Scythian religion

The Scythian religion refers to the mythology, ritual practices and beliefs of the Scythian cultures, a collection of closely related ancient Iranian peoples who inhabited Central Asia and the Pontic–Caspian steppe in Eastern Europe throughout Classical Antiquity, spoke the Scythian language (itself a member of the Eastern Iranian language family), and which included the Scythians proper, the Cimmerians, the Sarmatians, the Alans, the Sindi, the Massagetae and the Saka.

The Scythian religion is assumed to have been related to the earlier Proto-Indo-Iranian religion as well as to contemporary Eastern Iranian and Ossetian traditions, and to have influenced later Slavic, Hungarian and Turkic mythologies.

Development

The Scythian religion was connected to the Indo-Iranian traditions, and was influenced by that of the populations whom the Scythians had conquered, such as the sedentary Thracian populations of the western Pontic steppe. Due to this, many of the Scythian male deities had equivalents in the pantheon of the Thracian peoples, including those living in Anatolia, and some of the names of these deities were of Thracian origin; the Scythian female deities, and especially their links with special cults and their rites and symbols, were also connected to Thracian and Anatolian culture.

During the Scythians' stay in Western Asia, their religion had also been influenced by ancient Mesopotamian and Canaanite religions.

Cosmology

The Scythian cosmology corresponded to the typically Indo-Iranian tripartite structure of the universe , which is also present in the Vedic and Avestan traditions, and according to which the universe was composed of:
* the celestial realm
* the middle air
* earthly realm and the underworld

Pantheon

According to Herodotus of Halicarnassus, the Scythians worshipped a pantheon of seven gods and goddesses (heptad), which he equates with Greek divinities of Classical Antiquity following the . He mentioned eight deities divided into three ranks, with this structure of the Scythian pantheon being typically Indo-Iranian:

# In the first rank was the head of the pantheon:
#* Tabiti, the Flaming One, who was the goddess of heat, fire and the hearth
# In the second rank were the binary opposites and the father and mother of the universe:
#* , the Earth and Water Mother
#* , the Sky Father
# The third and final rank was composed of four deities with specific characteristics:
#* , the forefather of the Scythian kings
#* The Scythian "Ares," the god of war
#* , who might have been associated with the Sun
#* , a more complex goddess who was a patron of fertility and had power over sovereignty and the priestly force
:*An eighth Scythian deity mentioned by Herodotus was , who was worshipped only by the tribe of the Royal Scythians.

This list of the Scythian deities by Herodotus might have been a translation of a Scythian hymn to the gods which was chanted during sacrifices and rituals.

With the omission of Thagimasadas who was worshipped only by the Royal Scythians, the Scythian pantheon was composed of seven gods, with the Sarmatian tribe of the Alans also being attested as worshipping seven deities, and traces of a similar tradition being recorded among Ossetians. This heptatheism was a typical feature of Indo-Iranian religions: seven led by Ahura Mazdā are worshipped in the Zoroastrian religion of the more southern Iranian peoples, which had significantly transformed the concepts of the Indo-Iranian religion while also inheriting several features of it; the leading deities of the Indic Vedic pantheon, the , were also seven in number.

This pantheon was a reflection of the Scythian cosmology, headed by the primeval fire which was the basic essence and the source of all creation, following which came the Earth-Mother and Sky-Father who created the gods, the latter of whom were the four custodians of the four sides of the world regulating the universe. The world inhabited by humans existed between this celestial realm and the chthonic realm below the earth.

The first rank

Tabiti

The Scythian name of the goddess () was , which meant "the Burning One" or "the Flaming One," was the goddess of the primordial fire which alone existed before the creation of the universe and was the basic essence and the source of all creation, and from her were born Api (the Earth) and Papaeus (Heaven).

Tabiti the most venerated of all Scythian deities, is associated with Indo-Iranian concept of fire. She was not, however, depicted in Scythian art, and was instead represented by the fireplace, which constituted the sacral centre of any community, from the family to the tribe.

As a goddess of the hearth, Tabiti was the patron of society, the state, and families, and she thus protected the family and the clan, and was a symbol of supreme authority. The king's hearth was hence connected with Tabiti, and Tabiti herself was connected with royal power.

The "hearths" ()hestiai of Tabiti were likely the flaming gold objects which fell from the sky in the Scythian genealogical myth and of which the king was the trustee while Tabiti herself in turn was the protector of the king and the royal hearth.

The second rank

The Scythian goddess of the birth-giving chthonic principle was Api (; ) or Apia (Hellenised as ; ). This goddess's role is reflected by her name, , which was a Scythian cognate of the Avestan word for water, (), and through her equation by Herodotus of Halicarnassus with the Greek goddess of the Earth, ( ). Api was the daughter of the god Borysthenēs, due to which she was also called ().

