pick of the weekend

Remember the mummified Scythian woman that archaeologists dug up in Eastern Russia 11 years ago? Unless my memory is playing tricks, the preliminary reconstructions of what she had looked like when she was alive portrayed her as a striking red-haired beauty with Eurasian facial features. Buried as she was – dressed in thigh-high suede leather riding boots, sheer silken blouse and woolen skirt, accompanied in her grave by six horses – she was clearly an aristocrat, undoubtedly an accomplished horsewoman and most likely someone who in today’s world would be applauded as “a woman who runs with the wolves.” Apparently – or so the people in the region surrounding her grave believe – she was also much more: a priestess, perhaps a uniquely powerful sorceress. Citing the curious difficulties archaeologists had in opening her 2500-year-old grave and the series of earthquakes that have rocked the region ever since, locals folks say her spirit is angry, and that she will not rest until she is returned to her tomb. Here is a link to an entertaining Australian newspaper story. For more authoritative information on this topic, including an unusually frank admission by archaeologists that disturbing psychic phenomenon accompanied their work on the site where the woman was found, here’s a link to a NOVA program-transcript.