Д.С. Раевский

Из области скифской космологии

(Опыт семантической интерпретации пекторали из Толстой Могилы).

// ВДИ. 1978. №3. С. 115-134.

(132/134)

THE COSMOLOGY OF THE SCYTHIANS REFLECTED IN THEIR ART
(a semantic interpretation of the pectoral from the Tolstaya Mogila)

D.S. Rayevsky

The gold pectoral found in 1971 in the Scythian kurgan «Tolstaya Mogila» in the Ukraine has no equal for the number of figures depicted on it and so also for the volum of information it provides on Scythian mythology. Study of the composition and subject matter of the decoration on this pectoral shows it to be a veritable embodiment of typical Scythian notions about the horizontal and vertical structure of the universe. Two «narrative» panels in the composition reflect a series of semantic opposites which are characteristic of archaic cosmologies (above — below, inside — outside, human — non-human, wild — tame, real — fantastic, life — death) and, in the final analysis, express the concept of a universe consisting of two worlds («this», the world of people, and «that», the world of death) which are at once mutually opposed and mutually conditioned. The alternation of life and death is an essential component of an ordered world; one of its manifestations is the regular process of reproduction among domestic cattle, the prime condition of well-being in Scythian society. The function of the pectoral, which was part of the king’s ritual attire, is defined in the notion of the essential sanctity of the king as personification of social order and guarantor of his people’s prosperity. The cosmological scheme depicted on the pectoral is a particular expression of a cosmological idea common to Indo-European peoples in antiquity.

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