A journey to the past….

By Dr. Marina Papaioannou, DNV, Maritime Academies Regional Manager, South East Europe, Middle East & Africa

People often ask me what it takes to have a career in shipping. Especially young people who are already studying a relevant subject and need to be guided to the future, or people who are studying something different and are thinking of joining shipping in a quest of better chances of professional development.

And although, I believe very much in the benefits of education and life-long coaching, I usually answer that all it takes is for someone to love challenges and use the analytical and critical capabilities which they have hopefully acquired in whatever field they studied, to dig deep into the “mysteries” of shipping.

To that end, I would like to share with you today some experiences that have helped me become the person I am today, coming from a very different background, which I hope you will find interesting and enjoy reading.

In December 1994, I visited Russia for the first time in my capacity of an Archaeological Geophysicist, long before my shipping days begin. I was to deliver a presentation at a conference there and I had the opportunity to meet colleagues from Saint Petersburg’s Mining Institute, the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Hermitage Museum. These relationships developed and with the help of NATO – yes NATO is not only for military alliances but also for scientific ones – we, a team from the University of Patras and our Russian colleagues, managed to investigate a couple of very interesting technical and archaeological/ethnic problems.

So today I will take you to a journey far from the sea, to central Asia in the borders of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia. The four countries meet in a country, now autonomous which used to be part of the Soviet Union, called Gorny Altai and the place we visited is the Ukok Plateau.

It was there in 1996, our expedition of Greek Scientists from the University of Patras met with our colleagues from the Russian Academy of Sciences to explore ancient burial sites of the Pazyryk civilization. We flew to the plateau with a helicopter from Novosibirsk in Siberia, for 3 hours and disembarked without the helicopter switching off the engines due to the high altitude and low air density.

We stayed there for 2 weeks on a camp without any communication with the rest of the world and got the opportunity to explore the famous burial sites 10 kilometers from the boarders with China and within the restricted military zone.

Two years earlier, in October 1994, National Geographic (vol. 186, No 4) had already made an extended article on the first major burial discovery called “the Siberian Ice Maiden” or “the Lady”, that made the site and the Pazyryk civilization known to the world, due to the extremely well-preserved body of this Scythian Princess. Elaborated tattoos covering her whole body, her long hair well dressed, clothing, horses and even food. Everything well preserved due to the ice layer that kept everything frozen. The excavation took many years under adverse conditions for only a couple of months in the summertime when weather allowed works on site.

The aim was to check other burial sites with non-destructive means, such as georadar and electrical tomography, to identify the most promising burial sites and help archaeologists choose the best one to excavate.

The Pazyryk people inhabited the area of Gorny Altai about 2500 years ago. The Pazyryk culture was discovered by Russian archaeologists in early 1950s while exploring the mound graves in the plateaus of central Gorny Altai. Due to the unique natural conditions and the existence of permafrost, i.e., frozen ground and ice lenses in the burial chambers, much has been preserved and is known today of their funerary customs as well as their everyday life and their economic system.

The Pazyrykians, can be traced back to the Bronze Age. This nomadic tribe coexisted peacefully during the Scythian period (8th-6th century BC) with another tribe, the Kara-Koba. It is believed that they are connected to the Saka tribes – the Iranian-speaking people of Eurasia, and the Samoyed tribes – the first to contact the Turk Mongols moving north, and that the populations has both Caucasian and Mongolian components. The Pazyryk people maintained the closest relations with the populations of territories lying west and southwest of Gorny Altai. From the 3rd Century BC onwards, the area started to be colonized by the Huns, with whom the Pazyrykians managed to maintain peaceful relations, at least in the beginning, as artifacts discovered in the Pazyryk burial include those adopted by the Huns. However, around 200 BC, the Pazyrykians, pressed by the Huns, started migrating to the north where they were peacefully accepted by the Ugrians.

There are a few burial mounts, called “kurgans” that are either partly or thoroughly excavated in the site called Ukok Plateau, which reveal the existence of property and social stratification within their society. The kurgans of the “upper class and aristocracy” reveal huge burial chambers containing giant timber frames, vaults with dozens of horse burials, distinct coffin-like sarcophagi and of course a lot of everyday life utensils, fabric, leather felt and wood. Not to mention, the exceptionally well-preserved mummified bodies in some cases with distinct tattoos and hairstyles.

The only written testimony of these kurgans and the way they were constructed comes from Herodotus, who describes in an analytical way both the embalming procedures as well as the engineering followed for the construction of a Scythian burial site. This is proof enough of how far the ancient Greeks travelled in the world.

Our investigations in the summer of 1996 guided the archaeologists to excavate another kurgan that later on revealed the mummy of a Scythian warrior.

On our way back to Novosibirsk, we landed for refueling to a site called Denisova, where one can visit cave settlements inhabited without disruption since Lower and Middle Paleolithic era (the Denisova Man).

Our world is full of small and big things to discover, so do not waste time….!