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In all the orphic gold tablets it is emphasized that the location of the fountain is indicated by a white cypress. What is new in the tablets is not so much the cypress, as the adjective by which it is qualified, λευκή, which means „shining” or „white”. Some authors have defended the translation „shining”, but the choice between „white’’ and „shining’’ is in fact a problem of our translations, not of the Greek term, which includes both notions simultaneously. I try to explain this question in my article.
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The tenth elegy in the Fifth Book of “Sorrows” (Tristia 5.10), which Ovid wrote in 12th year AD, was repeatedly commented on and translated for historical, ethnic and literary purposes. Particularly, for Tristia 5.10.41—42 it was noted that “the text seems to be dubious” and such translations were offered that did not reflect the essence of that elegiac observation by the Roman poet. In 1975, Friedrich Hauben perceived the meaning and made an ethnographic parallel to point out that only Bulgarians and Greeks had the opposite use of a pan-European gesture system with head nodding expressing consensus or negation. However, the «ethnic stereotype» described by Ovid is characteristic only for the Bulgarians in Europe, and when registering an approving head nod (top-down) or turning it left and right (as a sign of denial) in present Turkey, Macedonia and Albania, we must seek for the ancient substrate (the presence of similar substrates in India also requires further research). The Getaic head nodding as a consensus for now has no other explanation except for the fact that the Getae, like the other Thracian communities, had not “disappeared”, but what is more, made a significant contribution to the evolution of the Bulgarians as an ethnic group. Against the background of the available evidence and futility of the German thesis of Völkertode of the “ancient peoples”, however paradoxical it sounds, there is literally no need to prove that the Getae and the Dacians were the main part of those North Thracian peasant communities, which in the written documents from the end of the 6th century AD on began to be designated in Greek as Σκλάβήνοι or Σκλαύηνοι, while in Latin — Sclaueni, Sclavi, Sclauini.
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In 2010—2012, excavations were carried out at the Trypillia settlement of Rusanovtsy 1, located in the upper reaches of the Upper Southern Bug River. The remains of three ground structures, which could have one and two chambers were studied. The living quarters were located at the level of the lower tier, as indicated by details of the interior — hearths and permanently installed pithos. Among the finds, ceramics with bichromic paintings predominate — a pattern made with dark brown paint, supplemented with white edging or small patterns. Products made from flint from local Bug or imported Volhynian raw materials were manufactured directly at the settlement. The settlement belongs to post-Zaleshchiki sites and dates to the beginning of stage BII.
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Works of O. A. W. Dilke, A. Diller, P. Schnabel, J. Fischer and others enable the author to conclude that the handmade maps are descendents of Ptolemy's maps. An alternative hypothesis (i. e. that the maps were a later product by the Byzantine scholars who used Ptolemy's text) seems to be not very well grounded.
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The author studies Chernyakhov feminine costume, which is typical for the Eastern Germanic peoples of the late Roman times. It is characterized by presence of a pair of crossbow fibulae or fibulae with two plates. The fibulae are arranged in pairs on the shoulders or chest, but there are known cases where a burial contained three and even four fibulae. The number of these items is determinative for the typology of the Eastern Germanic clothing, suggested by M. Mączyńska (Tempelmann-Mączyńska 1989). This typology is used in this study to examine Chernyakhov burials with two-plate fibulae.
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The Ai-Todor temple of Chilter-Koba cave monastery in the Crimea has an ancient throne adjacent to the inner wall of the apse, which consists of flow systems: a cup-shaped cavity and a drench gutter. This finds analogies in three earliest Byzantine thrones of Jerusalem and among the sites of 2nd — 4th centuries. Since Christianity evolves in Tauris during the Gothic Wars of 264 and 275, one can date these liturgical devices in Chilter-Koba to this time.
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The article presents the materials of the two richest burials in barrows in the Kuban steppe, dated from the Great Migration epoch. The detailed analysis of the multiple inventory items (polychromatic objects, buckles and belt decorations, cauldrons, weapons, etc) makes it possible to date the burial in Kalininskaya to the first half of the 5th century, and the burial in Malay — to the middle of the 6th century.
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“Migration” has been an important concept for explaining social and cultural change throughout the history of archaeology. Religion, on the other hand, as an important medium for the interaction of different societies and cultures, has been one of the main results of migrations. In antiquity cults spread through different geographical areas by trade, wars and migration. The immigrants brought their beliefs to the new lands and also, they adopted the local cults. During the 12th and 11th century B.C., a large-scale immigration called “Aegean Migrations” occured from Eastern Europe and Balkans to Anatolia. While the first wave of the Aegean Migrations was a movement of discovery the second peak period caused radical changes with the Ionian, Aeolian and Phrygian settlement in Anatolia. The Phrygians who came from the Balkans to Anatolia destroyed the Hittite State and settled in the Kızılırmak River basin. While The Aeol tribes settled between today’s Çanakkale-İzmir shores, the Ionians established a union of twelve city-states between 900-700 BC. These cities were Miletos, Myus, Priene, Ephesos, Kolophon, Lebedos, Teos, Klazomenae, Phocaea, Samos, Khios, and Erythrai. An Aiol city, Smyrna, later joined the union. Ionia had the most glorious period between 650 and 494 BC. Ionian Golden Age came to an end when Miletos, the leader of the union, was occupied by the Persians in 494 BC. However, it is proven in the inscriptions that the union continued its life till the 1st century B.C. When the Ionians came to Anatolia they met the Mother Goddess Cult who had been prayed for thousands of years. The Goddess was given the title of “Matar / Mother” and her characteristic features were created in Phrygia. The recognition of the Mother Goddess Cult in Ionia can be explained by the relations with Phrygia. The purpose of this presentation is to reveal with the archaeological finds that the Ionians, who came to Anatolia with the Aegean Migrations adopted the Mother Goddess Cult Cybele and they added their own cultural characteristics to her.
