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

MakkayJános Was it a reasonable explanation of Gyula László when he suggested, that these and other elements of the Ancient Greek mythology originated in the North, and later distributed to the South as far as the Mediterranean? It was argued by M. L. West that some cosmological details of the Delphic tradition (i.e. the Delphic 'Navel of the Earth' motiv), and other shamanistic motifs in Greek myth came from the North, from Thrace and Scythia (WEST 1997. 150.) Details connected with the golden antlered hind did not contradict this. Moreover, the assumed prehistory of the Scythian parallels, listed above, will date Northern connections (i.e. Northern antecedents) of these mythical elements to a much earlier time than generally suspected: to the first centuries of the 2

nd Mill. B.C. at least. This harmonizes well with the opinion that since the appearance in 1932 of M. P. Nilsson's famous book (NILSSON 1932.), it has been generally accepted that a substantial kernel of Greek myth goes back to the Bronze Age (WEST 1997. 438.). The poetic traditions about the Mycenaean heroes had always been the most powerful core in the classical heritage, although their exact physical civilization and place of origin had been forgotten (VERMEULE 1975. 3.). Now, we can locate this place of origin in the steppe belt north of the Black Sea with its material civilization, i.e. the Pit grave and Catacomb cultures. Concerning material representations of such mythical stories, we must remember that things may be older than their earliest literary attestations. Here an attempt was made to identify mythical themes current in Ancient Greece which appear to have antecedents (and cognates) in the North, among archaeological and literary material of IndoIranian and Iranian peoples. At the same time, however, it would be very rash to infer from a number of coincidences between Greek mythical stories and their Indo-Iranian and Iranian counterparts that some ancient Indo-European tradition lay behind both circles. The Greek mythic stories and their Indoiranian parallels share elements which might derive from at least two contexts of cultural contact at different time depths: a. myths of great or very great antiquity, widely diffused in Eurasia in early (or even proto-) Indo-European times, dating to Late Palaeolithic-Epipalaeolithic times,

40 and b. elements which most likely reflect contact between the Greeks and the Western steppe belt between the Carpathian Range and the Volga river. The question, however, emerges, how and when Indo-Iranian or Early Iranian elements or steppe motifs had become part of Ancient Greek mythological narratives? Black Sea motives: The Maeotis-story calles attention to the role the Northern Pontic played in some important parts of the Greek mythology. Ancient Greek recollections remembered curious connections of gods and heroi to the Northern Pontic area. A part of them can probably be the result of the Greek colonization of the Pontic coasts from 750 onward, others perhaps cannot. Amongst them are: 1. The poet Alkaios mentions, that Achilles once ruled on the land of the Scythians.

41 2. According to fragments of the Trojan Cycle (the Aethiopis ofArctinus of Miletus

42

), when the Achaeans buried Antilochus, and laid out the body of Achilles, Thetis came with the Muses and her sisters, and lamented her son. And presently Thetis snatched her son from the pyre and conveyed him to the White Island. This Island is in the Black Sea opposite the mouth of the Danube, the modern Ostrov Zmeinyy (WEST 2003. 113.).

43 40 W.Burkert in his comprehensive book sees in the Thetis-Peleus-Achilles story the distant echoes of the possibly Palaeolithic motif of „a Master or a Mistress of the Animals [an Artemis-like being] who must be won over to the side of the hunters .... [although] in the official religion of the Greeks this survives at little more than the level of folklore": BURKERT 1985. 172. 41 Fragment 49., ed. Bergk. Non vidi, mentioned already by NAGY 1909. 88. Achilles in the Caucasus: TUITE 1998. passim. 42 Arctinus, the son of Teleas, a pupil of Homer, lived about the ninth Olympiad (744/741): WEST 2003. 111. 43 The chronology of the extant version of this story is post-Iliadic: WEST 2003. 15.