Scythian religion

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A gilded wooden figurine of a deer from the Pazyryk burials, 5th century BC.

The Solokha comb, found in the lateral grave of the Solokha kurgan in 1913.

The religion and mythology of the Scythians is not directly attested except for sparse accounts in Greek ethnography. It is assumed to have been related to earlier Proto-Indo-Iranian religion, and to have influenced later Slavic and Turkic and Ossetian traditions.

The Scythians had some reverence for the stag, which is one of the most common motifs in their artwork, especially at funeral sites. The swift animal was believed to speed the spirits of the dead on their way, which perhaps explains the curious antlered headdresses found on horses buried at Pazyryk

The primary archaeological context of horse sacrifice are burials, notably chariot burials, but graves with horse remains reach from the Eneolithic well into historical times. Herodotus describes the execution of horses at the burial of a Scythian king, and Iron Age kurgan graves known to contain horses number in the hundreds.