Snake-Legged Goddess

The Snake-Legged Goddess and her role as the foremother of the Scythians had early origins and pre-dated the contacts of the Scythians with Mediterranean religions that influenced the cult of the Great Goddess Artimpasa to whom the Snake-Legged Goddess was affiliated.[1]

The snakes which formed the limbs and grew out of the shoulders Snake-Legged Goddess also linked her to the Zoroastrian chthonic monster |Aži Dahāka, of whom a variant appears in later Persian literature as the villainous figure Żaḥḥāk, who had snakes growing from each shoulder.[2]

During the 7th century BCE, the Scythians expanded into West Asia, during which time the Scythian religion was influenced by the religions of the peoples of the Fertile Crescent. Consequently, the Snake-Legged Goddess was influenced by the Levantine goddess ʿAtarʿatah in several aspects, resulting in a strong resemblance between the two goddesses, such as their monstrous bodies, fertility and vegetation symbolism, legends about their love affairs, and their respective affiliations and near-identification to Artimpasa and Aphroditē Ourania.[1]

Another influence might have been the Graeco-Colchian goddess Leukothea, whose mythology as a woman who was turned into a goddess after throwing herself into the sea due to a curse from Hēra connects her to ʿAtarʿatah, and whose sanctuary at Vani had columns crowned with female protomēs emerging from akanthos leaves similar to those of the Snake-Legged Goddess.[1]

The Greek poet Hesiod might have mentioned the Snake-Legged Goddess in the Theogony, where he assimilated her to the monstrous figure of Echidna from Greek mythology. In Hesiod's narrative, "Echidna" was a serpent-nymph living in a cave far from any inhabited lands, and the god Targī̆tavah, assimilated to Heracles, killed two of her children, namely the hydra of Lerna and the lion of Nemea. Thus, in this story, "Heracles" functioned as a destroyer of evils and a patron of human dwellings located in place where destruction had previously prevailed.[3]

The Snake-Legged Goddess is however most famously known from the various Graeco-Roman retellings of the Scythian genealogical myth, in which she unites with the god Targī̆tavah to become the mother of the first ancestors of the Scythians and their kings.[1]

The Snake-Legged Goddess was associated to the life-giving principle but also possessed a chthonic nature, due to which her depictions were placed in Scythian tombs. The status of the Snake-Legged Goddess as the fore-mother of the Scythians associated her with the cult of the ancestors, and, being the controller of the life cycle, was also a granter of eternal life for the deceased.[1]

Some images of Snake-Legged Goddess were discovered in burials, thus assigning both a chthonic and vegetal symbolism to this goddess, which follows the motif of vegetal deities possessing chthonic features. The Snake-Legged Goddess was also a vegetation goddess of the Tree of Life, and as well as a ποτνια θηρων (potnia thērōn). The depictions of the Snake-Legged Goddess on Scythian horse harness decorations imply that she was also a patroness of horses, which might be connected with the love affair between Targī̆tavah and the goddess beginning after she had kept his mares in the genealogical myth.[1]

Reflecting influence from Levantine cults in which the Great Goddess was often accompanied by a minor semi-bestial goddess, the Snake-Legged Goddess, who was also the Scythian foremother, was affiliated to Artimpasa. The Snake-Legged Goddess was so closely affiliated to Artimpasa that it bordered on identification to the point that the images of the two goddesses would almost merge, but nevertheless remained distinct from each other.[1]

This distinctiveness is more clear in how Artimpasa was assigned the role of the king's sexual partner and the divine power of the kings who granted royal power, but was not considered the foremother of the people, and in how neither the Bosporan kings of Sarmatian ancestry nor the Graeco-Roman authors' records assigned Aphroditē or Artimpasa as the Scythians' ancestor.[1]

Several representations are known of the "Snake-Legged Goddess," often crafted by Greek artisans for the Scythian market, most of them depicting her as a goddess with snake-shaped legs or tendrils as legs, and some depicting her as winged, with griffin heads growing below her waist or holding a severed head, with many of them having been found discovered in burials, thus assigning both a chthonic and vegetal symbolism to the goddess, which follows the motif of vegetal deities possessing chthonic features.[1]

The connection of the Snake-Legged Goddess to the life-giving principle is attested by her posture where her hands and legs were spread wide, which constituted a "birth-giving attitude." This complex imagery thus reflected the combination of human motherhood, vegetation and animal life within the Snake-Legged Goddess. Some images of Snake-Legged Goddess were discovered in burials, thus assigning both a chthonic and vegetal symbolism to this goddess, which follows the motif of vegetal deities possessing chthonic features.[1]

