#arimaspian

Siberian snow goggles from the Khanty, Nganasan, & Sakha

Toying with an idea here. The concept of the one-eyed Arimaspians has me curious if this was a nickname for people from the north who lived in places where snow goggles may have given the appearance of having a single eye. Given a far enough physical distance and passing through the gossip of enough different languages, by the time this info made it to the Greeks what began as a nickname may have sounded like these people were literal cyclopes. Just a thought. I assume people back then used eye protection from the snow, in some manner, just like people do today. Some of the snow goggles (both modern and historical) do give the appearance of a single giant eye, while others have two eye spots. I wasn't able to find much on this as far as historical info goes, and unfortunately I couldn't find images of the ancient grave finds the article talked about. The oldest of the discovered snow goggles being 2,000 years old from northeast Asia. I'm not sure if the initial black and white sketch is of the ancient goggles or not, the post didn't explicitly say. Below is whatever info I could find on historical snow glasses in Eurasia: 

"In ancient times, like today, these goggles were made by skilled masters to combine effectiveness in blotting out the blinding light in some cases looking amazing.

Different ethnic groups across polar regions evolved their own distinctive style in snow goggles.

The most ancient known eyewear belong to the Old Bering Sea culture, the sites of which are located on the both sides of Bering Strait.

The oldest date for the culture - around 400 years BC - was obtained on Russian side, at Ekven graveyard, in Chukotka.

The peak of the culture is considered to be in second and third centuries AD. 

At Ekven and also Uelen graveyards snow goggles made of bone were found, dating from the first to the fifth centuries AD.

Some were decorated with carvings, some not, and examples are shown here in these drawings.

Later the snow goggle tradition by Eskimos, for example the Inuits and Yupik, and the Chukchi people.

While there was an obvious practical use for the goggles, a variant of these ‘spectacles’ xxxx is believed to have been used by traditional shamans; for example a pair of goggles without holes of slips was found at Ekve

The Event and Dolgans people turned to metal in making the eyewear with copper or tin or silver goggles inserted into a half-mask made of reindeer skin or other pelt, or, later, cloth obtained from Russian incomers. Decorations with beads was also a feature.

The same type of goggles was also used by other Arctic people such as the  Nganasan or Khanty. The British Museum even has some examples.

The tradition continues to this day and is thriving in Yakutia - also known as Sakha Republic, the largest region in the Russian Federation. 

Going back in time, the Yakut people used a wide range of materials to make goggles - metal, birch bark, wood, bone, skin, and horsehair. 

The goggles created from horsehair comprised strips of intricate net. A surviving 19th century example comes not from Yakutia but Tuva, the mountainous region in southern Siberia, now in a collection in the Irkutsk Museum of Local History. 

Most of the metal goggles in Yakut collections are dated from between the 18th and early 20th centuries. 

Again, some definitely had ritualistic uses: they were deployed by shamans, and not in everyday day life for use in snow.

Many Yakuts recall that their grandfathers had very simple goggles made of birch bark. 

Local historian Prokopy Nagovitsyn said: 'The round shaped silver goggles began to make an appearance in 19th century, when there appeared many rich people. 

‘The shape had a symbolic meaning - cross in the circle had been the symbol of the sun since neolithic times. 

‘Yet the cross-shaped cuts are convenient not when you are in tundra, but when you, for example, climb steps.’

Most of the older goggles look rather simple - for example a metal strip with the small deepening for the nose and slots for sight. Others have  two round metal discs with a slit to see through while blotting out most of the glare; these were fixed into a the mask of skin or fur."

Myth Stuff - Scythian “Common” Gryphons

General Information:

Scythian Gryphon - Found from Eastern Ukraine to Kazakhstan and Arabia to Russia. Hoard shiny objects and live in dug-out burrows. 'Bout the size of a donkey. Hunt small to medium-sized animals. Known to nearly everyone in Eurasia. Several subspecies. Bred by the Romans into the modern variety. Have organs in their beaks that allow them to sense gold. Arimaspian gryphons use this gold to line their large nests in the clifface and attract mates. Very good at hunting horses (winged and otherwise), which they do regularly.

Notes:

Apulian volute krater of Arimaspian riding griffin (above) & warrior departing family (below) by Loebbecke Painter 4th C. BCE. Side A: Grabnaiskos (tomb, warrior takes leave of his father) Side B: Grave stele.

"But in the north of Europe there is by far the most gold. In this matter again I cannot say with assurance how the gold is produced, but it is said that one-eyed men called Arimaspoi (Arimaspians) steal it from Grypes (Griffins). The most outlying lands, though, as they enclose and wholly surround all the rest of the world, are likely to have those things which we think the finest and the rarest."

Etruscan stamnos of man (Arimaspian?) fighting griffin 360-350 BCE. Ceramic, top. cm 29.8; diam. opening cm 17; diam. foot cm 12.3. Inv. 39568. On the other side a figure of a winged woman, seated on a small column, crowned, wears a simple peplum and her belt. (Unfortunately I couldn't find an image of the other side).

"Aristeas was supposed to have authored a poem called the Arimaspea, giving an account of travels in the far North. There he encountered a tribe called the Issedones, who told him of still more fantastic and northerly peoples: the one-eyed Arimaspi who battle gold-guarding griffins, and the Hyperboreans among whom Apollo lives during the winter.

Longinus excerpts a portion of the poem (Longinus, On the Sublime, tr. W. Rhys Roberts. Chapter 10):

A marvel exceeding great is this withal to my soul— Men dwell on the water afar from the land, where deep seas roll. Wretches are they, for they reap but a harvest of travail and pain, Their eyes on the stars ever dwell, while their hearts abide in the main. Often, I ween, to the Gods are their hands upraised on high, And with hearts in misery heavenward-lifted in prayer do they cry.

Similarly, the Chiliades of Ioannes Tzetzes quotes the Arimaspea. These two accounts form our entire knowledge of the poem, which is otherwise lost."

Griffin & Arimaspian (Grypomachy) by the Jena Painter 4th C. BCE. Attic Red Figure. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Catalogue No. Boston 01.8092. A mounted Arimaspian warrior battles a half-lion, half-eagle Griffin. The tribesman wears a full Scythian body-suit and brandishes an axe.

"[Prometheus warns the wandering maiden Io :] ‘But now listen to another and a fearsome spectacle. Beware of the sharp-beaked hounds of Zeus that do not bark, the Grypes (Griffins), and the one-eyed (monôpoi) Arimaspoi (Arimaspians), mounted on horses, who dwell about the flood of Plouton's (Pluton's) stream that flows with gold. Do not approach them.’"

According to Herodotus, griffins were animals which guarded the gold found in the vicinity of the Arimaspians, a Scythian race.