A Nyíregyházi Jósa András Múzeum évkönyve 47. (Nyíregyháza, 2005)

Régészet - János Makkay: The Miracle Stag in Ancient Greek mythical stories and their Indo-Iranian counterparts

The Miracle Stag of a Semitic root with a meaning 'antlered, the shiny'. Since the hind can be identified with Artemis the Moon Goddess, and the golden antler originally related beliefs of the Heavenly Light (of the Sun, Moon and the Stars), it can be assumed that Ancient Greeks (as a result of their connections with peoples of the Orient) identified Artemis with a Star Goddess in the shape of a hind (BERZE NAGY 1927.1:

66-67., PSCHMADT 1911.22-23.). Pschmadt, however, did not give apparent explanation of the fact, why does represent the statue of Artemis, now in the collections of the Louvre, a hind wearing antlers (PECZ 1904. 247., A MŰVÉSZET 1986. Fig. on p. 127., BERZE NAGY 1927.1:67.).

8-Is, therefore, right, proper and valid if we pose again the old question: why hinds were once represented wearing antlers? According to the interpretations of Berze Nagy and Moravcsik, the two mythical stories of the Ancient Greeks (i.e. Artemis, the stag, and Io, the cow) were intermingled in the first half of the fifth century AD, when probably Sozomenos applied this story to the Huns (MORAVCSIK 1914. 336337.). They concluded, that hinds did not have a similar, 'guiding-a-tribe', role in Ancient Greek stories, and such a function was first attributed to them in the legendary Hunnic stories, based on early traditions, according to which Io, in the shape of a cow, went across the Kimmerian Bosphorus. ... The intermingling, however, of these two stories (about the escaping Io with that of the hind) - was only possible under the condition, that the image of the pursued Io-the-cow (wearing a horn, similar to the New Moon) was bound to the similarly pursued hind of goddess Artemis. The psychological conditions of this intermingling were given by the fact, that both mythical animal had astral characters, therefore hinds were to be imagined having antlers (representing the sunlight). To make them similar to the glittering moonlight, however, the story, in its developed form, visualized the antler ifit were of gold. This is the reason, why the Herakles story speaks about a hind having golden antlers, which story has many later variants, surviving till present times (BERZE NAGY 1927.1: 67-68.). I would emphasize the dating of the process suggested by Berze Nagy and Moravcsik: such a development of symbols of both Artemis and Io should have happened well before the final intermingling of their symbols, as can be seen in descriptions (and figurái representations) of the hind of Artemis, wearing antlers. This terminus ante quern simply means a terminus ad quern, to be dated into a very early, presently undefinable, period, when legendary mythical stories first began to speak about antlered hinds of reindeers, suckling their calfs, without connecting them to individual goddesses. Such an early dating, as we will see later, correlates well with thoughts and chronology of Gyula László concerning the origin of the mythical image of antlered hinds. The interpretation of Berze Nagy and Moravcsik has considerable merit, first of all because they were, who collected and discussed the greatest part of relevant ancient sources. As a result, their works are very complicated, and, at the same time, one important point escaped their attention. In the following, I would concentrate on this point, first focusing on Ancient Greek antecedents of the Hun story. The core of it will be given here by citing the exceptionally well informed summary of K. Kerényi:

9 „High mountain ranges separate the land of Argos from Arkadia to the west, the Parthenion and the Artemision. Their names (respectively 'Virgin Mountain' and 'Artemis' Mountain') remind us of the great virgin goddess who bore sway there. Artemis had her temple on a peak of the massif of Artemision and there had the title Oinatis, 'she of Oinoe' ('the wine village'), from the last little town and furthest outlying region which still belonged to Argos. Thither Herakles was now to journey, for Eurystheus set him as his third task (Apollodorus II.v.

5.) to bring the golden-antlered hind alive 8 The dichotomy between the stag and the hind is best represented by the 15. century chronicle of Johannes Thuróczy, who mentions cerva and cervus in the same chapter of its work: THURÓCZY 1978. 27., 28. 9 KERÉNYI 1959/1974. 146-148., Figs. 91-92. of the Hungarian edition of Kerényi 1959/1974 in 1997 (KERÉNYI 1977/1997.). The ancient sources are given here according to the notes of KERÉNYI 1959/1974.