The ideology of the peoples that inhabited the steppe-belt of Eurasia in the first millennium В. С. has not been studied thoroughly enough. This is due to the scarcity and character of the extant sources. In order to reconstruct the religious and mythological ideas and notions of these peoples, animal style monuments are being studied as a rule, which, undoubtedly, have a religious meaning. However, the range of the offered interpretations of the semantics of these monuments demonstrates to some extent an arbitrary and groundless nature of these interpretations. Hence, it is not the animal style monuments that at this stage form the foundation for the reconstruction of the mythology of the steppe-belt peoples, but on the contrary, the reconstruction of this mythology on the basis of studying other sources that may enable us to comprehend the semantics of animal style.
The data necessary for this reconstruction are most fully represented in Pon-tic Scythia. They can be taken in the works by ancient authors containing short summaries of Scythian myths, often distorted or fragmentary, and in an analysis of the content of anthropomorphous compositions, adorning various artifacts, made by both Greek and local masters and found during the archaeological study of Scythia. The author of the book disputes the widespread view that a majority of these compositions contain genre scenes of Scythian life, and interprets them as illustrations to Scythian myths or as reproductions of Scythian religious rituals. The fact that the Scythians belonged to the peoples of the Iranian language group makes it possible to draw the data about myths and beliefs of other peoples of the Indo-Iranian world, which were better preserved thanks to the existence of the written languages of these peoples, in order to interpret the ancient and pictorial records of Scythian mythology.
The book attempts to reconstruct, on the basis of the sources mentioned, mythological ideas of the Scythians in the areas north of the Black Sea as a whole system. It also examines the questions of how these ideas were projected to various spheres of sociopolitical ideology. The legend about the origin of the Scythians presented in different versions and with varying degree of completeness by Herodotus (IV, 5 – 7, 8 – 10), Diodorus (II, 43), Valerius Flaccus (Arg., VI, 48 – 68 and 621 – 656) and in an epigraphic source (IG, XIV, 1293A, 11. 94 – 97) is most thoroughly analysed. Contrary to a majority of scholars interpreting this legend as one about the origin of various Scythian tribes or numerous peoples in areas north of the Black Sea (B. N. Grakov, M. I. Artamonov, E. Ben-veniste, and others) or about the formation of the ternary social organisation of Scythian society (G. Dumézil, M. Mole, E. A. Grantovsky), the author asserts that it has a much wider meaning. In his opinion, this legend is the central cos-mogonic myth of Scythian mythology. According to Scythian cosmogony, reflected in this legend, the initial stage of the formation of the Universe was the conjugal union between the celestial god Papaios and goddess Api, the latter having been an embodiment of the lower, chthonic world, a personification of the water elements and life-giving earth. Targitaos, born of this union, was the first man and the god, who personified the middle zone of the Cosmos, the material world, the world of human beengs. His birth signified the establishment of cosmic order, a three-tier organisation of the Universe. Horizontally, the model of the organisation of the world was a rectangular figure with equal sides, similar to the ancient Indian idea of the four «guardians of the world» and elaborating Herodotus’ data about the configuration of Scythia (Herod., IV, 101).