The Scythian Connection and the Shamanistic Crowns of Ancient Korea

By Shirley Fish

The Three Kingdoms Period in Korean history consisted of the kingdoms of Silla, Koguryo and Paekche. It was only the Silla kingdom which seemed to have had a connection to the ancient nomadic Scythians. These people seemed so different from the indigenous inhabitants who were already living in Korea during the 3th to 6th centuries CE. It is the author’s opinion is that they were the descendants of the Scythians – who although they would not have called themselves ‘Scythians,’ they were none the less, the remnant members of nomadic tribes that pushed eastward from Central Asia and Siberia to the Korean peninsula. Once in Southern Korea, they established the Silla kingdom, where their time honored beliefs are depicted in their mound burials, wooden burial chambers, gold crowns, horse riding, and also in their Siberian shamanism. This time period of the gold crowns and the people who produced the royal headgear was the Maripgan Period, and as mentioned, they were the descendants of Scythians who although in Central Asia and Siberia were known to have existed as far back as 10,000 years BC, they were always on the move searching for new pasturelands for their herds or to avoid conflicts and war with their enemies.

The Silla crowns were created around the 5th to the 7th centuries in Kyongju, the former capital of the Silla people. When they were discovered in various archaeological mound sites, they were found to be in a highly fragile state. The crowns were each designated as national treasures by the Korean government and most weigh about one kilogram. Some of the crowns came in two parts: an inner gold cap, which may have been covered in silk fabric and sat inside of the crown, and the crown itself. The crowns were totally shamanistic in their symbolism, and represented the belief systems of the Scythians of Central Asia and Siberia, which eventually made its way to Korea and the ancient Kingdom of Silla.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Aug 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9781665588744

Shirley Fish

Shirley Fish is an American freelance writer and researcher. She worked in Asia for thirty-five years and has lived in South Korea, Hong Kong, Indonesia, and the Philippines. She is currently based in Europe. Over the years, she has been a magazine editor and a foreign correspondent for various Asian publications. She is the author of When Britain Ruled the Philippines 1762–1764: The Story of the 18th Century British Invasion of the Philippines During the Seven Years War; The Manila-Acapulco Galleons: The Treasure Ships of the Pacific with an Annotated List of the Transpacific Galleons 1565-1815; and The HMS Centurion 1733–1769: An Historic Biographical Travelogue of One of Britain’s Most Famous Warships and the Capture of the Nuestra Senora de Covadonga Treasure Galleon.

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© 2021 Shirley Fish. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse  08/19/2021

ISBN: 978-1-6655-8873-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-8874-4 (e)

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Preface

Part 1 The Scythian Ice Maiden of Pazyryk

Part 2 The Scythian Connection

Part 3 Shamanism in Central Asia and Siberia

Part 4 Origins of the Korean People

Part 5 The Three Kingdoms Period and the Koguryo Kingdom

Part 6 Paekche Kingdom

Part 7 Kaya Confederacy and Scythian Influence in Burial Practices and Artifacts

Part 8 Silla Kingdom

Part 9 Silla Burial Practices, Tomb Mounds, and Artifacts

Part 10 Korean Shamanism

Part 11 Shamanistic Symbolism

Bibliography

About the Author

PREFACE

I t was a bitterly cold day in January 1980 when my husband and I arrived in Seoul, South Korea. Not only were we suddenly in a foreign country where we would be spending eight years of our lives, but we were also confronted by a totally different culture and language from our own in the United States. As my husband and I had relocated to Korea on a job assignment with his international company, we were young and excited about the new adventure we found ourselves in, and we eagerly looked forward to this exhilarating experience. However, at this early stage of our adventure, we faced a few problems.

Firstly, I arrived in Seoul with a very bad cold, and the first Korean I actually met was the hotel doctor, who showed up with an old-fashioned five-inch-long glass syringe that looked as if it had come right out of the television series M*A*S*H. It was filled with what I thought was penicillin. I couldn’t communicate with the doctor as he did not speak English, and I knew no Korean words – but somehow he was aware of my difficulty and provided a prescription for medications that soon had me back on my feet without having to use the dreaded injection—which, of course, I was relieved about. In addition to the bad cold, my husband had a drink of what we thought was contaminated orange juice during his breakfast in our hotel room. Luckily there were no traces of botulism in the juice, and he soon recovered.

At this point, we were both stressed out and worried about our two New York cats that had always lived in the lap of luxury in the Big Apple and now were in quarantine for ten days. No doubt they, too, wondered what was happening to them after the deafening flight from New York to Seoul and then having to contend with the uncomfortable cages provided by the Seoul quarantine station. However, we were assured that after the quarantine period had ended, we would be happily reunited with our loving cats. Soon after that, my cold disappeared, and the cats were soon returned to us in our very comfortable rented house in the northern section of Seoul. Even though we were all suffering with a bit of culture shock over our new experiences, life returned to some sort of normalcy in our new home.