The identification of Api as a goddess of both Earth and water rested upon the conceptualisation in ancient cosmologies of Earth and water as being two aspects of the same birth-giving chthonic principle; and, within Iranian tradition, the earth was a life-giving principle which was inextricably connected to water, which was itself held to have fertilising, nourishing, and healing properties. The name Api was also linked to a child-talk endearing word meaning "mommy," with these various connections of Api and her name painting the consistent picture of her as a primordial deity from whom was born the world's first inhabitants.

Api was connected to the Avestan water goddess Arəduuī Sūrā Anāhitā, one of whose epithets was (); the name of Api's father, the aquatic god Borysthenēs, might have meant "place of beavers," thus possibly connecting him to the mantle of beaver skins worn by the latter goddess in Avestan scripture, and in turn establishing another connection between Api and Arəduuī Sūrā Anāhitā. Being a goddess of water and earth, Api was also similar to the Zoroastrian Ameshaspand Armaiti.

Api was the consort of Papaios, with the two of them initially existing together into an inseparable unity and their union representing the joining of opposite principles such as above and below, male and female, warmth and moisture, and therefore reflecting the Indo-Iranian tradition of the marriage between Heaven and Earth as the basis for the creation of the world, - and paralleling the union between Ahurā Mazdā and the Ameshaspand Armaiti (who takes care of Earth) in the .

The union of Api and Papaios gave birth to the "middle world," that is the air space, which is the part of the cosmos where humanity and all physical beings lived. From the union of Api and Papaios were also born the gods of the third rank of the Scythian pantheon, who were associated with the "middle world." The completion of this process of cosmogenesis created an ordered universe made up of three zones - a cosmic one, a central one, and a chthonic one - located each above the other.

As a primordial goddess who gave birth to the first inhabitants of the world, Api remained aloof from worldly affairs and did not interfere with them after the creation of the world and the establishment of the proper order.

The worship of Api by Scythian peoples is attested in Strabo's mention that the Derbices worshipped "Mother Earth."

Papaeus

The Scythian personification of Heaven and equivalent of the Zoroastrian great god Ahura Mazdā () was the god Papaeus (), who, like Ahura Mazdā, was also a divine father. This is reflected in the original Scythian name of this god, which was , meaning "father." Papaios was the consort of the Earth goddess Api, hence why he was equated by Herodotus of Halicarnassus with the Greek god Zeus.

Papaios was the son of Tabiti, the primordial fire. Papaios and Api initially existed together into an inseparable unity, with their union representing the joining of opposite principles such as above and below, male and female, warmth and moisture, and therefore reflecting the Indo-Iranic tradition of the marriage between Heaven and Earth as the basis for the creation of the world, - and paralleling the union between Ahurā Mazdā and the Earth goddess Armaiti in the .

The union of Papaios and Api gave birth to the "middle world," that is the air space, which is the part of the cosmos where humanity and all physical beings lived. From the union of Api and Papaios were also born the gods of the third rank of the Scythian pantheon, who were associated with the "middle world." The completion of this process of cosmogenesis created an ordered universe made up of three zones - a cosmic one, a central one, and a chthonic one - located each above the other.

According to Origen of Alexandria, the Scythians considered Papaeus to be a supreme god, hence why the ancient Greeks were able to identify him with their own god Zeus, who was conceptualised as a cosmic force who ruled over and was the father of all peoples and gods throughout the world, including in Scythia.

The scholar Yazdan Safaee argues that Darius the Great's statement in the Behistun Inscription that the Scythians did not worship Ahura Mazdā thus had no basis and was a political statement resulting from the hostilities between the Persian Empire and the Scythians.

The third rank

The deities of the third rank of the Scythian pantheon were associated to the "middle world" inhabited by humans and physical living beings, and which the Scythian cosmology, like all ancient cosmologies, conceptualised as a square plane with four sides each corresponding to one of the radical coordinates as a structural aspect of space. Each side of this quadrangular earthly plane had a symbol, and was thus associated to one of the four deities of the third rank, who were the collective personification of the four-sided "middle world," with a similar concept being found in Indic mythology in the form of the , the four guardian-gods of the directions, who each also had their own "sphere of action," such as Yama, the guardian of the South, being the ruler over the world of the deceased ancestors, and Indra, the guardian of the East, being the king of the gods and the personification of the "middle world."

The Scythian god (meaning "possessing the strength of the goddess Tarkā"; ) or (; ), appears in the Greek recollections of Scythian genealogical myth where he was called the "Scythian Hēraklēs" by Herodotus of Halicarnassus, although he was not the same as the Greek hero Heracles. Targī̆tavah-Skuδa was born from the union of Papaeus and Api, and he was the divine ancestor of the Scythians.

