In its simplest definition, the term “animal style” is frequently used to describe a group of material comprised of portable luxury goods with zoomorphic designs commonly found in burials dispersed across the large geographic domain of the Eurasian steppe belt. The high-end objects featuring this approach to decoration include headdresses, clothing plaques, belt buckles and textile fragments embellished with detailed scenes of dynamic animal interaction in which anatomically accurate animals as well as hybrid and abstracted zoomorphs are depicted in vigorous acts of predation, hunt or mystic transformation. In the last decade, newly excavated elite burials dispersed throughout the Western Mongolian steppes, the Mongolian Altai region, the Tuva basin, the Kazakh uplands and the Northern Black Sea grassland have shed further light on the various approaches to burial practices among distinct nomadic groups thus challenging the concept of “nomadic unity”; such differences are especially pronounced in the treatment of the body and its systematic decoration before its placement in the tomb. The current discourse will focus on the political and cosmological implications of the strategic placement and ceremonial usage of headdresses in early Iron Age elite burials. I demonstrate that various nomadic entities which inhabited the Ordos Loop and its surrounding regions in the 7th -3rd century BCE invented individual artistic approaches to dealing with the same conceptual problem, that is, the presence of a real-life audience to attend the funerary ceremony and an imagined one to be present in the afterlife. The occurrence of elongated, spiral-shaped gold headdresses, usually accompanied by torques terminating into fantastic animals is a prominent component in the majority of the elite burials discussed in this study, from the Mongolian Altai to the Northern Black Sea steppes of the Dniepr river. Thus, we will delve into the spiritual and political motivations behind the construction of such carefully planned burial attire and its role in the making of the tomb spatial dynamics.

The American Center for Mongolian Studies (ACMS) is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting scholarship in Mongolian Studies. The ACMS Speaker Series are organized in partnership with the U.S. Embassy and the Natsagdorj Library and provides an important platform for researchers engaged in Mongolia to share their experiences and findings with the public. The event promotes information exchange on a variety of subjects related to Mongolia and is free and open to the public.

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