The Snake-Legged Goddess is represented with wings on pendants from the Bolshaya Bliznitza kurgan and the Ust-Labinskaya site, and a similar pendant was found in vault from Hellenistic Khersonēsos along with pendants representing severed heads. A fore-piece from a set of horse head plates from the Tsymbalova mohyla is decorated with an image of the Snake-Legged Goddess with snake-legs below which are griffin heads and vegetal tendrils, as well as tendrils above the kalathos hat she wears; this fore-piece was accompanied with phalerae representing Medusa and seilēnoi heads, as well as fish-shaped side pieces due to the possible influence of the Levantine aquatic goddess ʿAtarʿatah on the Snake-Legged Goddess.[1]

The shapes of the representations of the Snake-Legged Goddess are similar to that of the Tree of Life connecting the upper and lower spheres of the Universe as well as symbolising supreme life-giving power, and therefore merging with the image of the fertility goddess, and was additionally linked to the Iranian creation myth of the Simorğ bird resting on the Saēna Tree. The snakes and griffins as well as representations of the Snake-Legged Goddess alongside predatory feline animals also characterised her as a potnia thērōn in addition to being a vegetation goddess of the Tree of Life.[1]

The snakes also connected the Snake-Legged Goddess to the Greek Medusa, and Greek-manufactured representations of Medousa, especially in the form of pendants found in the tombs of Scythian nobles, were very popular in Scythia due to her association with the Snake-Legged Goddess. Possible depictions of the goddess as a potnia thērōn in the form of Medousa have also been found in Scythian art, with a damaged rhyton from the Kelermes kurgan depicting her as a winged running deity with small wings on non-serpentiform legs and flanked by griffins on both sides, and a gold plate from the Shakhan kurgan being decorated with the image of winged deity holding two animals.[1]

Bosporan variant of the Tendril-Legged Goddess from the 1st to 2nd century AD

The imagery of the Tsymbalova fore-piece formed an intermediary with representations of the goddess depicted with tendrils as legs. Among these depictions are images found in burials of the goddess with tendril-legs, wearing a kalathos hat, and surrounded by vegetal ornamentation; these tendril-legged images of the goddess became more numerous during the first centuries CE, and became a common motif in the design of sarcophagi in the Bosporan kingdom. Among the Scythians, one of the vaults in Skuthikē Neapolis was decorated with images of small tendril-legged figures along with figures with radiate heads.[1]

The depictions of the Snake-Legged Goddess holding a severed head which represented the sacrificial offering of a man hanging on the Tree of Life, were another example of Levantine influence, since severed human heads appeared in Levantine goddess cults in which the life-granting goddess demanded death, and re-enacted the death of her partner, whom she loved, emasculated, and killed. The Snake-Legged Goddess therefore also had a blood-thirsty aspect, and there is attestation of human sacrifices to local goddesses accompanied by the exposure of the victims' severed heads on the northern Black Sea coast; one such head placed on an altar close to a representation of a vegetation goddess was discovered in the Sarmatian town of Ilutarum. The Scythian practice of severing the heads of all enemies they killed in battle and bringing them to their kings in exchange of war booty, the depictions of warriors near or holding decapitated heads in Scythian art, as well as the pendants shaped like satyr heads found in the same structures as the representations of the Snake-Legged Goddess and of Artimpasa might have been connected with this aspect of the Snake-Legged Goddess.[1]

Multiple headgear pendants from three kurgans respectively found in Mastyuginskiy, Tovsta Mohyla, and Lyubimovskiy have been discovered which represent a goddess with large hands raised in a praying gestures and sitting on the protomēs of two lions in profile. The posture of this goddess depicts an imagery which originated in either Luristan or the Caucasus, and has been interpreted as an act of prayer towards a solar or celestial deity. The depiction of this goddess from the Tovsta Mohyla kurgan shows her half-nude, with uncovered breasts and wearing only a cross-belt above the skirt. The nudity of the Goddess with Raised Hands connect hers with the Snake-Legged Goddess, who is often depicted in topless dress, and with Artimpasa.[1]

A later Bosporan goddess in the same praying gesture is depicted with leaf-shaped or branch-shaped hands. Like the earlier goddess with raised hands, this goddess sits on two lions or on a throne flanked by lions. The leaf-shaped hands of this goddess as well as the wild animals on her sides connect her with the tendril-legged form of the Snake-Legged Goddess, and therefore to Artimpasa.[1]

