Gold in scithian animal style: simbolics and mythopoetics
Abstract
The article analyses sacral nature of metal in general and of gold particularly as of basic materials in aesthetics and artistic diversity of Scythian animal style. Among well-known investigations dedicated to origins, peculiarities of artistic language and interpretation of Scythian animal style a rather few paid attention
to semantics of gold as a material of great importance in almost all cultures of the world. Usually Scythian animal style is closely associated with gold, despite the fact that it also demonstrates its uniqueness in other materials — in stone, bronze, iron and wood. Apart from its pliability gold had a special value for the Scythians as it was a “gift of gods”, a symbol of royal power, an equivalent of a magic union between Earth and Heaven. As an embodiment of global philosophic and aesthetic Indo-Iranian and Indo-European spiritual imperatives gold in the context of Scythian animal style was able to reveal all its sacral and
artistic potential. The article considers that the investigation of semantic of artistic materials could represent the phenomenon of animal style from a very different and innovative point of view.
Keywords:
Scythians animal style, metal, gold, evolution, heritage
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Articles of "Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Arts" are open access distributed under the terms of the License Agreement with Saint Petersburg State University, which permits to the authors unrestricted distribution and self-archiving free of charge.