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Big fingered fibulae of the East German tradition, such as Archar-Histria type, are addressed in this article. In the late phase of the Great Migration Period, they spread throughout the East Roman Empire, south of the Danube, as well as in the Crimea. These fibulae belong to the East German tradition of women's costume and date from the second half of the 5th — the beginning of the 6th centuries. Most likely, they spread from the northern part of the Balkan Peninsula along with migrations of the Goths to the West and the East. Perhaps, the finds of such fibulae in the Crimea (Luchistoe, Artek, Kerch) reflect one of the Gothic migrations from the Balkans, not recorded by written sources.
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The burial dress of Chernyakhov — Sântana de Mureș Culture is represented by the following categories of finds: fibulae, belt details, beads, pendants, rings, temple rings, bracelets, earrings, torcs. The latter five categories of finds are not numerous and do not form series. Their inclusion in Chernyakhov costume is supposed to be a manifestation of foreign cultural traditions and rules. The aim of this work is to find analogies to Chernyakhov’s finds of rare categories, to determine their origin and to interpret the reason why they are found in the Chernyakhov area. The study allowed to conclude that, in fact, it is impossible to establish the one reason why those rare categories of dress accessories could be found in the Chernyakhov culture area. Some of them are trophies of Scythian wars, some are items popular with the Late Scythian, Sarmatian population of Northern Black Sea region, and most of them are jewelry articles popular over a wide territory.
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Among all the hoards consisting the ceremonial akinakai the assemblage of items discovered in 1882 near the Vettersfelde village is the most reliable. It contained richly decorated golden objects in conventional geometric and animal style. Judging by the plots presented on the objects in the animal style like a fish-shaped plaque, a clover-shaped phalera and a scabbard of a sword, they make up a solid ensemble, most likely made simultaneously in one workshop. Most scholars have dated the hoard within the framework of the late 6th — early 5th centuries BC, at the same time, among all of the objects of this set of items, the sword occupies the earliest part of the chronological range. The manufacturing of hoard items from Vettersfelde is usually associated with the Milesian colonies of the Pontic region, while for the artist certain bilingualism is documented, allowing him to use both Greek and barbaric expressive means — pairing, symmetry, repetition and antithesis, among them. Most likely, the choice of metaphors for the narrative was not accidental, and, undoubtfully was recognized both by its performer and the recipient, but the metaphor of the lion hunting deer was apparently the main one and therefore is repeated on all objects of the zoomorphic ensemble. If the localization of the hoard production is moved beyond the northern or western coast of the Black Sea, then it can be noted that the Milesian colonies of Eastern Greece can also claim the role of a source of origin for Vettersfelde hoard. In particular, according to many parameters, Cyzicus is suitable.
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The Hermetic treatise known as the Sacred Book of Hermes to Asclepius (Ἱερὰ βίβλος) contains recipes for making magical amulets consecrated to the thirty-six decans of the Egyptian zodiac, thus providing reliable descriptions of these astrological figures. For each amulet, the treatise then recommends a gemstone, a plant, and a food prohibition which are evidently connected with the astrological nature of the decans themselves, according either to the Egyptian tradition or to the Hellenic magical lore. Relying on the most recent studies on decanal iconographies, this chapter aims at providing examples of engraved gems produced following the prescriptions in the Sacred Book; many of these specimens are found in the corpus of the so-called “magical gems”, some Roman imperial amulets which were deeply investigated in the last decades. Moreover, the essay will attempt to understand the astrological theories underlying the creation of the amulets described by the treatise, trying to determine the ideal relationship among the different ingredients to be used. This will eventually lead to further conclusions regarding magical practises in the Graeco-Roman world.
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The subject of this paper is the close-kin marriages in Menander’s comedies. The normative preference for close-kin marriage was different in fourth-centry BC Athens from modern societies. However, incestuous relations between full-blood brother and sister pr parent and child were considered wrong, and were never comic material in Menander’s comedy, which was concerned with realities of everyday life. I examine the comic purpose of introducing close-kin marriages in New Comedy, and I try to give explination on the cultural attitude towards endogamy. In order to explain these issues, I classify the close-kin marriages in three groups: (1) Brother-sister marriage, (2) First cousins marriage, (3) Marriage of the epikleros.
