A kurgan is a burial mound raised with earth and stone. There are thousands across the steppe belt from north of the Black Sea to the Altai; the largest are tens of metres across.
What comes out of them is the best record of steppe life: in the frozen Pazyryk kurgans carpets, saddles, tattooed bodies and horses survived intact. The dead are not buried alone — the horse, the weapons and everyday things go with them, because where they are going is a journey.
Balbal's fifth floor is The Barrow: dusk, long shadows, stone clicking. The same name is also a skeleton — a board in the silhouette of a mound.
See also: balbal