Текст книги "Сборник статей. Выпуск 6"

Образцы оформления рубах

Центральная Россия

Северная Россия

Сибирь

Восточная Европа как прародина индоевропейцев
(краткие тезисы)

Проблема локализации прародины индоевропейских народов стоит перед наукой более 200 лет. Предполагавшиеся в разное время в качестве прародины: Индия, склоны Гималаев, Центральная Азия, азиатские степи, Месопотамия, Ближний или Средний Восток, Армянское нагорье, территории от Западной Франции до Урала, территория от Рейна до Дона, черноморско-каспийские степи, степи от Рейна до Гиндукуша, районы между Средиземноморьем и Алтаем, Западная Европа – в настоящее время по тем или иным причинам большинством исследователей отвергаются.

Еще в 19 веке Шпигелем была предложена гипотеза восточноевропейской (между 45° с.ш. и 69° с.ш.) прародины индоевропейцы. В середине нашего века мысль о восточноевропейской прародине высказал А. Шерер.

В настоящее время данные науки заставляют пересмотреть традиционную историческую парадигму, утверждающую, что Восточная Европа во время пика Валдайского (Осташковского) оледенения была практически вся покрыта ледником и заселение ее севера и центра в послеледниковье (12 тысяч лет назад) шло из-за Урала финно-угорскими племенами, а индоевропейцы (славяне) появились на севере только на рубеже 1—2 тыс. н.э.

Сегодня данные палеоклиматологии, археологии, палеоантропологии, лингвистики, этнографии свидетельствуют:

– Территория Восточной Европы в большей своей части не была занята ледником даже в пик Валдайского оледенения (20—18 тысяч лет назад). Именно здесь находилась самая большая в Европе зона смешанных и хвойных лесов, в отличие от покрытой арктической тундрой Западной Европы.

– Появившееся еще в эпоху палеолита (70—50 тысяч лет назад) население Восточной Европы на данной территории прошло один за другим все этапы исторического развития.

– К 10—9 тыс. до н.э. здесь сложилась праиндоевропейская, а затем и индоевропейская

– языковая общность, которая распалась на диалектные зоны не ранее 4—3 тыс. до н.э.

– Север Восточной Европы не был издревле заселен финно-уграми, а является местом формирования и прародиной индоиранской (арийской) ветви индоевропейцев.

– Локализация прародины индоевропейцев и индоиранцев (арьев) на Севере Восточной Европы подтверждается также северорусской топо– и гидронимией, в которой огромное количество географических названий надежно дешифруется на основе терминов санскрита.

Жарникова Светлана Васильевна кандидат исторических наук

2000 г.

Possible origins of horse-goose and horse-deer images in indo-iranian (Aryan) mythology

The images of horse-goose and horse-deer known both in Vedic and Avestian traditions are most interesting and mysterious among the images of ancient Aryan mythology. At first sight everything appears rather simple and natural: in principle, the flight of a bird and the impetuous run of a horse or a deer can be easily combined in a single image. But the simplicity is deceptive and the above explanation provokes questions difficult to answer. Why does Vedic tradition in the majority of cases combine the image of a horse with the image of a goose or a swan? And why is the image of a horse so steadily connected with the image of a deer not only in Indo-Iranian but also in the general Indo-European tradition»? To elucidate the reasons for such associations, archaeological, mythical, poetical and ethnographical sources should be adressed.

In Indian mythology, theology and natural philosophy a goose is a well-known symbol of the Sun, the Light and the Sky. In Chandogya-Upanishad a goose, the incarnation of the Sun, is akin to fire, the Moon, lighting. ¹ According to U. Rapoport, the Khoresmian concept of the origin of the Universe presents «the initial divinity, comprising parts of the Universe, in the image of an aquatic bird». ² Zarwan is the name of the divinity uniting male and female elements, the sky, the earth, fire and water, light and darkness. In Sogdian texts of Buddhistic character Zarwan is just the name given to Brahma – the creator of the Universe in Vedic pantheon. Not infrequently in legends a goose is Brahma’s embodiment, his usual attendant and «carrier» (vahana),³ he researcher believes it quite plausible that the image of an aquatic bird reflects the idea of water as the initial element, personified in the Avestian pantheon by the Goddess whose name is regarded to be concealedina triple epithet – Ardvi Sura Anahita». ⁴

