A Nomad Exhibit to Fall in Steppe With

In another act of superpower cultural cooperation, institutions in the United States and the Soviet Union have jointly organized a major exhibit of more than 1,100 Eurasian artifacts to open Saturday at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

“Nomads: Masters of the Eurasian Steppe” will illuminate the migratory lives of the Scythians, the Huns, the Ancient Turks and the Mongols who traversed the vast plain extending from the northern shores of the Black Sea to China’s northern border. Spanning nearly 3,000 years from the 8th Century BC to the early 20th Century, the exhibit was jointly organized by the Natural History Museum and the Soviet Union’s Academy of Sciences.

Forced to move at least twice a year to follow their livestock, “these cultures developed specific features that were designed to match a specific way of life,” said exhibit curator Vladimir N. Basilov, a Soviet ethnography expert. “All their belongings had to be transported with them. That’s why they invented specific costumes or dwellings, such as the yurt,” an easily disassembled portable shelter.

Formidable horsemen and warriors, the Eurasian nomads--Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun among them--devised harnesses for their horses and elaborate weaponry and armor. These objects, as well as a yurt, clothing and textiles, domestic utensils, Shamanistic ritualistic objects and lustrous gold ornaments and jewelry are on view.

“They were always tempted by the gold that was collected by their sedentary neighbors and they carried on constant military raids against the sedentary population,” Basilov said.

Indeed, a highlight of the exhibit is the “Golden Man,” the reconstruction of a ceremonial costume worn by a 5th-Century BC Kazakhstan nobleman replete with its original headdress, neck piece, belt and dagger sheath bedecked with dazzling gold decorations.

“Conversely, the Eurasians invented things that were borrowed and used by their sedentary neighbors,” the curator said. “To them we owe the everyday use of trousers, for instance. They also introduced the rigid saddle and stirrups, though these were not invented immediately with the domestication of the horse. It took a long time for the nomads to understand it is better to be with a saddle than without.”

Bosilov visited about 10 museums throughout the Soviet Union to get artifacts for the “Nomads” exhibit, he said. Some were larger institutions, such as the Hermitage in Leningrad, and others were provincial museums, offering objects never seen here or even in major Soviet cities.

The exhibition, on view locally through April 10, will travel next to the Denver Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian Institution.

Reservations are required. Tickets are on sale now at all TicketMaster outlets, the May Co. and Music Plus stores. They will go on sale at the museum Saturday. Information: (213) 744-6292.

CHANGES: Brian Considine, formerly Getty associate conservator of decorative arts and sculpture, has recently been appointed conservator of that department.

The Lannan Foundation has named Lisa Lyons as its director of art programs. Lyons, who will assume the post full-time in early April, will act as a consultant to the foundation until then. She has been director of acquisitions at the Museum Fund, a private art consulting firm in Minneapolis.