Griffin and Snake in Scythian Art

Abstract

The note suggests the interpretation of a group of bronze pole-tops with a depiction of a griffin originated from Krasnokut Grave and some other burial mounds as representing the gnawing of a snake. The subject is extremely rare in the Hellenistic-Scythian art, close to him is known only one item — a gold plate of the sheath from the Elizavetovsky burial ground on the Lower Don-river. The reasons for the appearance and the essence of this composition remain unclear, except the most general assumption about the existence of ideas about the opposition of fantastic creatures — some kind of mediators associated with several zones of the Scythian Cosmos (mainly the upper ones), from the one side, to the animals (snakes) of the lower, chthonic and hostile to man zones, from the other.