Among the most remarkable surviving elements of Pazyryk material culture are the textiles: the felt hangings, the wool carpets, the silk garments, the elaborate leather and felt horse equipment.

Felt — a textile produced by compressing and matting fibers (typically wool) rather than weaving them — is not as durable as woven textiles under normal conditions.

It absorbs water, it degrades rapidly in warm or wet environments, and it is vulnerable to insect damage.

In normal archaeological conditions, felt from the Iron Age would not survive.

In the permafrost conditions of the Altai, however, felt has survived extraordinarily well.

The Pazyryk felts found in various kurgans — including those from Rudenko’s excavations in the 1940s and 1950s — are the finest preserved examples of ancient felt work known from anywhere in the world.