The Snake-Legged Goddess's image was used in shamanic rites due to her affiliation with Artimpasa, with one of the sceptres from the Oleksandropilskiy kurhan having been found decorated with a depiction of her, and the other sceptre heads being furnished with bells or decorated with schematic trees with birds sitting on them.[1]

Depictions of the Snake-Legged Goddess were also found in the Sindo-Maeotian areas on the Asian side of the Cimmerian Bosporos, and her representations in her tendril-legged form became more predominant in the first centuries CE and appeared in Bosporan Greek cities, where they became a common design on sarcophagi, as well as in graves in Khersonēsos.[1]

A possible Sindo-Maeotian variant of the Snake-Legged Goddess appears in the Kingdom of the Bosporus under the name of Αφροδιτη Απατουρος (Aphroditē Apatouros).[4] The goddess's epithet Απατουρος (Apatouros) was derived from a name in a Sindian dialect of Scythian meaning "mighty water" or "quick water" composed of the terms ap-, meaning "water," and tura-, meaning "quick" or "mighty." The cult of this goddess was of indigenous Sindo-Maeotian origin and was adopted by the Greeks, who syncretised her with their own Aphroditē Ourania when they colonised the Taman Peninsula.[4]

Since the ancient Greeks did not understand the meaning of the epithet Απατουρος (Apatouros), Strabōn attempted to explain it as being derived from the Greek word apatē (απατη), meaning "treachery," through a retelling of a legend about this goddess, according to which she had been attacked by Giants and called on "Ηρακλης (Hēraklēs)," that is the god Targī̆tavah, for help. After concealing "Hēraklēs," the goddess, under guise of introducing the Giants one by one, treacherously handed them to "Hēraklēs," who killed them.[4]

This legend of Aphroditē Apatouros and the Giants has tentatively been suggested to have been part of the same narrative as the Scythian genealogical myth. According to this hypothesis, the reward of Aphroditē Apatouros to "Hēraklēs" for defeating the Giants would have been her love.[4]

The Taurian Παρθενος (Parthenos), the goddess to whom, according to Hērodotos of Halikarnāssos, the Tauroi sacrificed ship-wrecked men and Greeks captured in sea-raids and exposed their heads on a pole, might have been another form of the Snake-Legged Goddess worshipped by non-Scythians.[1]

The karyatides of the Thracian Tomb of Sveshtari depicting the Thracian variants of the Snake-legged Goddess

Thracian interpretations of the Scythian Snake-Legged Goddess appear in the Thracian Tomb of Sveshtari as karyatides with feminine bodies wearing kalathoi hats and khitōns with pleats shaped like floral volutes which have an akanthos between them. Their disproportionally large raised hands, which either hold the volutes or are raised to appear as supporting the entablature, are similar to the goddess with her hands raised to her face depicted on a series of Thracian votive plaques. Above the karyatides, a wall painting depicts a goddess holding a crown and reaching out to an approaching horseman. The overall scene represents a Thracian nobleman's posthumous heroisation and depicts the same elements of the Great Goddess-minor goddess complex found in the relation between Artimpasa and the Snake-Legged Goddess.[1]

A Thracian equivalent of the Snake-Legged Goddess might also appear in the series of horse bridle plaques from Letnitsa. One of the plaques depicts a seated male figure (an ancestral hero and likely Thracian equivalent of the Scythian "Hēraklēs") with a female figure (the Thracian Great Goddess) straddling him from above, both of them explicitly engaging in sexual intercourse, and symbolising the king's acquirement of royal power through intercourse with the Great Goddess similarly to the Scythian king's obtaining of royal power through his union with Artimpasa. Behind the Great Goddess is another woman, holding a vessel in one hand and in the other one a branch which obscures the view of the hero; this figure is a vegetation goddess with an ectatic aspect, which is symbolised by the vessel she holds, which contains a sacred beverage, and whose connection to the Great Goddess is analogous to that of the Snake-Legged Goddess with Artimpasa.[1]

Several Thracian stelae and votive plaques have also been discovered depicting a horseman facing a standing or seated Great Goddess while a tree with a coiling snake stands between them, attesting of the similarity of the Thracian and Scythian conceptions of the Great Goddess and the affiliation to her of a snake goddess who was considered the foremother of the people.[1]