It may be recalled that Saraswati, the great Goddess of the Vedi£ epock, was attended by a goose, the incarnation of the all-embracing sky.⁵ H. Kuzmina also notes that in Indo-iranian mythology an aquatic bird was the incarnation and the attendant of Mother-Goddess, who was the related with water and usually represented in the form of the World’s Tree with birds sitting on its branches, and that a pair of ducks was the symbol of matrimonial love in the folklore of all Indo-European nations. She also points out that according to Indo-iranian tradition the woman or her substitute – the tree, is represented, as a rule, together with horses and birds, or with birds only,⁷ but at the same time, in all Indo-iranian traditions a horse is frequently likened to a bird». ⁸ Thus in Rigveda’s hymn Ashwins are likened to eagles. «…Your magnificent flying horses – let these reddish birds carry you…», ⁹ and in Mahabharata Ashwins are praised as eagles – marvelous birds with wonderful wings.¹⁰ Besides, it is the goose that is connected with the image of the horse; both Ashwins and Indra’s horses are often likened to geese.¹¹ According to archaeological data, the Iranian compositions presenting two riders or bound protomae horses with a woman between them date back to the time when the Iranian-speaking inhabitants first appeared on the Iranian Plateau, i.e. the turn of the Ist millennium B.C.¹² The representations of aquatic birds -ducks and geese – were quite significant in Indian and Scythian art as well. According to D. Raievsky these representations as a rule decorated artefacts of cult. In Scythian world the image of an aquatic bird was a fixed religious symbol; in investiture scenes representing the ceremony’ of receiving the symbols of power it symbolised monarch’s power as given by God.¹³ It was the image of an aquatic bird that became the symbol of material world in Iranian and Scythian mythology. Why was it so, D. Raievsky’s answer is because this creature of Earth’s fauna can move in all three spheres – on land, in water and in the air. He writes: «It is noteworthy that in Atharvaveda there is an idea of the triple goose that is most likely connected with the interpretation of an aquatic bird as the symbol of three spheres of, the Universe». ¹⁴ This interpretation seems convincing. But still it does not answer the following question: why is the aquatic bird (goose, swan, duck) connected with the image of a horse in Indo-Iranian mythology (e.g. in one and the same Atharvavedas hymn the Sun is named the horse, the eagle and the swan as well)? ¹⁵ Another question is this: why is the image of a horse in Indo-Iranian mythology so closely connected with the image of a deer? Paradoxically all these questions can be answered by turning to the archaeological monuments of the European part of the USSR. It was in this region that the representations demonstrating the process of ancient sacralisation of the images of aquatic birds and the deer (or elk) in the mythological, ritual scenes of fertilisation, birth and death appeared on the cliffs of Lake Onega and the White Sea at the turn of the Mesolithic and the Neolithic Age. Besides, it was here that the merger of two images (of the goose and the elk) took place. Examples can be found in the boats whose bows are shaped as a horned elk’s head on a long goose neck, or a goose with antlers, or an elk leading a single line of geese, or an elk surrounded by geese (fig. 1, 2, 3)». ¹⁶ The connection of these images with antropomorphic characters on the same Neolithic petroglyphes is extremely interesting. Here are some examples: an antropomorphic figure of a woman in childbirth, whose foot is shaped like a goose; the unique representation of a man, the main character in the composition of the socalled «Besovy sledki» («Demon’ imprints») found on the cliffs near the White Sea, with a horn at the back of his head, whose outsized foot’s toe tourches the figure of a young hornless elk, and whose little toe points to a group of three aquatic birds (geese or ducks) (fig. II).

