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

Makkay János surfaces and signs of wear on them, and all these observations exclude, that these metal pieces were only made for a short time use in the funeral cult. On the contrary! They surely were continuously used in the daily life, or during ceremonies, as parts of horse harnessings. The most important point of this question is, that some ancient peoples wanted to change the outer appearance of the horse, to be different from its natural shape, similarly to that that shamans used to have claws on their feet, and feathers and other animal symbols on their foreheads. All this is needed in order to do up to their tasks and duties. ... It is highly probable that, in addition to the transformation of a horse into a deer, many others of such animal properties were assigned to the horse, which were needed in hunting for animals. Horse rider will never catch a panther but a panther can do it, only eagle can fly a race with another Fig. 1 1. kép 14