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112Archaeoastronomy and Ancient Technologies 2013, 1(2), 33-39; http://aaatec.org/documents/article/po3.pdf
Archaeoastronomy and Ancient Technologies
www.aaatec.org ISSN 2310-2144
Griffin and Hero-Deer in Cosmological Composition, as
Practical Model of Social Development of Ancient Societies, on Example of Pazyryk Carpet (V century BC)
Olga Polyakova
Chelyabinsk State University, str. Brat'yev Kashirinykh, 129, Chelyabinsk, 454021, Russian Federation;
E-mail: [email protected]
Abstract: The Eurasian tradition in general and, in particular, in the Scythian outlook, reveal two astral tradition of constructing social relations, by analogy with the observed picture of the sky, which is reflected in the monuments of visual culture. On the example of the Pazyryk carpet V century BC You can make some assumptions about the semantic meaning of each of the traditions. Figure of a man - deer on the carpet has icons " cross in a circle ", which denotes the astral symbolism land or Pole of the World, which revolves around the starry sky. In support of this idea seeing that image herbivorous ungulates and other monuments of the Scythian culture shows their central or solitary position compared with a pair of griffins - like Griffins revolve around the center. It can be assumed that the tradition and image herbivorous hoofed symbolized divine light solar power, and other images of predatory Gryphon tradition symbolized the real strength of the earth in their binary code change of light and darkness, life and death, good and evil - as displayed in the minds of rotating constellation rising or setting on the horizon. This could form the basis of religious beliefs and festivities accompanying social structure of ancient societies.
Keywords: Griffins, heroes, herbivores, antlers, precession, the ecliptic pole, Celestial Pole.
Interesting and mysterious to Europeans is the system of the Maya calendar accounts, ancient Mexican Indian plains in North America. They left us a calendar that still amazes scientists for its Researchers heritage "Scythian" time has repeatedly raised the issue of semantics common in pictorial culture of the ancient nomadic peoples of Eurasia, the so-called "animal style", especially the fight scenes and laceration between Griffin and various herbivores, including ungulates, as a rule, the Griffins are arranged symmetrically about the central figure of the herbivore (Fig. 1). Persistence and widespread tradition forces us to seek its roots in the ancient world, reflecting the knowledge of nature in general and about the starry sky, in particular, that in the northern hemisphere for all its inhabitants shone the same stars.
E.E. Kuzmina said that in the XIX century by linguists on the basis of the analysis and the Greeks Scythian and geographical names, it was found that the European Scythians and their closest relatives, Asian saki Iranian languages belonging to the Indo-Iranian lying family Indo-European community. This family integrates various modern nations of India, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, and the Ossetians of the Caucasus and Central Asia Tajiks. E.E. Kuzmina notes extraordinarily popular song fight scenes and anguish at the Iranian peoples, serve as a symbol of the main holiday of the year - Nouruz (New Year) - the day of the vernal equinox and it explains the fact that the dualistic conception of the Indo-Iranians equal and cyclic change phenomena in the world due to the struggle of opposites forces, reaching its apogee in the New Year's Day holiday annually repeating God's victory or hero - founder of ensuring the triumph of light over darkness, fertility over the demon - fetus. In the famous Iranian poet Ferdowsi 's poem "Shahnameh" says that when the hero won the Jemshid Nouruz day, he "went up as the sun turned green and all that dried up" [1, p. 38-42].
Figura 1. Symmetrically arranged Griffins attack Horse, located in the center. Scythian burial mound "Thick grave" near the Ukrainian city of Ordzhonikidze (by Kuzmina) [1, 42].
Life of ancient societies was built entirely on the performance of religious worship as a necessary component of life dependent on natural and divine powers, which should give the honors in a variety of religious holidays in a calendar year, which in turn correlated with celestial phenomena. Need for social arrangement life in accordance with the laws of nature gave birth to the necessity of knowing the world, acquiring a form of life mythological gods and heroes, which in turn is reflected in the subjects of culture and life.
Figura 2. Fight scene Hero-Deer with Griffin. Kurgan number 5, Pazyryk. V c. BC. (Photos by
Ermitazh).
