An imperial ukase of 1718 fact obligation on the subjects of the tsar “to collect in the ground and water the old inscriptions, old weapons (...), all that is old and leaves ordinary”. Since 1763, a kourgane, large monument in Russia, made it possible to obtain the first elements of identification of the Scythians.

For the end of VIIe century and the beginning of the VI E front century J. - C.: great quantity of ornaments of gold and money, short swords in plated gold sleeves, ornamentations representing of the fantastic animals.

Between 1853 and 1863, the excavation of several others kourganes confirmed the first information and license to discover that horses were sacrificed and buried with their harnessing in these important tombs. The great quantity of jewels and ornaments collected, when the tombs had not been plundered, made it possible to provide the foundations of a capital stylistic study.

Scythian art takes part, at its beginnings, of the art of the steppes, where the animalist, demonic and purely decorative forms hold a great place. Double Greek and Eastern influence was to leave a very happy mixture. Animalist art, in which the Scythians excelled, is influenced at the same time by the steppe (Uralic) and the East (Ourartou).

Thereafter, the Greek classicism, the Hellenistic “pathos” and the Eastern stiffness were to improve the forms and to give to certain reasons (stags, game) nontraditional a very great realistic plasticity (vase of Tchertomlik), beside the hieratic monsters with the Iranian woman and of the horses to Greek.  

The very great richness of the Scythian civilization, which is not yet completely put at the day by archeology, was ignored a long time in Occident. The Scythians, populates wandering barbarian, knew to preserve their identity while being turned into a sedentary population, while urbanizing and while opening with the most various influences.