Targī̆tavah might also have been identified by the Greeks in southern Scythia with Achilles Pontarkhēs (), in which role he was associated with the Snake-Legged Goddess and was the father of her three sons.

The Scythian "Ares"

The Scythian "Ares," that is the Scythian war god equated by Herodotus with the Greek god Ares (), corresponded to the Iranian deity Vərᵊϑraγna, and might possibly have been an offspring of Tabiti. The Scythian "Ares" was also a god of kingship, and the use of horses and of the blood and right arms of prisoners in his cult was a symbolic devotion of the swiftness of horses and the strength of men to this god who had similar powers.

The Scythian and Sarmatian "Ares" was represented by an sword planted upwards at the top of a tall square altar made of brushwood of which three sides were vertical and the fourth was inclined to allow access to it. The Scythian "Ares" was given blood sacrifices and his representation in the form of a sword are evidence of his military function.

The tallness of the mound which acted as the altar to the Scythian "Ares," as well as the practice of throwing the right arms of prisoners sacrificed to him in the sky, are evidence of the celestial nature of the Scythian "Ares" as a god of the middle air, that is the practice of throwing these sacrificed arms in the air indicate that the Scythian "Ares" was associated to the gods of the sky and wind, () and Vāiiu (), and more especially the wind, since the wind-god Vāiiu was the first incarnation of Vərᵊϑraγna and a special carrier of /. This is also recorded in the works of the Greek author Lucian of Samosata, who recorded that the Scythians worshipped the Wind and the Sword as gods, referring to the dual nature of the Scythian "Ares" as a god of both the Wind, which brings gives life, and the Sword, which brings death; the dual nature of this god is also visible in the used to represent him being shaped like a phallus, thus being a deadly weapon which was also shaped in the form of a life-giving organ.

The Thracian neighbours of the Scythians also represented their war god with an iron sword and offered him bloody sacrificed and wine libations, although it is unknown whether the Thracians adopted this custom from the Scythians or vice versa.

The Sarmatians similarly represented their "Ares" in the form of a sword planted upright, and, according to Tadeusz Sulimirski, this form of worship continued among the descendants of the Sarmatians, the Alans, through to the 4th century AD; this tradition may be reflected in Jordanes's assertion that Attila had obtained the sacred Scythian sword which had fallen from the sky that he called the " Sword of Mars," and which he believed made him powerful in war and made of him the "prince of the entire world."

=Legacy

=
The hero Batyraʒ from the Ossetian might have originated from the Scythian "Ares." In the sagas, Batyraʒ appears as a brave but uncontrolled warrior living in the middle air and sometimes took the form of a whirlwind, who often protected his peoples from multiple enemies. He was made of steel and connected to his sword, which provided him with immortality so long as it remained unbroken, thus being the incarnation of Batyraʒ himself.

The Scythian god (; ), might have been a solar deity, due to which Herodotus equated him with the Greek god Apollo). Gaiϑāsūra may have been closely associated to the goddess Artimpasa.

The Scythian name is comparable to Avestan () and Vedic Sanskrit (), with the Avestan form being an epithet of Miϑra as the "Lord of Cattle-Land," that is a deity of cattle culture widely worshipped by the common people in Scythian society. The first term composing this name, , meaning "herd" and "possessions," is a cognate of Avestan (), meaning "cow pasture," and reflects the nature of "Apollo Goetosyrus" as a Hellenization of the Iranian deity Mithra (); the second element , meaning "strong" and "mighty," is the same as the Avestan element , meaning "mighty," from the name of the goddess Arəduuī Sūrā Anāhitā (), and is connected to the Scythians' association of Gaiϑāsūra with the goddess Artimpasa, who had absorbed many of the traits of Arəduuī Sūrā Anāhitā.

Due to the connections of Gaiϑāsūra's and his identification with the Greek god Apollo, he has been identified with Miϑra, although this identification is largely tentative, with the multiple functions of Apollo contributing to this uncertainty.

Depictions of a solar god with a radiate head and riding a carriage pulled by two or four horses on numerous pieces of art found in Scythian burials from the 3rd century BC and later might have been representations of Gaiϑāsūra.

An alternative orthography for the Hellenised name of this god was (; ), which has led to an alternative etymology in the form of , meaning "might of the willow," which would connect him with the Scythian practice of divination using willow rods.

Artimpasa

Artimpasa (; ), often erroneously called Argimpasa (Ancient Greek: ) due to a scribal corruption, was a complex androgynous Scythian goddess of fertility who possessed power over sovereignty and the priestly force.