Perhaps a wonderful illustration of the Hero to victory over the forces of darkness is a composition performed on the carpet from Pazyryk kurgan number 5 (Exhibit Hermitage) (Fig. 2).
In this composition depicts the scene of the fight Griffin and Hero, as a human being. Noteworthy is the fact that the image is complemented Hero "antlers" on the head and the symbols "cross in a circle", distributed over the whole figure. "The Cross in the circle" indicates the central, axial role depicted Hero. The role of the central character in the ancient world could play Celestial Pole, which is always a fixed point of the observer from the Earth as the center of rotation of the starry sky.
Figura 3. Precession of the pole around the ecliptic pole in the northern hemisphere [Precession,
1975].
In the understanding of the ancient people around this fixed point revolved not only all the starry sky, but the sun, day and night. Fixed Celestial Pole is directly observed only when it becomes the precession any Polaris, such as in our time - Alpha Ursa Minor, but 5000 years ago was the Pole Star Alpha Draconis, 9000 years ago - tau Hercules 14 thousand years ago - alpha Lyrae, 19000 years ago - delta Cygni, 21000 years ago - alpha Cephei, 26000 years ago - alpha Ursa Minor, and so on (Fig. 3) [2, p. 543].
At other times without a polar star for the poles of the world could watch the stars nearby constellations, show us how Chinese chronicles [3, p. 8]. One of these constellations for several thousand years was the Big Dipper, which is in the tradition of various Eurasian peoples symbolized by images of deer, elk and horse. In this connection it is interesting to note astral feature beautiful branched antlers in the stellar images of animals. For archaeologists, is still a mystery why in ancient societies burial alone "antlers" arranged special honors. Perhaps astronomy will give us the answer to this question. When applying various ancient drawings of deer on the outlines of the constellation Ursa Major, found that branches "antlers" star hit the a (alpha), k (ka), X (lambda) of the constellation Draco, who for thousands of years one after another were close with the poles of the world and could be considered the polar star (Fig. 4) [4, p. 135141; 5, p. 52-56; 6, p. 57-61].
Figura 4. Overlay contours constellation Ursa Major on ancient images of deer: a - of Oglakhty (Khakassia, drawing O. Sovetova; by T.L. Marsadolova) [5, 66, Fig. 83. -1; 4, 137, Fig. 49], b - with mirrors on Buhtarme (West Altai, about 700 BC, according to L.S. Marsadolov) [6, 58, Fig. 84].
Thus, for us it is clear that the image of the "antlers" and "cross-shaped symbols" in the ancient compositions could indicate Celestial Pole Star or accompanying his observation along the precession in a long time. Sam astral symbol branching "antlers" could denote line Precessions -World Pole movement.
Polar characters deer and elk known to us by the constellation Ursa Major polar character preceded Knight as first important object for the survival of the ancient people - hunters were deer and elk, but after the domestication of horses and horses also occupied a place of honor among other polar characters (Fig. 5).
Images of solar Deer and horses tied to the pole - Central Equatorial coordinate system, which, in turn, is tied to the dates of the equinoxes and solstices. In the V-II millennium BC near the poles of the world were the stars of the Big Dipper, so solar symbols while projected on the stars of Ursa Major (Fig. 4, 5a). Closer to our time near the poles of the world began to be observed stars of Ursa Minor and this is reflected in folklore, for example, in the Kazakh - two horses - daylight white and black night - ( two bright stars in the "bucket" Ursa Minor), Akbuzat and Kokbozat on laid to Temir Kazyk - Iron cola Polar Star [9, p. 2; 3, p. 62] or in Russian - the V.I. Dal "further illustrated volume explanatory dictionary of the Russian Language" is drawing horse and laid projected on Big Star and Ursa Minor (Fig. 5b) [8, p. 181]. There is also relevant to note the fact that some ancient semantic parallels, one word "Horse" denotes the Slavs - the Sun, and the British - Horse.
Then how to circumpolar stars include image Griffin?
Griffins - ancient name of mythical creatures - "dogs of Zeus". Through millennia image griffins come down to us in a symmetrical composition.
Precession Celestial
Figura 5. Polar symbols of horses and stars of Ursa Minor: a - Horse of Terekty-Aulie (Central Kazakhstan, drawing Ishangali Sagyndyk) [4, 62, Fig. 48; 7, 31], b - A Horse on the hitching post (by Dal) [8, 181].
