Targitaos
| Dargatavah | |
|---|---|
| Other names | Skuδa |
| Gender | Male |
| Region | Eurasian steppe |
| Ethnic group | Scythic peoples |
| Parents | Papaios and a daughter of the river Varustāna |
| Consort | Artimpasa and the Snake-Legged Goddess |
| Offspring | Lipoxšaya, Arbuxšaya, and Kolaxšaya or Agathyrsos, Gelōnos, Skythēs |
| Greek equivalent | Hēraklēs |
Targitaos (Scythian: Dargatavah; Ancient Greek: Ταργιταος, romanized: Targitaos; Latin: Targitaus), or Scythes (Scythian: Skuδa; Ancient Greek: Σκυθης, romanized: Skuthēs; Latin: Scythes), was a Scythian god who was the first of the Scythians ancestor and their first king according to the Scythian mythology.
Name[edit]
The Greek name Targitaos (Ταργιταος) is the Hellenised form of the Scythian language name *Dargatavah, which means “whose might is far-reaching.”[1]
The Greek name name Skuthēs (Σκυθης) is the Hellenised form of the Scythian language name *Skuδa, which is the endonym of the Scythians.[2]
Role[edit]
Dargatavah-Skuδa was born from the union of Papaios and daughter of the river Varustāna. Dargatavah-Skuδa was very closely associated with Papaios or confused with him in Scythian mythology, and he was sometimes replaced by Papaios in some versions of the Scythian genealogical myth, thus attributing the ancestry of the Scythians alternatively to Dargatavah-Skuδa or to Papaios directly.[3]
According to the various versions of the Scythian genealogical myth, Dargatavah fathered the ancestors of the Scythians with the Snake-Legged Goddess.[4]
Identification[edit]
Dargatavah-Skuδa was likely assimilated by the Greeks from the northern shores of the Black Sea with their hero Hēraklēs, and the main feature of this deity identifying him with Hēraklēs was the cattle he drives in the Scythian genealogical myth, although unlike the Greek Hēraklēs who drove the cattle of Gēryōn on foot, the Scythian “Hēraklēs” drove a chariot pulled by mares. This cattle-driver aspect of Dargatavah-Skuδa was likely derived from the motif of cattle-theft of Iranian mythology which is also reflected in the legend of Miϑra as a cattle-stealing god. Due to this, the Greek author Hērodotos of Halikarnāssos also identified Dargatavah with Hēraklēs in his writings.[4]
Regional variants[edit]
Sanerges[edit]
The Sindo-Maeotian form of Dargatavah was named Sanerges (Ancient Greek: Σανεργες Sanerges; Latin: Sanerges). Reflecting the role of Dargatavah in the Scythian genealogical legend, Sanerges was considered the partner of the goddess Aphroditē Apatoura, who was a local iteration of the Snake-Legged Goddess. Like Dargatavah, Sanerges was also assimilated with Hēraklēs.[5]
Iconography[edit]
Dargatavah is the same figure who appears in Scythian art as the masculine figure facing Artimpasa in her depictions as a seated goddess. These scenes depicted the marriage of Dargatavah with Artimpasa, but also represented the granting of a promise of afterlife and future resurrection to Dargatavah, and, by extension, collectively to his descendants, the Scythians.[4]
Dargatavah's role in these scenes also consisted of representing a deified mortal who was identified with him, the Scythian king, who thus was given apotheōsis by identifying him with his divine ancestor. Thus, the scene of the masculine figure facing the seated Artimpasa represented both the goddess's granting of royal power to the king, but also, through the identification with Dargatavah, the father of the first Scythian king, the giving of supreme legitimacy to the authority of the royal descendants of Artimpasa in her role as the divine spouse of the Scythian kings.[4]
A representation of Dargatavah as investing a king is a scene from a silver rhyton discovered in the Karagodeuashkh Kurgan, depicting two bearded adult mounted horsemen. One of the horsemen holds a rhyton in his right hand and a sceptre in his left hand, while the other horseman has the right hand raised in a gesture of salutation. This scene represented the investiture of a king by a god, and has its parallels in the Iranian world in the Sasanid reliefs of Naqš-e Rostam and Bay-Šāpūr depicting the investitures of Ardašīr I and of Warahrān I by Ahura Mazdā. Although the identity of the figure holding the rhyton has been suggested to be Papaios, it most likely represented Dargatavah. In the scene on the rhyton, Dargatavah, in his role as the first king and divine ancestor of the Scythians acts as a custodian of the power and the victories of his descendants, and the rhyton he holds represents a communion between the king and the god, paralleling the communion with Artimpasa in the scenes with the seated goddess. The topmost and bottommost parts of the rhyton are decorated with floral patterns, representing the connection between Dargatavah and Artimpasa.[3]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ Harmatta, János (1996). "10.4.1. The Scythians". In Hermann, Joachim; de Laet, Sigfried (eds.). History of Humanity. Vol. 3. UNESCO. p. 181-182. ISBN 978-9-231-02812-0.
- ^ Schmitt, Rüdiger (2003). "Die skythischen Personennamen bei Herodot" [Scythian Personal Names in Herodotus] (PDF). Annali dell'Università degli Studi di Napoli l'Orientale (in German). 63: 1–31.
- ^ a b Ustinova 1999, p. 255-283.
- ^ a b c d Ustinova 1999, p. 67-128.
- ^ Ustinova 1999, p. 29-66.
Sources[edit]
- Lincoln, Bruce (2014). "Once again 'the Scythian' myth of origins (Herodotus 4.5–10)". Nordlit. 33 (33): 19–34. doi:10.7557/13.3188.
- Safaee, Yazdan (2020). "Scythian and Zoroastrian Earth Goddesses: A Comparative Study on Api and Ārmaiti". In Niknami, Kamal-Aldin; Hozhabri, Ali (eds.). Archaeology of Iran in the Historical Period. Springer International Publishing. pp. 65–75. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-41776-5_6. ISBN 978-3-030-41776-5.
- Ustinova, Yulia (1999). The Supreme Gods of the Bosporan Kingdom: Celestial Aphrodite and the Most High God. ISBN 978-9-004-11231-5.
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