Barry Cunlife - The Scythians

of gods, beliefs, and art
would have been necessary to maintain the structure as Herodotus says, but it would
also have symbolized a recommitment, creating an awareness of the continuity of
worship at this place. The deeply stratified nature of the monument would have been
a reminder of the great ancestry of the community. What symbolism lay behind the
four-square nature of the platform and the standing sword is debatable but one suggestion
is that the square mirrored the cosmological concept of a four-sided universe
while the sword served an axis mundi uniting the world of the gods to that of humans.
Since these open air altars to Scythian Ares occurred in every region, the annual
ceremonies would have been a reaffirmation of tribal identity. The question then
arises as to where the annual ceremony focused on the four sacred golden objects
which had fallen from the sky was held. Since it was presided over by the king of the
Royal Scyths it could have been at his hearth, wherever that was on the appointed
day. But it is more likely that he travelled to a fixed location known to everyone. A
hint of this is provided by Herodotus in his description of a special place called Exampaeus
(holy ways) situated between the Dnieper and the southern Bug (Hist. iv. 81).
Here, he says, stands a vast bronze bowl. It was ‘six fingers breadth in thickness’ and
could ‘hold with ease six hundred amphorae’ (24,000 litres). Herodotus visited the
place and asked the natives about its origin. He was told that in the distant past king
Ariantas, wanting to know the number of his subjects, ordered everyone to bring
him one arrowhead and it was from the vast heap that had accumulated that the great
bowl was made. A plausible explanation is that the great cauldron located at ‘holy
ways’ was conceived to be the centre of the world. The story of the arrowheads could
embody the understanding that all Scythians had ownership of it. Such a place would
have been especially holy, the proper location for the annual ceremony of the sacred
golden objects.
Herodotus explains that at the annual feast one man was chosen to look after the
gold; ‘if he should fall asleep in the open air, the Scythians say he is certain to die
within the year. His pay therefore is as much land as he can ride around on horseback
in a day’ (Hist. iv. 7). This is a difficult passage to interpret but it would seem to
suggest that a man was chosen annually for the task of guardian. He was given high
status but was sacrificed before the next year’s celebration. One interpretation would
be to suppose that the guardian was a surrogate for the king and that his death and
the appointment of a successor represent the death and rebirth of the king. It was a
moment of renewal in harmony with the annual cycle of the sun.
Where the concept of focusing religious observation around a great cauldron
originated is unknown, but such vessels existed in the south Caucasus during the
Urartian period and it may well have been from here that the Scythians appropriated
the belief. One of the largest of the surviving cauldrons was found in a
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