Artimpasa was a goddess of warfare, sovereignty, priestly force, fecundity, vegetation and fertility, and was the Scythian variant of the Iranian goddess Arti ()/ Aṣ̌i (), who was a patron of fertility and marriage and a guardian of laws who represented material wealth in its various forms, including domestic animals, precious objects, and a plentiful descendance. Artimpasa had also been influenced by the Iranian goddess Anāhitā, the Assyro-Babylonian Ištar- ʿAštart, and by the Thracian Great Mother goddess Bendis, thus making her an altogether complex deity.

Artimpasa was thus equated by Herodotus with the Greek goddess Aphrodite Urania, who herself presided over productivity in the material world.

Thagimasidas

Thagimasadas () or Thamimasidas () was a god worshipped only by the tribe of the Royal Scythians. Thagimasadas was thus not a member of the pan-Scythian heptatheistic pantheon and was likely the tribal- and ancestor- deity of the Royal Scythians.

The etymology of the name of this deity is uncertain, and element of the god's name might be derived from the Iranian term , meaning "great"; the element might have been a cognate of the Avestan word (, meaning "firmament"), and the Vedic Sanskrit term () or (), meaning "to create by putting into motion."

Herodotus identified Thagimasadas with the Greek god Poseidon because both Thagimasadas and Poseidon (in his form as Poseidon Hippius, ) were horse-tamer deities, but also because, among the Athenians who were his audience, Poseidon was identified with Erichthonius of Athens, whom the Athenians considered their mythical ancestor, similarly to how Thagimasadas was believed to be the ancestor of the Royal Scythians.

The equation of Thagimasadas with Poseidon might also be due to his possible role as a fashioner of the sky and hence was connected to sky-waters and thunderbolts just like the Greek Poseidon was. Alternatively, Thagimasadas might have been a god of the rivers of Scythia, which played an important role in the lives of the Scythians.

The Scythian images of a winged horse inspired from that of the Greek Pegasus might have been connected to Thagimasadas.

Other deities

The Snake-Legged Goddess

The Scythian deity known in modern-day as the "Snake-Legged Goddess," also referred to as the "Anguipede Goddess," so called because several representations of her depict her as a goddess with snakes or tendrils as legs, was associated to the life-giving principle. The Snake-Legged Goddess was a daughter of Api, likely through a river-god, and belonged to a younger generation of deities of "lower status" who were more actively involved in human life.

She appears in all variations of the Scythian genealogical myth as the Scythian fore-mother who sires the ancestor and first king of the Scythians with Targī̆tavah, and her representations in art with a beard suggests that she was an androgynous goddess just like the goddess Artimpasa to whom she was affiliated.

The Greeks of Pontic Olbia often identified the Snake-Legged Goddess with their own goddesses Cybele, Demeter and Hecate. Representations of Demeter and her daughter Persephone on Greek-manufactured Scythian decorative plates might have been connected to this identification of the Snake-Legged Goddess with Demeter.

From the fifth century BC historian Herodotus, we learn of a creature who, though Herodotus does not name as Echidna, is called an echidna ("she-viper") and resembles the Hesiodic Echidna in several respects. She was half woman half snake, lived in a cave, and was known as a mother figure, in this case, as the progenitor of the Scythians (rather than of monsters).

The Divine Twins

The mytheme of the Divine twins, which appears across several Indo-European religions in the form of the Ancient Greek Dioskouroi, the Vedic Aśvins and the twins from the Dacian tablets - these divine twins had in earlier Indo-European mythology been horses before later evolving into horsemen such as the Aśvins and the English Hengist and Horsa, who had horse-names. In Indo-European mythology, the divine twins were companions of the Mother-Goddess who flanked her symbol of the Tree of Life, especially in depictions of them as two horses or horsemen who stand symmetrically near a goddess or a tree.

In pre-Zoroastrian Iranian religion, (), the Iranian inflection of the divine twins, were connected with Anāhitā and were her companions. The cult of the divine twins existed among the Scythians, with Lucian of Samosata recording the veneration of two twin deities in a Scythian temple whom he identified with the Greek Orestes and Pylades. Their duality represented the contrast of death against fertility and resurrection, and were related to royalty and warrior society, which thus made them companions of Artimpasa, as depicted in the Karagodeuashkh plate.

Depictions of the divine twins among Scythian peoples included some Sarmatian royal brands depicting the theme of the two horsemen standing symmetrically near a tree, a small figure from a Scythian burial at Krasny Mayak depicting two men embracing one another, as well as two Greek-made bronze figurines from Scythian Neapolis depicting the Greek Dioscuri who were identified by the Scythians with the divine twins, together with a terracotta sculpture in the shape of a goddess's head were discovered in an ash altar near a wall of a temple where was worshipped a fertility goddess to whom was associated images of rams

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