Copyright © 1999 by Sergei V. Rjabchikov. All Rights Reserved.

THE INTERPRETATION OF THE WESTERN SLAVONIC INSCRIPTIONS

by Sergei V. Rjabchikov

I decoded the ancient Slavonic alphabet, so-called cherty i rezy (Rjabchikov 1998a: 5-6; 1998b: 23) and read some ancient Western Slavonic and Russian records performed by this writing system. Let us examine several texts (Masch 1771) from the temple of Retra from the ancient Slavonic town Arkon. It was situated at a Baltic land. Notice that sometimes the vowels are omitted in the texts. The interpretation is based on the my previous articles, The Scythians, Sarmatians, Meotians, Russians and Circassians: Interpretation of the Ancient Cultures and The Proto-Palestinian, Proto-Sinaian and Proto-Byblian Inscriptions: A Slavonic Key.

1. The figurine of a god contains a brief record (see figure 1).

Figure 1.

It reads rzhe ira, i.e. R(o)zhe yara 'the furious (god) Rod', cf. Russian ariets 'Aryan', yary, yarostny 'furious'.

2. The head of the figurine of the sun god is decorated with eight "rays". The accompanying text is presented in figure 2.

Figure 2.

It reads Rerezh reppe; tre; rpnh. Greu, ar. Rarezh is the Western Slavonic sun god Rarog. The form reppe compares with the Scythian form arpo 'cattle-breeder, lit. worker' as well as with Russian rabotat' 'to work' (the root rab) and German arbeiten 'to work'. So the expression Rerezh reppe signifies 'the sun god Rerezh is working'. The sentence means 'The sun god Rerezh is working; (he) is rubbing (one piece of a dry wood against another); (he) has worked. (He) heats, (he is) the furious (god) = the Western Slavonic god Yarovit'. The form tre compares with Russian teret' 'to rub', and the form rgeu - with Russian gret', sogrevat' 'to heat'.

3. The head of the figurine of a lion is decorated with the "rays". The text of this artifact reads Rerag (see figure 3).

Figure 3.

It is the name of the sun god known as Rarog (it means in my opinion Ra rog 'The Sun produces' (1); cf. the analogous construction, Svarog, the name of the Russian supreme pagan god, with the same meaning).

Figure 4.

Another text (see figure 4) reads s tag, i.e. se tag 'this is the sun', cf. Old Slavonic se 'this; that', Old Indian dahas 'fire, heat', German Tag 'day', Circassian tyg''e, dyg''e 'the sun', Old Prussian dagis 'summer', Lithuanian dagas 'harvest'.

4. The figurine of a god with horse's legs is covered with the record ir tp, i.e. yar tap (see figure 5).

Figure 5.

The first term, yar is comparable with Russian ariets 'Aryan', yary, yarostny 'furious', and the second - with Old Indian tap 'to heat, to warm', tapas 'heat', Russian topit' 'to heat', teply 'warm'. In the Indo-Arian mythology the horse is equal to the god Agni 'Fire' (Propp 1998: 264). The word retre is written under the decoded segment (see figure 6).

Figure 6.

I read it as the god's name Ret Ra 'The fast (horse) of the sun deity (the Egyptian god Ra)', cf. also Russian retivy kon' 'fast horse'. Therefore the name of the town, Arkon, means lit. Ar Kon 'The furious Horse' (cf. Russian kon' 'horse'). It is known that in the temple of this town there was the statue of the god Sventovit (Svento Vit 'the solar (god) Vit'). A saddle, a bridle and a large sword were near the statue. A white horse was attached to the temple (Ivanov, Toporov 1992; Belyakova 1995: 93-5). The features of this sun god Vit are a horse and a sword. On the other hand, the same attributes concern Agin/Agni, the Scythian god of war. It is possible that his name was Vit, too. The white horse of the god Svento Vit is associated with the horse of the god Vit of the Phaistos disk (Rjabchikov 1998a: 7-8).