What animals are represented on the cliffs of Lake Onega, elks or reindeer? Solving this problem U. Sawateyev remarks that although these animals «differ greatly in appearence, size and mode of life, they are represented on the cliffs in similar stylistic manner», which results in the fact that «according to some characteristics, they can be identified as elks (the majority of cases) ¹⁷ and according to others as reindeer»¹⁸ (italicised by the author.). U. Sawateyev singles out the antropomorphic figure with the elk’s head and antlers (the western group of the so-called «Besov nos» («Demon’s nose»), and staffs with inlaid elk heads. He then concludes that «in human ideology the image of the elk was of great importance». ¹⁹ The obvious merger of goose-swan and elk images, most characteristic of the White Sea region, gives rise to the following question: accepting D. Rayevsky’s hypothesis of sacralisation of the aquatic bird as a whole, what are then the reasons for the sacralisation of the elk image in the White Sea and Lake Onega regions in the Neolithic times? To give at least a rough answer to this question we must know, first, which animal it is, and secondly, what the Palaeoclimatic situation in the 5th-3d millenium B.C. was like in the North of the European part of the USSR, where the petroglyphes representing geese, elks and deer were made at that time?

The elk, whose image is combined with the image of an aquatic bird (goose-swan-duck), and which is the analogy of the horse in Indo-Iranian tradition, is the

largest kind of living deer and an ancient inhabitant of the European part of this country. On the territory of the USSR bone remains of these animals are found in the Upper-Palaeolithic and Neopalaeolithic settlements of ancient man, in the East European partly wooded steppes and forest areas, in the Urals and even in the Northern areas adjoining the Black Sea.²⁰ According to K. Filonov, elks were never numerous in the south of Russia in Neolithic and Aeneolithic times,²¹ for they can hardly bear heat,²² Unlike southern regions, vast areas in the central and northern part of Eastern Europe is inhabited by elks. The Kola Peninsula, the coastline of the White, Sea and the mouth of the Pechora River are the northern boundary of their habitat.²³ The type of the elk’s teeth and the structure of its stomack indicate that the elk feeds not oh hard field and steppe grasses, but on leaves, sprouts and roots of trees, bushes and marsh plants.²⁴ The type of elk’s food indicates that the animal is adapted to live in, a definite geographical environment, by no means of the southern type. L. Baskin writes: «The correlation of all the factors (including the palaeography of fossil remains, the peculiarities of exterior, the motor system and digestive organs, the contemporary biotonic distribution and the type of feeding)», enables us to conclude that «the elk is a species adapted to taiga marshy forests and water meadows». ²⁵ Elks prefer pine (Pinus sylvestris) woods, with aspens (Populus tremula) and birch-trees (Betula), fir-groves (Ricea abies) bordering upon pine woods and small aspen forests, multitiered fir-groves near brooks, and pine forests with juniper undergrowth.²⁶ If we consider the climate and the landscape of the central and northern area of the USSR1s European part in the last phase of the Mesolithic and Neolithic times (5th-3rd millenium B.C.), when Lake Onega and the White Sea petroglyphes were created (4th-3d millenium B.C.), we shall find an extremely interesting situation. The radio-hydrocar-bonic tests made at the V. Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytic Chemistry of the USSR Academy’of Science, indicate that specimens of peat dating from 7.700 – 3.200 years ago (the middle Holocen), taken from the marshes of the Novgorod, Leningrad, Yaroslavl and Kalinin regions, «contain a high percentage of broad-leaved trees’ pollen in the pollen-containing spectra… indicating the peaks in the oak, elm, lime, hazel and alder curves… The mid-Holocen clealy stands out as the Holocen climatic optimum». ²⁷ The spreading of the broad-leaved specimens on these territories had started earlier: about 9780—7790 years ago.²⁸ Thus, the period between the beginning of the 6th and the end of the 2nd millenium B.C. the territories to the north of those we are interested in (the coastline zone of Lake Onega and the White Sea), were covered with broad-leaved and mixed forests of oak, lime, elm, alder, pine and birch trees. The climate was much warmer than today, the average summer temperatures were 4° C higher.²⁹ As far as the territories farther north are concerned, during the period of the Holocen optimum, which lasted almost 5.000 years, their climate differed considerably from what it is today. Thus, L. Berg in his work «Climate and Life» points out that in the 5th-4th millenium B.C. oak-woods with lime, elm and hazel trees extended far into the north of the European part of the USSR. At the same time firtrees started expanding also; and in the 3d millenium B.C. ancient marshes covered up with pine woods and birch groves. L.Berg indicates that truncks and big stubs of pine-trees were found in the peat strata dated from the 4th-3rd millenium B.C. in the Korelian Isthmus and in Sweden, pointing to a warmer and softer climate at that time. L. Berg writes: «… in the northern Urals many travellers found the remains of big trees in the territories now having no forest vegetation. Thus, Kovalsky regestered the remains of a birch grove in the latitude of 66°40'N, which now is the zone of tundra». ³⁰