It was soon apparent that we were now living in a country with a vast and rich cultural history. There was so much to learn about Korea, and we planned to explore it thoroughly with weekend visits to Buddhist temples in the countryside and other points of interest.

While my husband was busy familiarizing himself with his new coworkers and job requirements, I became completely immersed in learning about the history and archaeology of the country. I began taking classes with the noted art historian Dr. Jon Carter Covell. She had been living in Seoul off and on since the mid-1970s. Initially our classes were small in size—about ten people—which meant that we had plenty of time to discuss topics of interest to each of us.

Dr. Covell proved to be an immense fount of knowledge on Asia’s art history, culture, and archaeology. She was a truly spectacular teacher, and she was quite interesting and easy to follow as she provided classes on Asian religions and on the origins and practices of animism, shamanism, Buddhism, and Confucianism in Asia and particularly in Korea. At the time, Dr. Covell was a trained professional, having received her PhD in Asian art history many eons before from Columbia University in New York. She was also at the time authoring a weekly column in the Korea Times newspaper, which was entitled Korea’s Cultural Roots. In the 1970s, she lived for a time at a prominent Buddhist temple in Kyoto, Japan, before relocating to Seoul. Consequently, after many decades of studying the arts of Asia, she seemed most interested in focusing the latter part of her life on the art history of Korea. In fact, she authored quite a few books on Korean art history, including her book entitled Korea’s Cultural Roots.

No doubt, having the opportunity to study under Dr. Covell’s tutelage enabled this writer, in particular, to broaden her horizons and enrich her studies of Asian arts and archaeology. I shall always feel immensely grateful for having had the opportunity of knowing such a gifted scholar. By that time, I had already been an archaeology major in New York, during which time I’d had the opportunity to study under some of the most notable professors in archaeology in New York. This had provided me with a foundation on which to build my continued studies in archaeology, but this time around I would be focusing on Korea.

Eventually my research led me to many of the country’s museums, where I was able to view a variety of intriguing artifacts. These had been found in excavations, mostly of tombs, across the country. At the National Museum of Korea in Seoul, I was able to see for the first time a Silla gold crown. The crown’s beauty and craftsmanship took my breath away. The intricately created crown with its delicate design motifs of what appeared to be shamanistic golden trees, deer antlers, numerous spangles, and comma-shaped jade jewels seemed fascinating to me, and it still does. I knew instinctively that these design motifs held some deeper significant meaning, and I was tremendously curious about them. This led to my research into the production of the magnificent crowns and this kingdom’s connection to the Scythians of Central Asia, Siberia, and Mongolia.

At this time, I would like to thank two dear friends for their help in providing some research materials for this book. The first is Birgitte Crawfurd in Denmark, and the other is Kim Young Hee in Seoul, South Korea. Their assistance has been very much appreciated.

Shirley Fish,

Europe 2021

PART ONE

The Scythian Ice Maiden of Pazyryk

Is She a Long-Lost Ancestor of the Korean People?

T he icy tomb was her final resting place. The chamber she lay in was constructed to resemble the interior of a small mountain cabin. It may have been of the type one finds in the remote regions of the forested steppe lands in the Altay or Ural Mountains, but here, in the open and desolate Ukok steppe plateau, bereft of tall trees and luxurious greenery, the kurgan was designated as the appropriate place for the ice maiden to rest and begin her journey to the other side of existence in the afterworld.

The Ukok region was the winter grounds of the Pazyryk people. They arrived in this area in October and remained there until June of the following year. At that time, they started out once again on their travels to their fresh summer pasturelands for their herds of horses and sheep. As they buried their dead in this area, it had also become a sacred place for them.

The Pazyryks were a seminomadic fourth-century-BC people who were ethnically and culturally Scythians. As they depended on their horses for transportation and worked as stock breeders in their camps, they had an extensive network of trade routes that they traveled in Central Asia. As a result of their nomadic journeys, their main source of income was the selling of their valuable horses to the buyers they encountered along the way. By means of this method of bartering, they were able to purchase the goods they required from the townspeople they met. Consequently, some Pazyryk-Scythians may have become exceedingly wealthy. As they sold horses in China, India, and Persia, their wealth was demonstrated in their lavish burial sites, where artifacts included Chinese silks, furnishings, sacrificed horses with elaborate trappings, and other artifacts indicating their trade ties with countries surrounding Central Asia. These artifacts were preserved in the permafrost as water seeped into their burial sites, freezing the deceased individuals and their burial goods, and thus preserving them until they were uncovered by archaeologists.

