The old is new again

A new exhibit of illuminating artifacts (gorgeous) is reshaping our understanding of the nomadic peoples of the Central Asian past.  Scythian and Saka  legacies as post-hunter/gatherer wandering hordes is now being reconsidered because"these people were prospering through a mobile pastoral strategy, maintaining networks of cultural exchange (not always peacefully) with powerful foreign neighbors like the Persians and later the Chinese."

Indeed, the curator of the exhibit said, “The popular perception of these people as mere wanderers has not caught up with the new scholarship;” this through the discovery and analysis of artistic treasures unearthed in burial kurgans.

I find this article/exhibit important for two reasons. One being, that it transforms an already iconic artistic image for me (above) into a vehicle for ground-breaking thinking among several disciplines. That's a powerful reminder of the power of the arts. And secondly, I am reminded of the value of my role as a librarian/reader in that I will share this article and its context with our social studies and art teachers so that this scholarship might take hold in our students before our now-undone popular perception does.