The archaeological discoveries of the last decades show that the north of the European part of this country was densely populated in the Mesolithic and Bronze epochs. Consequently, the conviction that existed in science for a long time about these territories being then uninhabited, is not true. Thus, near Medvezhyegorsk on the northern shore of Lake Onega more than 140 settlements and several burials dating from different times were found during 4-year-long archaeological excavations. They date from the Mesolithic up to the early Iron Age (the 10th millenium B.C.-the 5th century B.C.).³¹ In resent years a number of Mesolithic settlements were discovered by S. Oshibkina in the basin of the Sukhona River.³² So, the idea of the uninhabited north of the European part of the USSR in Mesolithic period is absolutely unsound. There were no objective reasons to prevent human beings from living in those areas. Vast forests, good climate, many rivers and lakes, the proximity of the sea, abundant fauna, long summer light day -all these factors should– have attracted people.

At the turn of the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods the inhabitants of the North created their pantheon, recorded in the petroglyphes of the White Sea and Lake Onega. The man, an aquatic bird and the elk or deer played major roles in it. The image of an aquatic bird discussed above was probably included not only because geese, ducks and swans could live in three spheres (land, water, air), but also because their arrival in spring and departure in autumn marked the warm and the cold season of the year. Besides, both geese and swans i bred (and continue to breed) and changed their feathers in the North. A lot of sources tell about numerous aquatic birds coming to the north of Russia even at the close of the 19 century. Thus, the western part of the Novaya Zemlya Island’s southern shore (71°-72°N) was known to be called «Goose Land» for abundance of geese. «Numerous aquatic birds-geese, all kinds of ducks and swans-come at the end of June to the Kolguyev Island (in the Barents Sea) from the south-west countries and stay till the middle of September. A group of ten hunters is said to shoot easily 3,5 and even 5 thousand geese and swans during the period of moulting (per month)». Up to 6.400 kg (400 puds) of feathers and down-and 12.000 kg (750 puds) of swan-skins were said to be brought back from the island even at the close of the 19th century.³³ Obviously these birds (during the period of moulting) were the main food for the ancient inhabitants of the shores of the White Sea, Lake Onega and other lakes and rivers of the north of Russia, and that factor played its role in the process of sacralisation of the goose, duck and swan.

The extreme significance of the elk (and deer) for human life in this region is also believed to have played an important role in the sacralisation of those animals, the second leading zoomorphical character of the neolithic petroglyphes in the region. The Mesolithic burial of the Oleni Island (the Deer Island) in Lake Onega contained one buried man and two women. His head gear was decorated with wooden rods bearing carved female-elk heads at the ends. Rods of this kind were also found on the Oleni Island in the Barents Sea and in Shighir peat-bog in the Northern Urals.³⁴ Among the petroglyphes of the White Sea and Lake Onega there area number of remarkable compositions explaining why the elk was sacred to the ancient inhabitants of the region. Large elks (both males and females) with numerous small figures of human beings and animals around them are represented in the centre of a multifigure composition on the Zalaviruga cliff in the White Sea. The central figure with mighty antlers, resembling a ramified crown of a tree, overlaps long boats with small elk heads at their bows (fig. III).³⁵ Under one of the boats between the elk’s feet there is a figure of a man with three-fingered hands hanging down and a crawling snake. This particular I composition and the great size of the elk point to the sacred meaning of the elk and the boat with people on board, represented on the cliff. Perhaps, these are ritual boats with the dead (?). It is no accident that up to the early Middle Ages the high-born people in Russia and in Scandinavia were buried in boats.³⁶ The Edda called a ship «the deer of the sea» or «the horse of the sea», ³⁷ Moreover, up to the 15th century the Great Bear в constellation was known in Russia under the name of 1 «Elk», and in Polish the «North Star» is still named the «Elk Star». ³⁸

