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 eagle, a lion can be defeated by a lion, and finally a deer or a bird can only be overtaken by deers or birds.

15 Something similar might have been at the background of the above mentiond harnessing of a horse with reindeer mask. The power of the idea was probably enhanced by the way that, pursuing given animals, the Scythians applied symbols of quicker and wilder animals to give help to horse, and also rider. Scythian horse harnessings, and the cumulative application of stylized animals or animal parts, were not apotropaic symbols intended toward off evil spirits, but had a dynamic role to reinforce power. Many other things might have contributed to this basic idea, as for example the frequent application of wings of bird, the presence of which in the Scythian animal style surely had had common roots with the image of the ancient Greek Pegasos." (LÁSZLÓ 1943. 44-45.) Amongst the animal attributes, which would give a different appearance to a horse or assign new properties on it, there are first and foremost deer or reindeer antlers, furthermore eagle claws and eagle wings (as body parts of mythical griffons, too). I will discuss the winged Pegasos-figure later. Later Gyula László enriched his interpretations with some new, and very important, details and comparisons. In 1967, he wrote to the effect that on „one miniature of the Hungarian Illuminated Chronicle from around the middle of the XIV. Century one can see an antlerless hind,

16 which perfectly corresponds to the fact that European female deer are antlerless. Later will be shown why this, seemingly unimportant, question is of so great importance. We will then realize, that all other deer representations seen in this volume [LÁSZLÓ 1967.] have antlers, but, at the same time, we know well that all are not males (stags), but females: hinds. After a long introduction to the next part of his book, which begins with the interpretation of the Sorcerer's figure of the Lascaux cave,

17 bearing a deer's mask on its head, László continues his interpretations as follows: 'It seems, that the cult of the hind first developed amongst the hunting tribes, which slowly followed the retreat of the ice-cap to the northernmost part of our hemisphere [in Epipaleolithic times], and later it was reflected back to the South, as far as prehistoric Greece, since the companion of the goddess Artemis also was an antlered hind. ... The ancient and later artistic world of the enormously great tayga-forest and grassland belts of Eastern Europe are full of deer representations. ... All, or nearly all, of them show antlered animals, according to our present knowledge male animals: stags. ... On the other hand, however, one large Scythian breastplate, found in the Seven Brothers kurgan north of the Caucasus can solve the riddle: this stag, having large antlers, is suckling its calf [Fig. 1]. The Scythian master hammered a piece surely representing an antlered hind. As a matter of fact, amongst the Eurasian Cervws-species only the female reindeers have antlers. While reindeers now only live on the northern tundra, they had survived on more southern grasslands till the last millennia B.C., and it nevertheless follows from this fact, that the veneration of the hind, as a female ancestor, had first developed on the huge northern belt of the sparsely forested areas, on territories occupied by reindeer hunters and breeders. ... Finds from Scythian burials in the Altaj Mountains show the transformation of horses, deposited into graves of highrankig persons, into deer, using masks, as if they were Psychopompoi, guiding souls of the deceased into the Lower World.' (LÁSZLÓ 1967. 33-38.) Here Gy. László seems to have changed his former refuse in the case of the funeral-cult. At the same time, he again led back the origin of the custom of representing a hind having antlers 15 The Secret History of the Mongols from the 13

th century decribes three young Merkid warriors, Qudu, Qal and Cilia'un, who had fled from battle, as „like a lassoed wild horse, like a stag with an arrow in its body. If they grow wings and fly up into the sky, you, Siibe'etei, will you not fly up like a falcon and catch them?" (8.199., ANDERSON 1999. 381.). 16 A miniature representing the mythical hunt of Hunor and Magor in the marshes of the Maeotis. Picture no. 5 of the Illuminated Chronicle (CHRONICA PICTA) on p. 5: quibus [Magor et Hunor] in deserto cum cerva occurrisset. 17 For the interpretation of the Lascaux figure from the point of view of the most ancient Shamanism see MAKKAY 1999A. 56-71., with Figs. 1-3. 15