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 of the Vedas (RV I. 162.), and in horse sacrifices of the Celts, the horse was cut into pieces, then parts of it were cooked and eaten in a ritual meal, and other parts were used for further blood sacrifice (VESCI 1985. 32-39., ANDERSON 1999. 384-386.). The famous Asvamedha-hymn of the Rig-Veda, „small particles of the horse flesh which the flies have eaten, those which remain sticking to the sacrificial post and to the hatchet, and those which remain adhering to the hands and finger-nails of the immolator". (Rig-Veda I. 162.9.). There is an interesting, however late, parallel of cutting the horse to pieces at sacrifices, this time at a ceremony of taking an oath, when the suitors of Helen swore an oath promising to defend the interests of the successful winner. The curious, and rarely mentioned, ceremony was described by Pausanias: On the road from Sparta to Arcadia there stands „the Tomb of Horse. For Tyndareus, having sacrificed a horse here, administered an oath to the suitors of Helen, making them stand upon the pieces of the horse. The oath was to defend Helen and him who might be chosen to marry her if ever they should be wronged. When he had sworn the suitors he buried the horse here." (III.xx.9. JONES 1955. II. 131.) Horse sacrifice at a ceremony of taking an oath was also customarily in the society of the Mongol khans in the 13—14

lh Centuries AD. (VEIT 1989.). The presently known oldest source, however, in relation to oath-taking and equid-sacrifice comes from the eighteenth century Mari where 'to kill a donkey foal' was a technical term for making a covenant (WEST 1997. 21., with reference to DALEY 1984. 140-141.). These facts can be summarized as follows: the horses of classical antiquity were derived from animals domesticated upon the northern steppes and brought into the Mediterranean region from the early 2

nd millennium B.C. onwards. Representations of horses can be seen on stelai found in the Shaft Graves of Mycenae. Bones of domesticated horses, coming from sure contexts, however, have not been reported from EBA sites and cemeteries as yet. The dismembering sacrifice of horse (as seen in Archanes and recorded by Pausanias) has its excellent parallels in the Sintashta culture of the Volga-Ural area, esp. in the Bolshekaragansky cemetery (ZDANOVICH-GAYDUCHENKO 2002.). I. e. in the same culture and area where disc-chaped lugged bit-ends (as parallels of similar finds from the shaft graves at Mycenae) and bone 'showels' have been found. Among the earliest evidence for the horse as significant religious symbol in Greece and Crete is the dismembering sacrifice structurally related to those known from the area of Indo-Iranian tribes of the Bronze Age. Connecting rituals and beliefs can be traced back to the same area, and influences arrived from this northern common stock of myths where they were shared among the various Indo-Iranian cultures to which the horse became an indispensable property. Winged, immortal and man-eating horses are important part of the Ancient Greek mythological narrative. Interestingly enough, the person, or the family, of Sisyphos connect several threads of such stories together. These mythological events can be considered results of independent developments taking place in Mainland Greece after the introduction of the first domesticated horses from the North around and after 1900 BC. They can, however, also be interpreted as elements in Greek myth which came from the North, from the steppe lying north and northeast of the Pontus Euxinus, from Scythia. I support this last possibility. Bellerophontes and the Pegasus. The elder Glaukus was the son of Sisyphus (son of Aiolos) and Merope, and the father of Bellerophontes who, according to another tradition, was a son of Poseidon and Eurynome.

48 He asked his father for a winged horse, which Poseidon granted to his The younger Glaukos (the Lycian), the close ally of king Priamos in the Trojan war, was the grand-grandson of the elder Glaukos, and as such the grandson of Bellerophon. 40