Let us turn to the Vedic tradition now. It relates seven stars of the Great Bear constellation to «seven Rishis», the sons of Creator-God Brahma, the forefathers

of Aryans, on whom the prosperity of the living people depended and whom their descendants joined after death. Moreover, there is a certain character named Rishya-Shringa in both ethical poems, who was a descendant of Kashyapa, one of the seven Rishis. But he was born by a female-elk, had antlers and was able to bring rain, which according to mythology, was related to the cult of ancestors.³⁹ All these facts enable us to suppose that the neolithic representations on the shores of the White Sea and Lake Onega point to an ancient mythological and ritual tradition, formed much earlier under which the elk is associated with seven stars of the Great Bear constellation and with the world of ancestors, the givers of fertility and happiness to the living. It is to the world of ancestors that the dead travel in boats decorated with elk heads (possibly representing sacrificial ritual anrmals).

But among the petroglyphes found in the north European part of the USSR there is one composition of particular importance for our study. It shows «skiers» following elks and somehow connected with themb⁴⁰ hey do not hold the elks by the tail, which is rather clearly seen in some petroglyphes. In the composition of the southern group of the so called «Besovy Sledki» the elk is represented with something like a horse collar on its neck. We are led to suppose that it is an elk harness that– is represented by the neolithic painters. Let us quote the conclusions made by modern investigators of elk’s domestication. К. Chapsky writes: «Once humans managed to domesticate and reproduce a comparatively feeble reindeer, it would seem rather natural for them to try and domesticate the elk, this forest giant. In the roadless taiga, covered with thick snow, the elk seems an attractive draught animal able to run across snow without any road». Chapsky remarks that the experiment to breed young elks and treat them as harnessed animals was successful, because the elk is ecologically pliable and can survive reasonable bondage. Besides, young elks are easier to be pastured than calves because they follow a herdsman and do not leave him.⁴¹ It was noted that «the process of domestication of a wild newlyborn elk was extremely easy. It started and ended with the first feeding on a milk-nipple. A young elk becomes attached for life to the man who feeds him». ⁴² An elk is a very productive meat-providing animal. In the first six months of its life it puts on weight at the rate of 700 gr a day. It is highly fertile, too, for twins are born oftener than singles. Elks can be out at feed all the year round. Does are fast to become good milk is and their milk is good». ⁴³

Domesticated elks are peaceable animals good at any training. Experiments have. proved that «after two days of getting accustomed to the reins elks can run in the required direction, and in ten days they can be harnessed. During the training and when harnessed elks show no intention to hurt or to bite the man training them which is a rare case with horses. In winter harnessed elks run at a speedy trot, never at a gallop, and not every horse can outpace a young elk». ⁴⁴

E. Knorre succeeded in training elks as saddle and pack-animals. A saddle-elk can carry a pack-load weighting 80—120 kg and a sledge elk-up to 400 kg. These animals are irreplaceable in the roadless taiga, in marshy forests and during flood season. But in summer elks can be used as saddle animals only at night, for they suffer greatly and can even die from heat.⁴⁶ That is why, perhaps, on the White Sea petroglyphes the people connected to elks with long strips (or reins), are «skiers». A question may arise: where did the people of the Neolithic Age first get young elks to make them harnessed animals? As a rule, young elks can be tamed during the first month of their life. Later on they can run as fast as adult animals and are difficult, to catch. As has been already mentioned, a female-elk usually gives birth to twins, and needs only one calf, to satisfy its motherly instinct.⁴⁷ Perhaps, it was this «extra baby» that was raised, domesticated and made the first saddle and pack animal in the Neolithic (or Mesolithic) times. It is difficult to say which species was the first to be tamed – the elk or deer.

