Scholars of steppe nomad art have spent generations attempting to understand what this language meant to the people who produced it.

Some things are clear: the subject matter — animals, animal hybrids, predator-prey relationships — was not random.

The specific creatures that appear in Pazyryk art are chosen from a limited vocabulary, and the same creatures appear across multiple media and multiple sites.

The deer — particularly the stag in full-antlered majesty — is one of the most common figures.

The stag in Pazyryk art often appears in a specific posture: legs tucked beneath the body, head thrown back, antlers sweeping over the back in an exaggerated display.

This posture is found not only in Pazyryk art but across a wide geographic range of Scythian and related art — it is one of the defining motifs of the broader steppe artistic tradition.