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The aim of the present paper is to review some problems of the arrangement of nine monuments – seven reliefs and two drawings, proposed in two previous studies on the issue. Most of the monuments were found by Layard in 1845 within remains of the Central Palace in Kalah (Nimrud), but not on their original position because the artifacts were dismantled in the Antiquity. The circumstances of the finding are described with contradictions in the primary documentation and later works of Layard, giving opportunity to different reconstructions of the whole composition with the Arab campaign. As result two hypotheses were proposed for resolving of the problem, the first one by Barnett and Falkner in 1962, and the second by Reade in 1968 and 1979. Both hypotheses are examined critically in relation to their main schemes and arguments used in favor of the positions expressed. The physical form and the scenes of the monuments allow a sure reconstruction for only a part of composition and the exact place of five artifacts (three reliefs and the both drawings) remains uncertain. Some general and particular observations on the problems and hypotheses on relief’s order are added in the conclusion. The discrepancies in the archaeological documentation, our insuffi-cient knowledge on the principles of arrangement of Assyrian historical relief, and the missing monuments put every hypothesis on the order of the artifacts under doubt. For the present, the best way supposed for ordering the reliefs remains the direct relation between their scenes and the written narrative of the royal inscriptions.
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In this research work, attention is paid to the unattractive term „sycophant“. The root of the work „fig“ is taken as a starting point in the study. Initially, this noun connected the term with the primitive agricultural cults and the rites of fertilization. The solving of the set out task goes through the tracing of the fate of the words „fig“ and „sycophant“ in ancient literature. On the basis of the studied source data, generally two semantic circles could be outlined: the one – when the word „sycophant“ is used in its religious meaning, and the other – when it bears a „judicial“ meaning. In the 30s of the 5th century BC, the meaning of the word shifted and sycophant already meant an „informant”, a „spy“. Ancient Athens judiciary incorporated this practice and during the next 4th century BC snitching thrived but in the atmosphere of total contempt on the side of the citizens of Athens.
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The practice of prostitution in ancient Rome reflected the ambivalent attitudes of Romans toward pleasure and sexuality. Prostitution was legal and licensed. Even Roman men of the highest social status were free to engage prostitutes of either sex without incurring moral disapproval, as long as they demonstrated self-control and moderation in the frequency and enjoyment of sex. At the same time, the prostitutes themselves were considered shameful: most were either slaves or former slaves, or if free by birth relegated to the infames, people utterly lacking in social standing and deprived of most protections accorded to citizens under Roman law, a status they shared with actors and gladiators, all of whom, however, exerted sexual allure. Latin literature makes frequent reference to prostitutes. Historians such as Livy and Tacitus mention prostitutes who had acquired some degree of respectability through patriotic, law-biding, or euergetic behavior. The highclass “call girl” (meretrix) is a stock character in Plautus’s comedies, which were influenced by Greek models. The poems of Catullus, Horace, Ovid, Martial, and Juvenal, as well the Satyricon of Petronius, offer fictional or satiric glimpses of prostitutes. Real-world practices are documented by provisions of Roman law that regulate prostitution, and by inscriptions, especially graffiti from Pompeii. Erotic art in Pompeii and Herculaneum from sites presumed to be brothels has also contributed to scholarly views on prostitution.
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The present paper deals with the current state of scientific research concerning the religious transformation from the cult of the pagan heroes to the cult of the Christian saints in the Balkan lands south of the Danube. The geographic frame of this study covers the area, which was inhabited in the age of Antiquity by the Thracians. A comparative review has been made of the research works of some western authors like P. Saintyves, H. Delehaye, P. Brown, J. Fredouille and others, who represent various research trends and paradigms. It seems that the more Christian viewpoint the author shares, the more is he inclined to reject the idea of dependency between the cult of the saints and the cult of the heroes; and vice versa – the more emancipated is he from the authority of the church, the more tending is he to affirm the idea of religious continuity. At this background, there is a number of major Bulgarian researchers, as well as foreign researchers, dealing with the Balkan lands, who have been presented in the paper – like I. Gueorguieva, G. Kazarow, Chr. Walter, E. Theodorov, I. Dujčev and some other. They have treated certain aspects of the transition. The study of the traditional popular culture, containing ancient pagan vestiges, is of primary importance in analyzing the subject matter. There are many other authors, who have treated the religious transition, but, in genera, the researchers, presented in this study, seem to form the overall notion concerning the scientific discourse on the problem. Of course, there remain numerous issues, which may be subject of further fruitful research.
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This study covers the Hecate figurine, which is located in the region called Phrygia Paroreia in the Ancient Period and is exhibited in the Nasreddin Hodja Archeology and Ethnography Museum, which is affiliated to the Konya Akşehir Museum Directorate, in the Akşehir district of Konya province today. Although there are deficiencies in certain parts of the work, the fact that it is found as a single piece and especially the protection of the head allows us to evaluate the work. The Hecate statuette indicates the existence of local sanctuaries in the area. When evaluated together with the typological and iconographic features determined for the figurine, it is important to determine the belief structure and votive cultures in the region or settlement. The figurine most likely indicates its use either as a domestic cult or as a votive offering. The iconographic and stylistic evaluation of the Hecate figurine has been made, and it is considered suitable for dating to the first half of the 2nd century AD.
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