Scythian religion

[
thumb|The_Solokha_comb,_found_in_the_lateral_grave_of_the_Solokha kurgan in 1913.] The religion and mythology of the Scythians is not directly attested except for sparse accounts in Greek ethnography. It is assumed to have been related to earlier Proto-Indo-Iranian religion, and to have influenced later Slavic and Turkic and Ossetian traditions.

The Scythians had some reverence for the stag, which is one of the most common motifs in their artwork, especially at funeral sites. The swift animal was believed to speed the spirits of the dead on their way, which perhaps explains the curious antlered headdresses found on horses buried at Pazyryk

The primary archaeological context of horse sacrifice are burials, notably chariot burials, but graves with horse remains reach from the Eneolithic well into historical times. Herodotus describes the execution of horses at the burial of a Scythian king, and Iron Age kurgan graves known to contain horses number in the hundreds.

ee also

*Deer in mythology
*Horse sacrifice
*Abaris the Hyperborean
*Nart saga
*Issyk kurgan
*Wasterzhi
*Hyperborea
*Kurgan stelae
*Scythian art
*Iranian mythology
*Ossetian mythology
*Altaic mythology
*Slavic mythology
*Paleo-Balkanic mythology

External links

*Rjabchikov, S. V., [http://public.kubsu.ru/~usr02898/sl2.htm The Scythians, Sarmatians, Meotians, Russians and Circassians: Interpretation of the Ancient Cultures] (1999)