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Copyright © 1999 by Sergei V. Rjabchikov. All Rights Reserved.
THE SCYTHIAN CALENDAR ON A PANTICAPEAN COIN
by Sergei V. Rjabchikov
The picture of one side of a coin dated to the 3rd - 2nd c. B.C. (a private
collection) from the ancient town Panticapeum at the Crimea (now here is the
town Kerch) - the capital of the Bosporan kingdom - is presented in figure 1.
(On the other side one can observe the letters Pan, the standard
abridgement of the word Pantikapaion 'the town Panticapeum'.)
Figure 1.
The round mirror is represented on this coin. The small round in the centre
is the sign of the sun and the sun goddess
Tabiti,
and 12 rays symboloze a year (12 months). So this mirror played the same
role as the bronze mirrors
of Meotian-Sarmatian period discovered in the Chernyshov barrow, Republic
of Adygea, Russia. It was a calendar. Let the downward ray be March (I use
my personal decipherment of the Scythian (Sarmatian) calendar). Then the
Serpent is associated with the month May, so it is a sign of the Scythian
goddess
Argimpasa.
Near the Serpent a horn is depicted, cf. the component pasa in the name
of this goddess associated with Old Indian pacu 'herd; sacrificial
animal' and Russian pasti 'to pasture'.
The months May and August are united by the arc with the two "triangles".
The same construction unites the months June and July. They are signs
80 ma of Linear A/B; the word
ma
(mei) denotes 'solar; the sun'. It immediately follows that the
Scythian sun god
Targitaos
correlates with the summer months and this first man is the husband of the
goddess Argimpasa. Two more "triangles" are joined by a line; this is
sign 80 ma of Linear A/B again. It is connected with 6
small rounds which resemble the calendar sign P12 of
Phaistos disk.
The sign like a scythe is represented near the mark (ray) of August.
Interestingly, August was called zhniven' and serpen' in the
Russian folk calendar, cf. Russian zhat' 'to reap' and serp
'reaping-hook'.
Thus, my decipherment of the Scythian calendar is correct!
Copyright © 1999 by Sergei V. Rjabchikov. All Rights Reserved.
Published 10 November 1999; revised 18 November 1999.
Sergei V. Rjabchikov, Krasnodar, RUSSIA.
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