The same imagery appears on her headdress (the golden birds), on the carved figures on her coffin (deer), on the horse harnesses found with her (elaborate zoomorphic decorations).

Her burial was saturated with this visual language.

It was the language of her world, and her tomb was an expression of it on every surface available.

The felt textiles found in Pazyryk burials — including in the Ice Maiden’s kurgan and in the broader Pazyryk archaeological corpus — are among the finest surviving examples of ancient textile art.

The felt panels that decorated elite Pazyryk spaces depicted elaborate scenes: riders on horseback, figures in procession, mythological narratives.

The skill required to produce these textiles — in felt, which is difficult to work at this scale — is extraordinary.