Scythian animal motifs. The remarkable textiles recovered from the Pazyryk burials include the oldest woollen knotted-pile carpet known, the oldest embroidered Chinese silk, and two pieces of woven Persian fabric (State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg). Red and ochre predominate in the carpet, the main design of which is of riders, stags, and griffins. Many of the Pazyryk felt hangings, saddlecloths, and cushions were covered with elaborate designs executed in appliqué feltwork, dyed furs, and embroidery. Of exceptional interest are those with animal and human figural compositions, the most notable of which are the repeat design of an investiture scene on a felt hanging and that of a semihuman, semibird creature on another (both in the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg). Clothing, whether of felt, leather, or fur, was also lavishly ornamented.horse reins either had animal designs cut out on them or were studded with wooden ones covered in gold foil. Their tail sheaths were ornamented, as were their headpieces and breastpieces. Some horses were provided with leather or felt masks made to resemble animals, with stag antlers or rams' horns often incorporated in them. Many of the trappings took the form of iron, bronze, and gilt wood animal motifs either applied or suspended from them; and bits had animal-shaped terminal ornaments. Altaic animals frequently display muscles delineated with dot and comma markings, a formal convention that may have derived from appliqué needlework. Although such markings are sometimes included in Assyrian, Achaemenian, and even Urartian animal representations of the ancient Middle East, they seldom appear on those of purely Scythian origin. Roundels containing a dot serve the same purpose on the stag and other animal renderings executed by contemporary Śaka metalworkers. Animal processions of the Assyro-Achaemenian type also appealed to many Central Asian tribesmen and are featured in their arts.Certain geometric designs and sun symbols, such as the circle and rosette, recur at Pazyryk but are completely outnumbered by animal motifs. Such specifically Scythian features as zoomorphic junctures—i.e., the addition of a part of one animal to the body of another—are rarer in the Altaic region than in southern Russia. The stag and its relatives, however, figure as prominently in Altaic as in Scythian art. Combat scenes between carnivores and herbivores that occur quite often in Scythian art are exceedingly numerous in Pazyryk work; but, whereas the Scythians show the victim passively accepting its fate, as on 5th-century BC gold triangular plaques from the so-called Seven Brothers burial in the Kuban, the Pazyryk beasts are locked in such bitter fights that the victim's hindquarters become inverted.Siberian tribesIn the virtually contemporary metalwork of Siberian nomads, single animals of the cat family, such as panthers, carry the Altaic tendency of exaggeration further by twisting their bodies into a circle. In slightly later Siberian plaques, subtle openwork is used, a feature rarely present in Altaic or Scythian objects but frequently encountered in the more rounded versions of the animal style produced in the Ordos region of China, perhaps by Hunnish craftsmen, between the 4th century BC and the 2nd century AD. In the latter part of the 1st millennium BC, Siberian metalworkers adorned many of their gold and bronze plaques with artificial gems made of glass, as well as with jewelled inlays. They produced belt buckles (buckle) shaped like the letter B. Two such gold pieces (State Hermitage Museum) are of particular interest because of their figural content. It has been suggested that they illustrate some ancient Central Asian epics, for one depicts a hunting scene and the other a warrior lying under a tree with his head resting on a woman's lap while a servant holds their two horses. These subjects, possible forerunners of certain episodes in the Shāh-nāmeh (“Book of Kings,” a work by the 10th century Persian poet Ferdowsī giving an account of ancient Iranian history), are thought to comple