Sledge and harnessed elks are known to be quite widely used in the north of Europe. Thus, up to the 15th century an elk was a saddle animal in the Swedish army. On the engraving from the 1555 book by O. Magnus, an elk is represented as a sledge animal carrying a sledge with people.⁴⁸ N. Kulagin writes that according to old legends elks were used as saddle animals in Sweden, and they ran so fast the police had to ban their use in oder to prevent criminals from escaping with the help of swift elks. The same author indicated that if elks were not ridden, and were not allowed to run, they died in two years. When used under saddle and harness they lived to be 35 years old.⁴⁹

In the 18th century Swedish messengers used sledge elks. In the time of Peter I an edict was passed in the Baltic region banning «to appear in a town riding an elk». ⁵⁰ In the Vologda province elks were known to be domestic and draught animals up to the middle of the 19th century.⁵¹ In the middle and at the end of the 19th century domestic elks could be found in the Vladimir, Ryazan, Pskov and Moscow provinces. In the Ukranian province of Volyn a forester could cover a distance of 120 km riding a domestic elk. Domestic elks were used (in Siberia and in the Vyatka province at the beginning of the 20th century.⁵² More examples of the kind can be given. Turning to the Neolithic petroglyphes we can suppose that with the change of climate and the increase of population in the southern steppe areas elks could not be used as saddle and harnessed animals any more, because the steppe soils and grasses did not suit their hooves and teeth. The steppe demanded a new saddle and harnessed animal. The elk (deer) was replaced by a horse. While taming the wild horse in the 5th-4th centuries B.C. the people of the steppes and partially-wooded steppes used the methods of training developed in the process of taming the elk thousand of years before, and applied the harness rather like that invented by their ancestors for the elk and the deer.

Having been replaced by the horse as a harnessed animal, the elk was also replaced as a ritual animal. Thus, the horse assumed all the functions formely filled by the elk. The horse became a khtonic animal forming the link between ancestors and descendants. It also became the main sacral offering and was superposed, by the goose-swan. But quite a few Indo-European nations preserved the memory of the times when it was the elk, not the horse that was a draught and sacred animal. N. Kuzmina notes that the syncrethic image of the horse-deer is characteristic of the mythical and poetic tradition of Ancient Greece and Iran at the close of the 2nd-at the beginning of the 1st millenium B.C.; in Edda the deer performs the role of a horse at the World’s Tree; and there are Scythian horse chempfrons representing elks, «which means there was the custom to decorate a horse like an elk». S.Kiselev comes to the conclusion that ritual decoration of a horse as a deer corroborates the idea that «the deer was the first animal to be replaced by the horse»; that «all the facts prove that. In the Altai in Pazyric times the horse was a saddle-animal, and harnessed bulls» were used to carry heavy loads… «However, as far as the traditional sphere of the cult and funeral rites was concerned the memory of the original role of the deer surfaced. And despite the fact that the precious descendants of «celestial», «sweet-and-blood» Central Asian horses took part in the funeral procession they used to be turned into deer in accordance with the ancient traditions.⁵⁵ Concerning the specific «Scythian» type of representing the deer, N. Chlenova points out that «Scythian deer antlers» are S-shaped (fig. Y; 5) ⁵⁶ gut the representation of a typical Scythian deer from the Semibratny tumulus (in the Northern Caucasus), given by her, is, in fact, the representation of an elk judging by the distinctive outline of its hesd. Numerous Scythian and Sakan horse chempfrons, cheeck pieces and golden plates representing deer in the famous Peter’s Siberian collection and other representations (fig. Y; 1, 2, 3, 4), when compared with a real elk or a reindeer, show undoubtly that quite a few cases represent elks. It is also of interest that the ancient idea of relations between the elk and the goose-swan remained alive in Scythian plastic art. The typical outline of the «Scythian deer antlers», marked by N. Chlenova, indicate, in fact, a series of S-shaped geese heads (fig. Y; 7).

