Filippovka open a new chapter in the history of the material culture of the nomads who in the first millennium B.C. traversed the steppe corridor extending from the Black Sea region to China. Yet the information provided by the Filippovka excavations is complicated and ambiguous. The identity of the people represented by the finds remains uncertain, but the forms and ornamentation of many works from Filippovka, as well as the cemetery's location in the southern Urals, argue for the cultural-chronological designation of this material as Early Sarmatian. Stylistic features, however, point also to the arts of Siberia, Central Asia, and China in the east and to the art of the "Meotian-Scythians" in the west. Imported Achaemenid goods raise questions about their place of production and about the circumstances that brought them to be included in tombs on the southern Ural steppes. Finally, robbers penetrated the burials in antiquity, destroying much of the evidence necessary for understanding the Filippovka nomads' religious and funerary practices. These are among the issues addressed in this volume, the catalogue for an exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art that brings together the remarkable new material from Filippovka and, from the incomparably rich collections of the State Hermitage, Saint Petersburg, related luxury objects found in graves of other Eurasian steppe tribes. Gold and silver objects from the Scythian Black Sea tombs; textiles and leather and wooden works from the Altai Mountains; and gold and bronze pieces from the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Siberia illustrate developments in the art of the steppes in the centuries preceding the Filippovka burials, in contemporary societies, and in later centuries, toward the turn of the first millennium B.C. These outstanding works not only place the Filippovka discoveries in their proper historical and cultural context but are themselves fascinating and enigmatic.

This fascinating book examines the artistic exchange between the nomadic peoples of what is now Inner Mongolia and their settled Chinese neighbors during the first millennium B.C.

Central Asia Cultures, Arts, and Architecture presents a journey through time, analyzing the history of Central Asian cultures, arts, and architecture since prehistoric times. It includes documentation of historical, cultural, artistic, and architectural accomplishments, and combines writings based on archaeological excavations and research of prehistoric, ancient, and medieval sites, as well as translations of ancient and medieval historical sources by Russian, Chinese, and other indigenous scholars. For over seven thousand years, Central Asian residents have left a record of distinguished cultural artifacts. Like creators of any age or period, they sought to respond as creatively as possible to the necessities of their societies as a whole, and those of their individual patrons. In doing so, as this book reveals, they have given us a timeless source through which we can detect the dynamic stages of their creativity throughout history, as well as the breath of our own rich cultural and artistic heritage.

Are there any biblical references to territories in what is today the country of Russia? The author's answer is yes, but Ezekiel's reference to Rosh and Meshech is not one of them. In a thoroughly documented discussion, the author describes the Uratrians, Manneans, Cimmerians, and Scythians. Three of these northern foes of Israel are referred to by Jeremiah (in 51:27), the Cimmerians by Ezekiel (38:6). ...with the exception of Egypt, writes the author, almost all of Israel's enemies came from the north, though from the viewpoint of a modern map, many of these came ultimately from the east. The Urartians occupied what is now Soviet Armenia, southeastern Turkey, and northwestern Iran. The Manneans lived south of Lake Urmia, between Urartu and Assyria. The Cimmerians first appeared in the steppes north of the Caucasus, then crossed the Caucasus, and eventually invaded Asia Minor. The Scythians were nomadic tribes from the Russian steppes, some of whom settled in the Ukraine north of the Black Sea, others east of the Caspian. But what of Rosh, Messhech, and other names in Ezekiel 38:2? Is Rosh, Russia and Meshech Moscow? Rosh cannot possibly be related to Russia, insists the author. Nor can the terms Gog and Magog, no proposed identification for which has yet to win universal consent. Meshech and Tubal, on the other hand, have been located for certain - in central and eastern Anatolia.

This volume brings together articles on the cult of the mother-goddess Cybele and her consort Attis, from the emergence of the religion in Anatolia through its expansion into Greece and Italy to the latest times of the Roman Empire and its farthest extent west, the Iberian Peninsula. It combines the work of established scholars with that of young researchers in the field, and represents a truly international perspective. The reader will find treatment inter alia of Cybele's emasculated priests, the Galli; the dissemination of Cybele-cult through the harbour city, Miletus; the cult of Cybele in Ephesus; the rock-cut sanctuary of Cybele at Akrai in Sicily; the competition between the Cybele-cult and Christianity; and the role of Attis in Neo-Platonic philosophy.