The Idea of Twinning in Pair Compositions in the Eastern European Scythian Animal Style

10.33876/2311-0546/2024-1/138-161

Abstract

The article is devoted to the semantics of the Scythian animal style images from the Eastern European zone. It covers the characteristic motifs and specific techniques for modelling paired compositions with the semantics of twinning in the images of the Eastern European Scythian animal style. The study is based on 74 images that frame or decorate archaeological finds from the Eastern European zone. The novelty of the study lies in the analysis of Scythian animal images in the aspect of characteristic motifs of ithyphallic images and their stylization in the form of animals in paired compositions, which we interpret as homoerotic scenes. The article expands information about the areal, chronological and social distribution of the custom of twinning in the Scythian environment. Zoomorphic images, containing ambivalent motifs and creating ithyphallic images, used in paired compositions of torment, pursuit or transformation, as well as in an antithetical position (sometimes creating syncretic images), as a result of semantic duality and metaphorical shift are interpreted here as ithyphallic images in homoerotic scenes. The numerous zoomorphic images in paired compositions confirm the widespread prevalence of twinning as a social phenomenon among the Scythians, embodied in the scenes of the ritual of consanguinity on golden plaques from the royal mounds of Solokha and Kul-Oba. The researchers' assumptions that the specific social-class structure of Scythian society is the reason for the spread of twinning among the Scythians, mainly in the fighting squad environment of the royal Scythians, are confirmed by the areal and chronological distribution of monuments, and by the high percentage of gold items. The results of the study will be used in a comparative analysis of the depiction of the idea of twinning in all zones of the Scythian-Siberian animal style.