Now we can turn back to the White Sea and Lake Onega petroglyphes, reproduced in V. Ravdonick’s works. They represent single lines of geese (swans) led by an elk, or an outline of an elk with a duck on its back.

The image of the horse-elk (or elk-horse) is inherent to the pit-grave culture, where tribes performed ritual burials of both – a horse and an elk. The adherent, of these traditions, Scythians and Savromatians, even in the times of the hut-grave culture (the 2nd century B.C.), continued to honour both animals, the horse and the deer (the elk). Scythians, the classic horse-breeders and riders, who certainly rode neither deer, nor elks, steadily interchanged the images of the horse and ethe deer (the elk).

The memory of the times, when both the horse and the elk were harnessed animals, and when the horse was a saddle-animal and the main animal offering, is preserved in one of the most significant Rigveda’s hymns – «Sacrifice Horse Hymn». This truely archaic hymn performed г within the framework of the sacred Ashwamedha rite– the king’s ritual white stallion offering-calls the stallion’s feet the «elk’s feet», and describes it as if flying in the sky like a bird, with his «winged» head and «golden antlers» «widely spread in the deserted space», with the goat, the horse’s relative, leading the way. The hymn also describes the «heavenly horses, showing their power, close their ranks and form a single line like geese do…». (It is noteworthy that the composition on the Central Zalavruga cliff (on the White Sea) with two huge elks, female elks and boats is headed by the elks, going in a wedge like flying geese).⁵⁹ These strange things can only be explained by the fact that it is a retrospectively depicted elk, and not a horse, for it is the antlers resembling a bird’s wings, that can form „winged“ head. It is difficult to agree with Sayana, B. Kthe mediaeval Rigveda’s commentator, who believed the gold antlers to be the horse’s flying mane». ⁶⁰ In our opinion, they seem to be antlers still.

This set of ancient images comprising the man, the elk and the aquatic bird, all related to a certain arhaic complex of mythical and poetic ideas, took shape at the turn of the Mesolithic and Neolithic times, probably earlier. In the course of time it underwent certain transformations whereby the elk was replaced by the horse which easily found its place in the ancient three-unit composition.

The above is proved graphically not only by the monuments of the Indo-Iranian mythology and fine art, but also by the Slav folk tradition which «characteristically preserved rudimentary archaic phenomena fixed neither in the classical Graeco-Roman nor Vedic tradition». ⁶¹ In common Indo-European folklore the horse is sometimes likened to the elk, and a pair of ducks symbolises matrimonial love. But the exact reproduction of the Indo-Iranian scheme can hardly be found elsewhere but in the Slav, specifically Eastern Slav area, namely in the North-Russian folk applied art. It is here that the three-unit compositions with the woman or her equivalent, the tree, and not infrequently the woman transforming into the tree in the centre, also represent deer-elks, riders, horses and ducks (or «geese-swans»). And what is particularly important, the representations of horses with bird tails and swan bodies, or ducks with horse heads can also be found in the North-Russian tradition. Even the pre-Slav ornaments frequently represent numerous swans. On the bronze bracelet dating back to the 7th century B.C. of the Radolinek treasure bid found near Poznan they are represented on both sides of the woman with lifted hands.⁶² In ancient Greek mythology the swans, Apollo’s sacred birds, are associated with the Northern edge of Oecumena – the place near the shores of distant cold Cronius Ocean, the land of Hyperboreans, where they took Apollo annually. B. Rybakov is probably right to think that «the sunny swans of the pre-Slav world were not a mere borrowing from a classical myth, but the nothern tribes’ contribution to the process of joint, perhaps Indo-European, creation of mythology, related to the Sun and the Sun-God». Therefore, the image of a woman with her hands lifted to the sky and the ducks painted on her sides, is a very archaic image, though preserved in North-Russian embroidery till the end of the 19th century.⁶³