The human and economic resources necessary to create long-lived public works of art would seem to diminish, if not preclude, the potential of mobile pastoralist societies from creating and preserving such artifacts. The apparently universal propensity of human societies to surround themselves with meaning-rich visual culture leaves little doubt that art and art deemed religious were created by worshippers of Ahura Mazda or YHWH at some point in the past. The fact that little to none of it remains to be found also suggests one potential category of media used to create it: perishable or disposable. The ancient art found across the Near East generally appears to be made of (or on) varieties of durable material: stone, metal, and clay. The rare pieces of textile, wood, or paper-like material preserved by unusual environmental conditions offer insight into the variety of media used by ancient artists. The size and availability of durable media as well as the necessary investment of resources into tasks of creation and preservation are but two major factors that would seem to explain the small numbers of mobile pastoralist art. A third, perhaps just as important, is the availability of culturally appropriate “sites” for the deposition or preservation of art. The association of art and architecture reveals the significance of buildings-as-canvases to the creation and preservation of art deemed religious. As noted in the last chapter, the lack of building culture would logically seem to inhibit the development of temple-building culture. Likewise, the absence of built edifices would seem to diminish the potential for the development of monumental art styles.

The presence of vast stockpiles of art objects among Scythian grave-goods speaks to the importance of cultural or religious formations that make available such sites for the preservation of art.¹ From within these catalogues of grave goods, it is possible to identify certain modern categories of “functional art” that lend insight into sites for artistic activity in mobile pastoralist societies. What, in the 21^stcentury, might be called “decorative arts,” “wearable art,” or “handicraft” all seem to be valid categories to describe the highly detailed adornments of weapons, clothing, and tools found among Scythian grave goods. Furthermore, the preservation of some corpses adorned with tattoos adds to the limited evidence (across cultures and time) attesting to the use of the body-as-canvas.² It is also noteworthy that many of the styles attested among the Scythian objects suggest artists living in settled societies across the ancient Near and Middle East. The potential “foreign” origins of such private or small-scale art offers insight into one of the few ways that people might be exposed to the images adorning these objects. The example of Scythian grave goods provides for possible avenues of expression, religious or otherwise, through art that may only be preserved beyond the immediate vicinity (and lifespan) of its owner by unusual treatment, including perhaps trade, capture, or destruction (burial in a grave, for example). It is not difficult to assume that the relatively transitive nature of clothing, tool, and weapon styles across time and cultures, while beneficial for dating objects of “handicraft” or “wearable art,” would prevent some adorning images from surviving long enough for person-to-person exposure to reach a particularly wide audience. This supposition, though only that, offers a potential explanation for the possibility, if not likelihood, that the mobile pastoralist societies within which the religions of Ahura Mazda and YHWH arose, created art (religious or not) that did not gain traction as images related to the respective worship of each deity.