Shaub_I_Yu_Mif_kult_ritual_v_Severnom_Prichernomorye_VII-IV_vv_do_n_e

Summary

The problem of contacts between the Greeks and the barbarians of the North Pontic region is one of the most interesting problems of the antique culture of this region while its most complicated and contradictory aspect is the question of barbarian influence on the religion of Greek colonists. The author concentrates on this primary question when analyzing religious beliefs and cults of both North Pontic barbarians (Scythian tribes and Tauri in the first place) and Greek colonists.

The review of written and archeological sources (chapter I) and the critical analysis of historiography of Scythian religion and religious beliefs and cults of the citizens of Olbia, Chersonese and Bosporus (chapter II) are followed by chapter III devoted to Greek mythological tradition in the North Pontic region. Here the author concentrates on the images and legends that could be traced to the beliefs on afterlife, the cult of the Great goddess and shamanism (Argonauts, Io, Heracles, Iphigenia, Achilles, Amazons, Arimaspi).

Chapter IV is devoted to the religion and cults of the local people of the North Pontic region. Religious beliefs and cults of numerous tribes of the antique North Pontic region were particularly versatile but at the same time a number of common features were characteristic of them. In the first place it was the cult of the Great goddess. That is proved not only by general considerations but also by quite numerous facts. To our opin­ ion the main proof is not so much the supreme position of a female goddess in the Scythian pantheon described by Herodotus, as the absolute dominant position of the female image in the Graeco-Scythian art. The monuments representing images of Ishtar, Potnia Theron and her symbols as well as the Gorgon were probably connected with the cult of the Great goddess because Scythians and Sindo-Maeotians could see in them an­ other image of their own Great goddess. Quite significant is the fact that the image of the Mistress of animals, the heiress of the Great Aegean goddess, became the prototype for the iconography of the snake-legged goddess. The analysis goes on to prove that this most complicated and

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Summary

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comprehensive image of Graeco-Scythian art coyld be considered as an adequate manifestation of ideas associated in the beliefs of the North Pontic barbarians with their Great goddess. These ideas were represented in particular in one of the most popular images of Bosporus art - that of Amazons.

The cult of the Great goddess in Scythian tribes was also probably connected to the cult of fam (hvarnah) Alongside with numerous war cults and rituals Scythians also had shamanistic beliefs and rituals. Ac­ cording to mythological tradition of the North Pontic region, the same cults were characteristic of Tauri.

Traces of shaman beliefs caused by barbarian influence can be seen in the cult of Apollo Ietros, the supreme deity (together with Aphrodite Ourania) of the Graeco-barbarian aristocracy of Bosporus and also the main deity of the early Olbia. Apollo Ietros was obviously very close (if not identical) to Apollo (Hyper)boreos, the worshiper of whom was the son of the Scythian wizard Anacharsis, a vivid evidence of the local background of this deity.

The same local background can be traced in the Olbian cult of Achil­ les and the myths devoted to this god who originally was probably a dying and resurrecting god, one of the parhedroi of the Great goddess.

Olbian cults of Apollo, Achilles and 15 other gods and heroes (river god (Borysthenes), Dionysus, Heracles, Cybele, Demeter and Kore, Zeus, Athena, Aphrodite, Hermes, Artemis, Hecate, Dioscouri, Cabiri, Tyche, Poseidon) are reviewed in the corresponding parts of chapter V. To­ gether with Apollo and Achilles particular attention is paid to Dionysus about whom Herodotus wrote that one of worshippers of him was Skyles, a Scythian king (this story, which very much resembles the myth about Theban king Pentheus, is analyzed in the paradigm of Dionysiac myth). This part also concentrates on the influence of barbarians on the cult of Dionysus and the link between Dionysus and the Great goddess. A special part of the chapter is also devoted to the shrines of Olbian chora where we can trace barbarian influence as the author argues (the Beikush shrine of Achilles and some others).

This section is followed by a review of semantics of monuments from Olbian necropolis. The analysis of these findings and images that they bear brings the author to the conclusion that not only the beliefs on the afterlife were very multiform in Olbia of the VI - beginning of the V centuries B.C. but also that they were under the great influence of barbarians. Radical changes in the funeral utensils of the necropolis in Olbia in V century B.C. were obviously the result of not so much pan-Greek tendencies as of the shift in relations of Olbia with the surrounding barbarian tribes.

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Шауб И. Ю. Миф, культ, ритуал в Северном Причерноморье

Chapter VI gives review of the monuments of religious life of Cher­ sonese (end of the V - IV centuries B.C.) limited in their number. The supreme goddess of Chersonese since the moment of its foundation by the Dorians was Parthenos the image of which was the synthesis of the local Tauric goddess and Artemis, the most archaic of the Greek god­ desses. For the image of Parthenos the iconography rarely used for rep­ resentation of Artemis was adopted, but it was most appropriate for the local goddess ( Tauri did not have any tradition of representation of this goddess as far as we know). Thus Parthenos displaced the popular Greek goddess into backgronund as it also happened with the cults of some other goddesses. The parhedros of Parthenos and the second most impor­ tant deity in the pantheon of Chersonese was Heracles. The next in im­ portance was Dionysus but undoubtedly there were also an official cult of Apollo and probably Zeus.

The last chapter (VII) is devoted to religious life of Graeco-barbarian population of Bosporus.

The first part of the chapter focuses on temples and shrines with particular attention being paid to the new interpretation of the shrines in Nymphaeum and ash-mounds in Myrmecium and Kytaia that according to the author were connected with the local cult tradition, the cult of the Great goddess in the first place. As for the shrines that were tradition­ ally attributed as places of worshipping of Demeter, Cabiri and Aphrodite the author considers that the shrine on the coastline was obviously the place of worshipping many gods (nymphs playing the main part among them); the shrine with an apse was devoted to chtonic gods (definitely not only Cabiri); “the shrine of Aphrodite” was most likely just a private house.

The part about cults of gods and heroes is mainly concentrating on the non-Greek features of the cults of Apollo and Aphrodite, the supreme deities of Bosporus (the cult epithet of Aphrodite Apatouros was obvi­ ously derived from the local toponyme. Out of 13 gods and heroes (Apol­ lo, Aphrodite, Heracles, Dionysus, Artemis, Hecate, Cybele, Demeter, Cabiri, Athena, Hermes, Achilles, Zeus) worshipped in Bosporus in the 6 - 4 centuries B.C. the cults of Athena, Artemis, Dionysus, Heracles and Achilles were characterized with specific features which proves that they were under the local influence.

Afterlife beliefs are the subject of a separate part of the book. The architecture of tombs and abundancy of funeral utensils in them prove the fact that afterlife beliefs occupied a very important place in the reli­ gious life of the population of Bosporus. These beliefs are analyzed by the author basing on the findings in the richest barrow Bolshaya Bliznit-

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