Symmetrical arrangement relative to the central position of the Griffin with a deer or elk, or horse makes us look predation among other stars revolving around a fixed central point in the sky - the pole . Griffin image with the head and wings of a bird, the body and legs of a lion known in ancient Greek literature. On Mesopotamian clay tablets we find the image close Gryphon translated as "Demon with open jaws, Nergal" with wings and the face of human - lion, which was projected on the part of the constellation Cygnus and Cepheus [10, p. 520].
Star constellation Cygnus, located near the constellation of the Dragon, and that part where the ecliptic pole. Ecliptic pole position is equidistant with respect to moving luminaries on the
ecliptic - the Sun, Moon and planets - the largest and fastest -moving celestial objects in the night sky. Sun and Moon directly accompany the onset of the day and night, are responsible for the seasons and the life of nature - its blossoming spring-summer and autumn - winter dying. Therefore, the ecliptic pole with neighboring stars of old could become a symbol of the change of life and death. And constellations around the ecliptic pole could symbolize fertility and prosperity on the one hand, or war and death - on the other.
It is possible that the image of the Griffin was a continuation of the demonic image of Mesopotamian Nergal, with the addition thereto of the constellation stars Dragon around the ecliptic pole . But, just maybe , that this image originated independently of the Mesopotamian tradition much earlier, in more ancient times , when the stars of Cygnus already symbolized the "wings" of some mythical creatures in the deep ancient tradition, which then spread widely in the astral symbolism of ancient knowledge. These winged mythical creatures, symbolizing, including fertility and prosperity, has many Eurasian peoples. For example, Semargl Slavs - a winged dog -protects seeds and crops. Or Simurgh ( Avestan «marayo saeno», where it later pehlevy «Senmurw» and Persian Tajik "Simurr" - literally "vertex polyhedron", "bird with tree
top/Mountain") - a fantastic creature in Iranian mythology the king of all birds, also known in the mythology of the Turkic peoples of Central Asia and the Bashkirs. During the existence of the Aryan community, and after separation of the Iranians Simurgh was conceived as a giant mythical eagle. But not later than the middle of I millennium BC the part of the Iranians had the idea of Simurgh as being polymorphic. It was believed that Simurg looks like a huge falcon with female breasts or as a bird of prey with the characteristics of a lion or dog. [11] Simurg nest in the branches of the Tree of Knowledge. Tree of Knowledge in other myths guessed as a symbol of the ecliptic pole , for example, in the biblical myth of the creation of the world , in Paradise was two trees : one - the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which is guarded by the serpent (the constellation of the Dragon), and from which Eve took a bite apple, the other - the Tree of Life symbolizes the immortality of God and the immortality of the alleged unsophisticated yet Adam and Eve [12, Genesis. 2.9]. Short description of the trees it is clear that the Tree of Knowledge symbolizes the dual unity of opposites real life, that in all ancient traditions correlated with luminaries and planets on the ecliptic (located above or below relative to the horizon), and hence to the ecliptic pole, marked by the presence of a symbol or Dragon Snake and the tree of life correlated with the ideal characteristics of the fixed center of rotation of the sky - the pole - and therefore correlated with the immortal characteristics.
Several researchers have emphasized rather destructive tendencies image Griffin accompanied thirst of wealth and laceration [13, p. 371-378]. Ecliptic pole, as well as the rest of the star rotates around the pole for observers from the ground and this may explain the symmetry of the image around the Griffin single central images denoting fixed Celestial Pole or near the constellations.
Thus, studying the ancient Eurasian tradition, we can see that they reveal two deep astral parallels as an image of predatory creatures on the one hand, and peaceful creatures - on the other, the interaction of which can display a picture watching circumpolar northern starry sky. At the same time, the ravenous creatures, including the Griffins in the tradition of the Scythians, was able to display the stars and constellations around the ecliptic pole, revolving around the poles of the world as seen from the Earth's surface, and to symbolize the different realities of life, including violence and struggle, life and death. A peaceful creatures, including deer in the tradition of the Scythians, could symbolize the stars and constellations around the pole, while the "antlers" could be a symbol of the Precession of the astral.
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