Let us examine a Sarmatian golden artifact (Anfimov 1987: 176, photo) from the Seversky barrow, Krasnodar Territory, Russia. Here the god Sventovit (Vit) holding a mace rides a lion (an incarnation of the god Rarog or Svarog). The two signs P7 da of the Phaistos disk are depicted near them. I read the word P7-P7 as dad, cf. Russian ded 'grandfather'. This idea is preserved in the Slavonic pagan cult of dedy associated with the dead (Ivanov, Toporov 1991) and in the name of the Russian pagan god Stribog 'The old god' (Belyakova 1995: 90-1). Moreover, the term strelets (associated with Russian strela 'arrow') may be compared with the name Stribog, too; and according to the pagan beliefs, the sun was born in the Sagittarius constellation (Russian sozvezdie Strel'tsa) during the winter solstice. I suppose that the creation of the Universe is represented in the figure 7 indeed. The Phaistos disk (side A) describes some moments after the winter solstice; the solar gods Hor and Vit are mentioned there. Let us examine the figure again. The head lying under the lion is sign P3 ra of the Phaistos disk. Here it is a determinative and means 'the sun; the sun deity'. One can distinguished the two signs of the full moon and the two signs of the sun that are divided by the sign of a sprout, the symbol of the new moon, vegetation, and resurrection of the god Osiris. The signs of the solar wheel and the flying sun are depicted on the "earth". The warrior standing on the right is the Skythian god Herakles, otherwise the god and the first man Targitaos. He is depicted near the goddess Argimpasa united with a snake in the sacral garden (notice a plant behind them).

5. The figurine of the head of a lizard or a serpent is covered with the letters; I read the words stra (see figure 7) and mra (see figure 8).

Figure 7.

Figure 8.

The first term is comparable with Russian strah 'fear', and the second - with Russian mrak 'darkness', umirat' 'to die', mertvy 'dead', morit' 'to starve', Old Church Slavonic izmr''m'rati 'to die', Old Indian maras 'death', marayati 'he kills' (Vasmer 1986: 651, 655; Shilov 1995: 295).

6. The figurine of a god has the record t Sir (see figure 9).

Figure 9.

I read it ta Osir 'this is Osiris', cf. the name of the Scythian god Goitosiros.

7. The figurine represents a deity in the high-necked dress, holding a staff. This image correlates with the descriptions of the Egyptian god Pta (Rubinshtein 1992) who according to the ancient beliefs created the first deities and the World. This god was worshipped not only in Egypt, but also in Palestina and at Sinai. The text on the figurine reads rast Pta '(the god) Pta rears' (see figure 10).

Figure 10.

8. The religious item (see figure 11) is a symbolic description of the Universe and a calendar.

Figure 11.

The text in the centre of the "circle" (the sign of the sun) reads Rareg ani 'the god Rarog is the fire', cf. Old Indian agnis and Russian ogon' 'fire' (Vasmer 1987: 118). The figure of a duck is represented above this text. Interestingly, the duck is placed on the head of one of the lion's figurines. The name of the solar god, Ani, is comparable with the name of the Etruscan god Ani 'the god of the gods' (Nemirovsky 1983: 198). The latter character has four faces looking at all the four sides. But the idol of the Western Slavonic god Sventovit also had four heads looking everywhere (Ivanov, Toporov 1992b: 420). I suppose that the Etruscan supreme god Ani was connected with the sun and fire as well. On the other hand, the god Rareg Ani is Sventovit indeed. Perhaps the name Ani compares with Russian oni 'they (several gods represented in one god)'. I believe more and more that the Etruscans were the Western Slavs.

The eagle symbolizes the east and the summer solstice. The corresponding text reads seseg, i.e. se Seg 'it is the Scythia (the eastern land of the sun)'. But Scythian skoloti 'Scythians' means lit. 'eagles'! The form seg is comparable with the Old Indian caka 'Scythian', Greek Sakai 'a Scythian tribe lived in the Asia'.

