Their horse equipment — the elaborate saddles, the decorated harnesses, the felt and leather blankets — represents a level of investment in horse management that reflects how central the horse was to their self-conception.

They were not simply people who used horses; they were horse people, in a cultural sense.

The horse sacrifices in Pazyryk burials are therefore not simply expensive gifts for the dead.

They are statements about the identity of the deceased and about the nature of the world they believed lay beyond death.

Taking horses into the grave meant that the dead would continue to be mounted, continue to be mobile, continue to be the horse-people they had been in life.

The six horses in the Ice Maiden’s burial are six of these statements.