As they roamed through the territories of southern Siberia, Mongolia, China, and Kazakhstan in search of pasturelands, it was the Altaic mountain region that they returned to every year. They set up their camps in low-lying areas during the summer months, and in the wintertime they moved to the colder and higher plateaus, where their herds could graze. It was in the Altaic region that they spent their winters, and if there was one place that they considered their home base, it was this area. Groups of about thirty family members would make the trek back to this area each year.

In a pattern similar to that of other nomadic people of the Central Asian and Siberian region, it is believed that the Pazyryks lived in portable yurts—tentlike homes that could easily be set up using animal skins and poles that they carried with them from place to place. The interiors of the yurts were decorated with carpets hung along the walls to keep out the cold, and cushions and blankets to sleep on. Inside of each yurt, at its center, was a cooking fire, the smoke from which escaped through a hole at the top of the yurt. The cooking fire heated the interior of the yurt even when the weather in the open steppe lands was at its coldest.

Their possessions had to be portable and not bulky, as they were always on the move and needed household goods, which were easily transportable. For the sake of convenience, small tables were collapsible and cooking utensils and pots were multipurpose items. A cauldron was usually an essential possession that each clan would have had in their yurts. In the cauldron, the women prepared large stews for the entire family to enjoy in the evening, when they were all gathered together in the warmth of their homes. The stew might have been prepared using wild fruits, nuts, garlic, and meats from their own stock of animals. Their favorite beverage was koumiss, which was prepared using fermented mares’ milk. Koumiss was also used to make cheese for the family’s consumption.

During the evenings in the yurt, they told stories, danced and sang, and slept. Their arts blended their religious beliefs with the motifs they used on whatever they produced in the way of ornaments, jewelry, and clothing. The motifs of the animals they found in the regions that they traveled through became the motifs they used in their arts. These animals were also revered as being potent and powerful creatures. Animals such as eagles and antlered deer and stags were deemed to have supernatural powers.

As one might imagine, the interior of a yurt could be quite cozy on a cold winter’s night. With the warmth of the cooking fire, everyone in the yurt would have felt safe and comfortable. This was an aspect of the life of the ice maiden of Pazyryk, who was cared for by her family. It seems likely that they all slept in the one yurt, so a given area of the home would have been allocated for her use by the members of the clan.

The ice maiden’s frail and weakened body had been wracked by an unbearable and agonizing pain in the last years of her life. It was clear that before her death, she was suffering quite a bit from injuries sustained from a fall and also the terminal stages of breast cancer. While on the journey to the winter resting grounds, as she rode her horse, at some point she took a tumble and fell onto her right side. As a result of this accident, she had a dislocated right hip and a damaged right shoulder joint.

When she died, her right arm was already numb, swollen, and decaying because of her breast cancer. She held the arm close to her body, and it may have been tied to her because she could not use it. This may have led to an infection in her system. Her body also showed the effects of bedsores on her back. This was an indication that she had spent much of her time bedridden. As a result of the late stages of cancer, she may have been in terrible pain for five months or more. It appeared that it was most probably the advanced breast cancer that ended her life.

She had no doubt suffered tremendously for many years, but she stoically and heroically fought for every breath of life and even exhaustively rode her treasured horse to the winter camping grounds. She was in increasingly dire straits by the time she and her companions reached the winter camp. To ease her pain, she most probably inhaled the fumes of burned coriander seeds. These seeds were also found in her coffin at her feet in a small dish.

In the end, she was in such a weakened physical state that she could not survive her injuries and cancer, and she passed away. When she died, she was between twenty-five and twenty-eight years old, and she may have developed cancer when she was about twenty years of age. She most probably died in the fourth century BC. It is believed that she died in January and her body was preserved for several months until she could be buried in June.

Was the Ice Maiden a Shaman?

Whether or not the ice maiden was a shaman is still open for debate, although it is a possibility. While she has been referred to in the media as the Ice Princess, the Ice Maiden, and even as a Shaman, to the archaeologists who discovered her, she was simply Devochka, meaning the girl.

In any case, her sumptuous burial indicated her high status in her clan. She was placed in a burial chamber in her own burial mound along with sacrificial horses, which was not usually the case when it came to preparing a woman’s burial site. In fact, the type of burial she had was normally reserved for a king, a chief, or a warrior of a clan or tribe. She was obviously an esteemed individual in her clan and merited such a burial site. Moreover, the mummification of her body also attests to her high status in her society and family. Ordinary people were not buried in such a manner; nor were they laboriously mummified in the particular way that members of royalty or nobility in the nomadic societies were prepared for burials.

