Editing Issedones (section)

==Cannibalism controversy==

The archeologists E. M. Murphy and J. P. Mallory of the [[Queen's University of Belfast]] have argued (''Antiquity'', 74 (2000):388-94) that Herodotus was mistaken in his interpretation of what he imagined to be cannibalism. Recently excavated sites in southern [[Siberia]], such as the large cemetery at [[Aymyrlyg]] in [[Tuva]] containing more than 1,000 burials of the Scythian period, have revealed accumulations of bones often arranged in anatomical order. This indicates burials of semi-decomposed corpses or defleshed skeletons, sometimes associated with leather bags or cloth sacks. Marks on some bones show cut-marks of a nature indicative of [[defleshing]], but most appear to suggest [[disarticulation]] of adult skeletons. Murphy and Mallory suggest that, since the Issedones were nomads living with cattle herds, they moved up the mountains in summer, but they wanted their dead to be buried at their winter camp; defleshing and dismemberment of the people who died in summer would have been more hygienic than allowing the corpses to decompose naturally in the summer heat. Burial of the dismembered remains would have taken place in fall after returning to winter camp, but before the ground was frozen completely. Such procedures of defleshing and dismemberment may have been mistaken for evidence of cannibalism by foreign onlookers.

Murphy and Mallory do not exclude the possibility that the flesh removed from the bodies was consumed. Archeologically these activities remain invisible. But they point out that elsewhere, Herodotus names another tribe ([[Androphagi]]) as the only group to eat human flesh.

On the other hand, Dr. Timothy Taylor<ref>Taylor, "The Edible Dead",  ''[[British Archaeology]]'', 59 (June 2001) [http://www.britarch.ac.uk/ on-line]</ref> points out:

*1. Herodotus reports that the so-called "Androphagoi" are the "only" people in the region to practice cannibalism. However, a distinction should be drawn between "aggressive gustatory cannibalism" (i.e., hunting humans for food) and the ritualized, reverential practices reported among the Issedones and Massagetae.
*2. Scythian-type peoples were renowned [[embalmer]]s and presumably would have no need for funerary defleshing to delay [[decomposition]] of the corpse.
*3. Herodotus specifically describes the removal of the meat and mixing it with other foodstuffs to make a funerary stew.

Dr. Taylor concludes: "Inferring reverential funerary cannibalism in this case is thus the most academically cautious approach".