To accompany and honour the deceased: the horses from the graves of the Pazyryk culture

Sacrificing horses and placing them in graves are standard elements of Scythian funerary practices and recent archaeologicalprojects in Mongolia provide additional evidence of this. These sites complement earlier investigations carried out at thesite of Berel’ in Kazakhstan. The descriptions of the age, gender, colour and form of sacrifice of these horses allow a betterunderstanding of the criteria of choice, enable a better understanding of why they were selected and underline the primordialplace these horses enjoyed during the funerary ceremonies.