According to the head archaeologist in charge of the ice maiden’s excavation, Natalya Polosmak, the young maiden had been ceremoniously buried in a very special manner, which was unlike other burials for females. As the maiden was covered in tattoos, this meant that she held an important role in her society. There are various possibilities for her elevated position in society, and these include the fact that she may have been a shaman. As a shaman, she would have had a number of abilities, which might have included the capacity to predict the future. She may have also been the narrator of the clan’s history and may have known its ancient stories, which could be recounted in ceremonies to the people. As a shaman, she was also connected to the spirit world and was able to heal members of her clan of their ailments.

The medical treatments she administered to herself, in order to control her pain, caused her to experience an altered state of consciousness. For this reason, she may have been considered a shaman by her fellow companions. As a result of her illness and pain, she self-administered a number of potions she prepared to curb her distress. These potions caused her to hallucinate and see visions and spirits in the afterworld. She was able to communicate with the spirits, and they, in turn, were able to use her as a medium. As a shaman had this capacity to communicate with the spirits, she would have been viewed as being an exceptional and highly skilled individual who was held in high esteem by everyone.

Some of the painkillers she may have used consisted of wine, opium, hashish, Indian hemp seed smoke, and psychoactive henbane and mandrake extracts. Hallucinogenic drugs, such as hemp, were important to the Scythians. Hemp seeds have been found in various burial sites, but they were also used by the Scythians during their sweating ritual. The ritual consisted of Scythian men gathering in a small tent and throwing hemp seeds onto a fire, creating smoky fumes and a sauna-like environment. During the ritual, the men sweated profusely, and the entire episode caused them to experience a sense of euphoria. The ritual was commonly performed when an important person, such as a chief, passed away, and it was seen as a cleansing of the body after the funeral had been conducted.

It was thought, at the time, that shamans often died after undergoing a great deal of pain and illness, and for this reason and others, she may have been considered a shaman. There were two ways in which an individual became a shaman. The first consisted of inheriting the position from a member of the family who was also a shaman. The second method was for the individual to undergo and survive the effects of a severe illness. As such, the individual was deemed to have been to the other side and back, and due to this experience, he or she was seen as being imbued with supernatural powers.

As a shaman, she had the supernatural ability of second sight. She was able to see and communicate with departed spirits in the afterlife, or the other world. Having these supernatural or paranormal abilities meant that she was viewed as being an important and vital person of the community. As such, she was taken care of by her people. They were probably in awe of her abilities, which they could not understand, but they knew that she was in possession of powers that were helpful to them, especially when they were sick or needed to solve a problem that was troubling them. She was seen as a conduit or medium between this world and the next who could find solutions to difficulties the tribe’s people experienced and found vexing.

Life after Death

It was also obvious that the Scythian-Pazyryk people believed in an afterlife. They thought that when one died, it was not the end of one’s existence in the universe. They felt that the individual continued living in another dimension, whether it was called the afterlife or the afterworld. This other dimension could be a heavenly place or a torturous hell. In either case, there were benevolent spirits in the heavenly realm, while evil spirits dwelled in the underworld, or hell. The Pazyryks believed that if they were good people, they went to a heavenly mountain pasture when they died. They considered that the Ukok area, where their burials took place, was an area where the souls of their ancestors gathered.

The Scythian-Pazyryk people viewed these other dimensions of existence, especially heaven, as a mirror image of the life they were leading on Earth. For this reason, when a person of high status, such as a chief, a member of the nobility, or a shaman died, he or she was often placed in a burial mound known as a kurgan. Kurgans may be found throughout Central Asia and Siberia, wherever the Scythian-Pazyryks and other nomadic people lived or wandered through on their travels. For the Pazyryks, though, it was the Ukok area that they returned to in the winters to bury their dead in the summer months.

Within the kurgan, there was a wooden chamber—a cabin-like construction—where the deceased person’s coffin was placed. It was surrounded by burial goods, which were placed there for the deceased individual’s use in the afterworld. The objects included everything from personal items to kitchenware. It was not unusual to find that the burial goods also consisted of items like jewelry and mirrors. Furnishings, such as small portable tables, were also placed in the burial chamber. Moreover, an individual of high status was buried with his or her horses and servants, who were expected to continue serving the individual in the afterworld. The remains of the ice maiden’s horses were placed outside of her coffin chamber. They were killed at the grave site using a spear blow to the head.

The shaman depended on the assistance of her spirit helpers, such as departed ancestors and royal figures, with whom she could communicate on the other side, and who were considered benevolent spirits. They could assist in helping her to solve the problems she presented to them and in providing her with solutions and treatments for ailments and difficulties experienced by the people in her clan. It was also necessary to have the assistance of spirit animals, which could help guide and carry the shaman to the afterworld. These same