Barry Cunlife - The Scythians

of gods, beliefs, and art
10.8 Gilded silver mirror from kurgan 4 at Kelermes. It shows a winged goddess presiding over the
world of beasts.
The fourth style of representation presents the goddess sitting and facing a man,
sometimes shown on horseback. One of the clearest versions of this appears on
the rhyton from Merdzhany dating to the fourth century. The goddess sits facing
the viewer, holding a spherical vessel. To her right there is a seven-branched tree
of life while to the left is a horse’s head mounted on a pole. A bearded rider hold-
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