1500 BC to 171 BC

Herders and the Saka

Bronze Age herders graze the Tian Shan valleys in the second millennium BC and carve animals and hunters on the rocks, as at Saimaluu-Tash and Cholpon-Ata near Lake Issyk-Kul. From around the eighth century BC the Saka, Iranian speaking nomads related to the Scythians, rule these mountain pastures and bury their chiefs under large earth mounds.