Using the decoded Scithian-Sarmatian-Meotian calendar, one can decode the records of this Western Slavonic calendar. The month's name Reftn, i.e. Rev tan 'The howl (of cow)-thaw' (cf. Russian rev 'howl', tayat' 'to thaw', taly 'thawed') is May; it corresponds to the names of the Scythian goddess Argimpasa and of the Iranian and Armenian goddess Ardvi Sura Anahita.

The name of the month Ga 'March; vernal equinox' is comparable with Old Indian gi 'bull; cow'.

The spiral may denote the transformation from December to January through the winter solstice, compare the same idea in the Scythian-Sarmatian-Meotian calendar. Here I can interpret the terms tarar and utgutg associated with the west and winter solstice. They are comparable with Greek Tartaros 'hell; the underworld' and Scandinavian utgard 'the end of the earth where demons and giants live'. On the other hand, the form tarar may be read as ta rar 'this is (the sun god) Rar(og)', and the form utgutg may be connected with Russian utka 'duck'. In accordance with Russian fairy-tales, Ivan-tsarevich had broken the egg appeared from a duck, and the king of the underworld, Koshchey Bessmertny, died. On these grounds, I conclude that the figurine of the lion with the duck symbolizes the winter solstice.

So this calendar is closely connected with the Sarmatian-Scythian-Meotian calendar discovered in a Kuban barrow.

NOTE

1. Cf. Egyptian ra 'the sun', Ra 'the sun god'. Cf. also Czech raroh - 'falcon' (Ivanov, Toporov 1992a).

REFERENCES

Anfimov, N.V., 1987. The Kuban's Ancient Gold. Krasnodar: Krasnodar Book Publishers.

Belyakova, G.S., 1995. Slavyanskaya mifologiya. Moscow: Prosveshchenie.

Ivanov, V.V. and V.N. Toporov, 1991. Dedy. In: S.A. Tokarev (ed.) Mify narodov mira. Vol. 1. Moscow: Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya, pp. 363-4.

Ivanov, V.V. and V.N. Toporov, 1992a. Rarog. In: S.A. Tokarev (ed.) Mify narodov mira. Vol. 2. Moscow: Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya, p. 368.

Ivanov, V.V. and V.N. Toporov, 1992b. Sventovit. In: S.A. Tokarev (ed.) Mify narodov mira. Vol. 2. Moscow: Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya, pp. 420-421.

Masch, A.G., 1771. Die Gottesdienstlichten Ulferfhumer der Obotriten, aus dem Tempel zu Rhetra. Berlin.

Nemirovsky, A.I., 1983. Etruski: Ot mifa k istorii. Moscow: Nauka.

Propp, V.Y., 1998. Morfologiya/Istoricheskie korni volshebnoy skazki. Moscow: Labirint.

Rjabchikov, S.V., 1998a. Drevnie texty slavyan i adygov. Krasnodar: Torgovo-promyshlennaya palata Krasnodarskogo kraya.

Rjabchikov, S.V., 1998b. Tainstvennaya Tmutarakan'. Krasnodar: Torgovo-promyshlennaya palata Krasnodarskogo kraya.

Rubinshtein, R.I., 1992. Ptah. In: S.A. Tokarev (ed.) Mify narodov mira. Vol. 2. Moscow: Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya, pp. 345-6.

Shilov, Y.A., 1995. Prarodina Ariev: Istoriya, obryady i mify. Kiev: SINTO.

Vasmer, M., 1986. Etimologichesky slovar' russkogo yazyka. Vol. 2. Moscow: Progress.

Vasmer, M., 1987. Etimologichesky slovar' russkogo yazyka. Vol. 3. Moscow: Progress.

Published 21 October 1999.

Sergei V. Rjabchikov, Krasnodar, RUSSIA.

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