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 the company of the Nereids, may be viewed as a „voyage" from life to death to rebirth. The findspot of the plates, the Black Sea region, is also significant for its association with Achilles with whom the Nereids had a special relationship: they played an important role during his passage from life to afterlife: they served as his attendants. Achilles' afterlife was associated with the Black Sea area, as was cult dedicated to him (BARRINGER 1991. 666., PINNEY 1983. 133-139.: Achilles in the Caucasus, TUITE 1998. passim.). According to ApoUonius Rhodius, the Black Sea was considered the Underworld (Argonautica 2.253,734-745.), but I think that much earlier connections between the Pontic steppe belt and Greece played here an important role: bodies of heroi were symbolically brought back to the area, where their ancestors - according to fading remembrance of things past - once had departed from. 9. Finally, according to a scholiast to Pindar 01. Ill: 45, Herakles followed the Kerynian hind, crossing the Istros, into Scythia (Ed. DRACHMANN. 1903., (non vidi), p. 119. After MORAVCSIK 1914. 237., note 1.). This motiv can be considered the direct antecedent to the Hun story recorded by Byzantine writers of the 5-6

,h Centuries AD. Extremely cruel treatment of human beings, enemies or prisoners, were, I think, not part of human behaviour of Mediterranean societies in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, but might have been characteristic of barbarian and violent Nordic (steppic) peoples, who had overrun the civilized South so many times. Only a few examples of the ancient Greek mythology: Tydeus the son of Oineus in the Theban war was wounded by Melanippus the son of Astacus. Amphiaraus killed Melanippus and brought back his head, which Tydeus split open and gobbled the brain in passion. When Athena, who was bringing Tydeus immortality, saw the horror, she turned away from him.

44 Danaus had fifty daughters, the Danaides, and Aegyptus had fifty sons. Aegyptus commanded that his sons marry the Danaides and Danaus fled to Argos, ruled by king Pelasgus. He instructed his daughters to kill their husbands on their wedding night. Forty-nine followed through, but one, Hypermnestra refused because her husband, Lynceus, honored her wish to remain a virgin. The 49 girls buried the heads of their husbands in Lerna, separated from their bodies which were deposited outside of the city-walls (Apollodorus II.i.

5.: APOLLODORUS 4L). Eurystheus: after Heracles died, Eurystheus attempted to destroy his many children, the Heracleidae, led by Hyllus, who fled to Athens. He attacked the city, but was soundly defeated, and he and his sons were killed by Hyllus. He cut his head and gave it to Alkmene (the mother of Heracles by Zeus), who gouged his eyes out with her hairpin (Apollodorus Il.viii.l.). Other examples include the famous shoulder blade of Pelops which Demeter was said to have eaten (Pausanias 5.13.4-6.), and the finger of Orestes which he bit off in his madness (Pausanias 8.34.2.). Miracle horses, horse burials and horse sacrifices Horse skeletons are extremely rare in the Mycenaean period. The horse skeleton uncovered in Vrana near Marathon, and two of the four horse skeletons from Dendra in the Argolid, cannot be dated earlier than the beginning of MH (1900 BC), but they are, very probably, somewhat later. The first pair of horses, found in the Middle Helladic B tumulus at Dendra, were secondary burials dating from the Late Helladic I period (1600-1500 BC), in other words, they are later than the first burials of Grave Circle B at Mycenae from around 1650 BC. The other two horse skeletons, uncovered Fragment of the Thebaid, scholiast on the Iliad 5.126. WEST 2003. 51., Apollodorus III.

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