A black-lacquered kanthare discovered in a barrow mound near the village Krasny Podol (the Kherson Territory, Ukraine) contains a graffito, IAM (Polin 1984: 113, figure 14, 1). I suppose that it is a Scythian inscription. This word is comparable with the name of the Indo-Arian god (king of the dead) Yama. Y.A. Shilov (1995: 508) compares the Indo-Arian god Yama with the ideas "hole; grave"; see also my interpretation of a Scythian plot that describes in particular the god Yama in the form of the hole as well as the god Targitai.
Polin, S.V., 1984. Zakhoronenie skifskogo voina-druzhinnika u s. Krasny Podol na Khersonshchine. In: E.V. Chernenko (ed.) Vooruzhenie skifov i sarmatov. Kiev: Naukova dumka, pp. 103-19.
Shilov, Y.A., 1995. Prarodina Ariev: Istoriya, obryady i mify. Kiev: SINTO.
Copyright © 2001 by Sergei V. Rjabchikov. All Rights Reserved.
Published 8 October 2001.
Sergei V. Rjabchikov, Krasnodar, RUSSIA.
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