The figures depicted on the Scythian golden ornament of a female headgear from the barrow Karagodeuashh, Krasnodar Territory, Russia (Anfimov 1987: 120, photo; Galanina, Domansky and Smirnova 1981: 121, photo) are the Scythian model of the Universe. The upper character is the supreme goddess Tabiti. This goddess corresponds to the first level of the Universe. A character standing between two horses deals with the second level of the Universe. His names is Vit or Agin/Agni. The wordplay is quite possible: cf. Old Indian vajin 'horse' and Russian voyna 'war', voin 'warrior'; cf. also Old Russian vityaz' 'a brave man' and Old Indian viti 'brightness, shine' (Diachenko 1993: 78). The lower picture describes the third level of the Universe and depicts four deities standing around a woman (maybe, the goddess Tabiti). I think that these deities are Targitaos and Argimpasa (a snake is united with her), the primogenitors of the Scythians as well as Api and Papaios who are the children of Tabiti and the parents of Argimpasa and Targitaos.
Anfimov, N.V., 1987. The Kuban's Ancient Gold. Krasnodar: Krasnodar Book Publishers.
Diachenko, G., 1993. Polny tserkovno-slavyansky slovar'. Moscow: Izdatel'sky otdel Moskovskogo Patriarkhata.
Galanina L.K., Y.V. Domansky and G.I. Smirnova, 1981. Skify. Putevoditel' po vystavke otdela istorii pervobytnoy kul'tury Gosudarstvennogo Ermitazha. Leningrad: Iskusstvo.
Copyright © 1999 by Sergei V. Rjabchikov. All Rights Reserved.
Published 22 October 1999.
Sergei V. Rjabchikov, Krasnodar, RUSSIA.
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