Introduction |
The following reportedly are "Scythian" inscriptions in Greek lettering. Do we know that this is precisely the Skil of Herodotus? The speculations about the attribution, and the readings, restricted to the Indo-Iranian roots, so far remain just the speculations. Posting notes are in blue, or in blue boxes. |
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http://public.kubsu.ru/~usr02898/sl28.htm
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Golden ringThe name of the Scythian king Skil (470-450 BC) on a Scythian golden finger-ring (Ryabova and Lezhukh 2001: figure 7, 7). Found in 1930-es near Istria in Romania. According to The History of Herodotus (Book 4), this Hellenized king, the son of the Scythian king Ariapif (490-470 BC) and a Grecian woman from Istria, was dethroned and fled to Thrace. Most likely, the name Skil is not Scythian, and possibly is a Thracian name. Skil was buried not in a kurgan, like his fellow tribesmen, but in a Greek-style vault. The surrounding Scythian tribes were Neuri and Budini, the Cimmerian aborigines, and settled Greeks and Thracians.
The first inscription in Greek lettersSKULEW Transcription The second inscription in Greek lettersSKELEOEARGOTANGAR
Transcription S.V.Rjabchikov gives a reading S.V.Rjabchikov: It signifies 'Skel (= Skyl) Eo is an Aryan; (he) left a town'. The key words to this text are Old Indian gata 'gone' (cf. Russian hodit' 'to go') and Old Indian nagr 'town' (cf. Russian gorod 'town'). The third inscription IANR
Transcription S.V.Rjabchikov: I.e. Ia nr. It means 'And (even) the hero'. The key words to this text are Old Indian nr 'hero' (1) and Old Church Slavonic i 'and; and even'. PendantThe above text is parallel to the Greek text of a pendant (2): BASILEWS SKUL ALKIM
Transcription S.V.Rjabchikov: 'Of the brave king Skyl'. Coin of King Skilur
Scythian vessel2. The sign of a star and the brief record in Greek letters on a Scythian vessel (Dashevskaya 1991: 111, table 55, figure 4). The word ai may be compared with Sindian ait 'light' (3), Russian yasny 'clear; bright', South Russian yaska 'star'. On the other hand, the word ai is comparable with Hittite eia 'the World Tree' (4). AI
Sidekick3. A Scythian wall record (Dashevskaya 1991: 60, table 4, figure 1) contains in particular some signs, see figure 1.
Figure 1.S.V.Rjabchikov: Near the sign of a horse there is the text 12 10 76 sura, cf. Old Indian surya 'the sun'. Actually, the horse is equal to the fire in the Indo-Aryan beliefs (Propp 1998: 264). Moreover, the Old Indian god Surya correlates with the horses (Toporov 1992: 478). I think that the decoded fragment reports about the solar horse.
NOTES2. See Ryabova and Lezhukh 2001. 3. See Trubachev 1977: 19. 4. See Shilov 1995: 195.
REFERENCESAfanasiev, A., 1996. Proiskhozhdenie mifa. Stat'i po fol'kloru, etnografii i mifologii. Moscow: Indrik. Dashevskaya, O.D., 1991. Pozdnie skify v Krymu. Arkheologiya SSSR. Svod arkheologicheskikh istochnikov. Vol. D 1-7. Moscow: Nauka. Propp, V.Y., 1998. Morfologiya/Istoricheskie korni volshebnoy skazki. Moscow: Labirint. Rjabchikov, S.V., 2000. Tmutarakanskie graffiti. Krasnodar: Stil. Ryabova, V.A. and I.P. Lezhukh, 2001. "Chernaya arkheologiya" i istoriya skifskogo tsarya Skila. Vostochnoevropeysky arkheologichesky zhurnal, vol. 9(2). Shilov, Y.A., 1995. Prarodina Ariev: Istoriya, obryady i mify. Kiev: SINTO. Toporov, V.N., 1992. Sur'ya. In: S.A. Tokarev (ed.) Mify narodov mira. Vol. 2. Moscow: Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya, pp. 477-8. Trubachev, O.N., 1977. Lingvisticheskaya periferiya drevneyshego slavyanstva. Indoariytsy v Severnom Prichernomor'e. Voprosy yazykoznaniya, No 6: 13-31.
ηγčšöïäü
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E. Herzfeld,
"Pasargadae. Untersuchungen zur persischen Archäologie",Klio, 1908 |