Scythian images of the snake legged goddess
While I’ve written about the Scythian anguipede goddess, I haven’t made a post focusing on strictly ancient Scythian representations of this theme. Therefore, this post is on all the images of the tendril goddess I’ve researched so far, found in ancient Scythian territories.
Scythian goddess, 340-300 BC. Bronze pommel. Found: Alexandropol burial mound (Lugovaya Mogila) Right bank of the Lower Dnieper, near Nikopol, Yekaterinoslav province, Russia.
Figure on left: MF Sumtsov Kharkiv Historical Museum. Figure on right: St Petersburg Hermitage Museum.
Possible Scythian vegetation goddess. Pendants from the Kul-Oba burial mound, Crimea, 4th century BCE.
Object said to be St Petersburg museum, but I can’t find it on their website. Image from this book: Williams, Dyfri, et al. Greek Gold: Jewelry of the Classical World. Abrams, 1994. Fig 85.
Drawing of the gold diadem from the Kul'-Oba burial mound, Kerch, Crimea. Info and image from Ustinov 2005.
Scythain ancestral goddess, 4th century BCE. Facing for a Horse's Frontlet. Found in Tsymbalka Barrow, Dnieper Area, Zaporozhye Region, formerly the Taurida Province Russia (now Ukraine). The Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.
Serpent legged goddess plaque, from the burial mound in Kul-Oba, near Kerch, Crimea, Ukraine. First half of the 4th century BCE. The Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.
Scythian goddess, silver plate from Kuban region, Maykop, Mariinskaya village. 2nd half of the 4th - beginning of the 3rd century BCE. Full view of plate here. State Historical Museum, Moscow.
Scythian goddess, silver or gold dish from the Chertomlyk burial mound, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Ukraine. Info from Laws 1961. Image from this website. Full post here.
Tendril limbed goddess, earrings from the Butory tumulus. Found in the Grigoriopol district in 1972.
“Sometimes the standard type of the tendril-limbed goddess evolved into a new pattern, of a still less human monster, for instance on earrings from the Butory tumulus" Info from Ustinov 2005. Photo from this news article (in Russian.)
Master / Mistress of Animals with tendril or snake legs. Cornice fragment from Chersonesus, Crimea. No precise date, listed as “Ancient Greek.” Info from Petrov and Makarevich 1963; photo from website dedicated to Kostsyushko’s Chersonesus reports. Full post here.
Scythian goddess, plaque. “On a plaque found during excavations of a burial mound near the village of Elizavetinskaya (second half of the 5th century – 4th century BC; (Fig. 1, 2) a woman without arms is depicted with a calathus on her head and two pairs of snake legs curved in a ring." Info and image from Petrov and Makarevich 1963.
Scythian goddess, gold plaque, found in the village of Labinskaya. Info and image from Petrov and Makarevich 1963.
Ivory pendant from the Bol'shaya Bliznitsa tumulus. Info and image from Petrov and Makarevich 1963, and Ustinov 2005.
Winged goddess on a plaque from Chersonesos, Crimean peninsula. Photo from Artamonov 1961.
Image a of snake-legged creatures on the sides of Bosporan sarcophagi; plaque from a burial mound in Kul-Oba, Kerch, Crimea. Photo from Artamonov 1961.
Scythian anguiped goddess, terracotta plate. with an image of a female deity. Made in Crimea, Chersonesos Taurica necropolis. 1st century CE. State Historical Museum, Moscow. Full post here.
Winged, two tailed goddess, sarcophagus decoration, 1st-2nd CE. Northern Black Sea region, Panticapaeum site. Found in Kerch, Crimea. State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg.
Snake legged goddess, plaster cast, 1st-2nd CE. Northern Black Sea Region, Nymphaeum necropolis. Found in Kerch, Crimea. State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg. Compare this image with a similar figure in a Berlin museum.
Acroterion with a double-sided image of the goddess. 1st century BCE / 1st-2nd century CE. Limestone. Pantikapaion necropolis, the north side of Mount Mithridates, Kerch. Exhibit: Treasures of Crimea. The Return. Treasury of the National Museum of the History of Ukraine.
This list is by no means exhaustive. I apologise for the images I couldn’t find actual photographs of. While I can read menus in Ukrainian, I really struggle with Russian, and most of the sources for these are in Russian. Also, I only have so much patience to track things down.
I’ll definitely be returning to this subject again.
Sources
Ustinova, Yulia. "Snake-Limbed and Tendril-Limbed Goddesses in the Art and Mythology of the Mediterranean and Black Sea." Scythians and Greeks: Cultural Interaction in Scythia, Athens and the Early Roman Empire (Sixth Century B.C. - Fist Century A.D.). Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2005.
V. P. Petrov and M. L. Makarevich, 'Skifskaya Geneologycheskaya Legenda,' Sovjetskaya Arkheologia. (1963), 20-31. G. Pinza (Ed.), Materiali per la etnologia … (Скифская Генеалогическая Легенда,' Советская Археология)
Article available here, in Russian: https://arheologija.ru/petrov-makarevich-skifskaya-genealogicheskaya-legenda
Image also seen here: Ancient Iranian image of the Chronotope as represented by a secondary source: https://journals.indexcopernicus.com/api/file/viewByFileId/2158389
Zinchenko S.A. No.18 (2023)Zinchenko S.A. Tops with the image of a female deity from the Alexandropol burial mound: on the possibility of identification / personification of the character
Софья Зинченко uploaded a paper Навершия с изображением женского божества из Александропольского кургана: о возможности идентификации / персонификации персонажа by Софья Зинченко 2023
Link to her article online: http://www.historystudies.msu.ru/ojs2/index.php/ISIS/article/view/334/764
M.I. Artamonov Anthropomorphic deities in the religion of the Scythians. // ASGE. [Issue] 2. Scythian-Sarmatian time. L.: Publishing house of the State Hermitage. 1961. P. 57-87.
Laws, Guitty Azatpay. "A Herodotean Echo in Pompeian Art?" American Journal of Archaeology 65, 1 (1961): 31-35.
