Folia archeologica 5.
br. Ghillány Éva: A szurdokpüspöki szkíta lelet
54 GHILLÁNY : SCYTHIAN FINDS OF SZURDOKPÜSPÖKI dispersed. Taking all this into consideration we may assume, that the ear, seen on the bone carving of Szurdokpüspöki, belongs to such an animal's head, and the pattern itself is the composition of two animal-motives. I support this assumption with the known factt hat the Scythian animal-motives very easily disintegrate into their component elements and these are used either quite separately or one or two united, but often unrecognisably stylised. How early this progress started is shown in one of the pole-ornaments found at Ulszki aul. s This bronze cast derives from 7 t h —6 ,h century B. C., thus it is a very early piece. 9 The whole specimen represents a griffin's head, but the details are entirely disintegrated. On the one side of the cast there are three smaller griffins' heads, these are fairly uniform, but the uniform outline of the fourth cannot be traced. The head, the ear and the beak are all placed separately, but in spite of the fact that they all have independent rôles, they fit perfectly into the organic unity of the motive. Naturally it is very much stylised. The other very good example of the separation of the component elements on a bone carving is an object from Agrinskij bogatir (PI. I. 4), preserved in the Museum of Kazán. The back is concave : its use unknown : perhaps a spoon. 1 0 It is not unique, a similar object from Pisamskoje gorodiscen 1 1 is in the Historical Museum of Moscow. On the former we can also find a griffin's head. Here the eye and the upper rim of the beak are closely connected, while the lower jaw is a separate part. The ear is missing, perhaps it was on the broken part. Incidentally this griffin's head emphasises the front leg of a large animal (bear); so its rôle is the same as that of the known animal figures from Garcsinovo. 1 2 These two examples clearly show that in the present case we may speak about the 7 Kuban, Stanica Vorenesskaja. From the excavation of Veselovsky. At present preserved in the Historical Museum of Moscow. Published : Otcot, 1903, p. 74, fig. 142. 8 Borovka, Scythian Art. London, 1928, PI. 24. " Borovka, op. cit. p. 98. 1 0 From notes of Dr. N Fettich made in Russian Museums. Photograph is not obtainable in consequence of war conditions 1 1 Province of Viatka. Jaransk district. Near Kukarka (called to-day Sovjetsk) From notes of Dr. N. Fettich 1 2 Fettich, A garcsinouoi szkita lelet. (The Scythian find of Garcsinovo.) Arch. Hung. XV, 1934, PI. 3. 1-2. separation of the component elements. But there is another probability too, which I have already mentioned in the beginning : that the ear is still the ear of the griffin. Namely on the Sibirian gold finds coming to light in the period of Peter the Geat, the ears of the griffins decorating the antlers and manes of the animals fall gradually backward and show precisely this shape. 1 8 It is true that these objects belong to a much later period than those we are dealing with here. But there is another difficulty in the way of our assumption, namely, on our find the ear is in a reversed position. It seems more probable that this ear, because of its disproportionate size does not belong to the griffin's head, but is the remains of the animal's head of the aforementioned two-part compositions (Pl. I, 7—8). I myself make this assumption at any rate as long as new finds do not prove it to be wrong. To the other find of Szurdokpüspöki I know of no parallel either from Hungary or from Russia, so I am unable to use it for determining its date. Returning to the bone implement there is difficulty in determining its date as there does not occur even a resembling bone implement in the Hungarian group of relics to which this object belongs. On the whole object the archaic feature predominates but the form itself is dispersed, thus quite developed. According to Rostovtzev 1 4 the Sçythian finds from Hungary differ from those of South Russia in that in Hungary the Greek import element is missing. It seems that the Scythians had lived in Hungary quite isolated and previous to the tribes in Dobrudzsa and in the neighbourhood of the mouth of the Don. He even affirms that the Dobrudzsán Scythians had not come from Transylvania. He says the following : The Hungarian group of finds constitute a complete whole. The form and type of the Scythian objects is archaic and it remains so. In the development of the animal-motives in South Russia the Scythians of Transylvania scarcelly took part : even as they had no permanent connection with the Greeks. They lived isolated and in time were absorbed by the local inhabitants. The archaic • 1 3 Borovka, Scythian Art. London. 1928, p. 103, Pis. 48-49. 1 4 Rostovtzev, Skythien und der Bosporus, Berlin 1939, pp. 530 ff.
