The Scythians loved gold.

Almost all that glitters is indeed gold when it comes to the Scythians, as is demonstrated mostimpressively in a major exhibition in Berlin's Martin Gropius Building, which opens to the publicon Friday. It portrays the history and culture of the feared equestrian people who lived in the firstmillennium BC in an area stretching from Southern Siberia to the Carpathian Basin.

Around 6000 exhibits, including magnificent gold treasures and an impeccably preserved mummy, will be on show, some for the first time in Europe. The patrons of the exhibition – "Under the Sign of the Golden Griffin. The Royal Tombs of theScythians" – are German President Horst Köhler and Russian President Vladimir Putin as well asthe Presidents of Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Mongolia.

The exhibition, organized by the Museum ofPre- and Early History and the German Archaeological Institute (DAI), will go from Berlin to Munich and Hamburg. Six hundred exhibits are on loan from Moscow alone, and 160 are from theHermitage Museum in St Petersburg.

Federal Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, whose ministry presides over the DAI and who opened the exhibition, described it as a "symbol of the close and rich academic relations between Germany, Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Ukraine."

Hermann Parzinger, future president of thePrussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, who as an archaeologist was significantly involved with several discoveries, spoke of a "wonderful outcome of Russian-German cooperation."