Chapter I «Languages and Texts of Scythian Culture» centres around sources in which this mythology can be found. Because the Scythians lacked a written tradition of their own, narratives of their mythology can predominantly be found in literary sources originated outside their cultural area – in works by Greek and Latin authors. In his previous work, D. S. Rayevsky attempted to reconstruct Scythian mythology as a combination of narratives about mythical developments, describing the processes involved in cosmo-, antropo– and socio-genesis (Essays on Ideology of Scythian and Saka Tribes. Attempt at Reconstructing the Scythian Mythology. Moscow, 1977). The present book is a continuation of the previous study. Here Scythian mythology is taken in its other aspect: as a means to structure their world and a foundation for various sign systems attested in the Scythian environment. This point of view makes it possible to consider as mythological texts both verbal and pictorial compositions, any construction or combination of symbolic motifs based thereon, plus any archaeological evidence (when the latter is a product of a purposeful action, as in burial, rather than casual «aggregation»), etc. The world pattern is thereby shown to have been materialized in multiple codes: verbal, pictorial, actualizational, etc. Scythian mythological texts based on verbal and pictorial code systems are considered in more detail.
The first one features prominently in Chapter II entitled «Towards Studying Scythian Verbal Lore». Despite the fact that the Scythians had no writing of their own, it would be a mistake to think that their lore is entirely lost: numerous written evidence in ancient Greek and Latin sources with information on Scythia should be regarded as taking their immediate origin in Scythian oral tradition and preserving the content and structure of Scythian legend and epic, etc. as well as Scythian consciousness. True, these fragments are not enough to restore the whole diversity of Scythian folklore, neither it is possible to comprehensively analyse its content and the totality of its artistic methods. These fragments, however, are very helpful in understanding Scythian culture, the way Scythians per-cepted their world, and to some extent, how their perception changed throughout Scythian history.
The earliest layers of Scythian lore are purely mythological in their account of creation. The survivals of mythical times, however, continued to be vital, according to Scythian tradition in historical times as well, as they prescribed the social and political organization of Scythian society. Earlier Greek sources can be used to trace back a gradual transition from Scythian purely mythological understanding of the world to its mytho-historical account, and the emergence of «his-torical» stories relating some real facts from Scythian history. However, such stories (for example, Herodotus’ tale of the war between the Scythians and Darius) should not be regarded as authentic, for the account of real events in them is a function of folklore models, and the reality in them is transformed accordingly.
Ancient Greek and Latin sources contain fragments of a whole series of Scythian folklore texts. Of their many aspects these texts are of special interest as a means of handing over from one generation to another the norms of social behaviour inherent in the Scythian environment and its socio-cultural memory.
Chapter III, «Scythian Art as a Dynamic Semiotic System», analyses the whole range of pictorial motifs, whatever their nature of origin, decorating Scythian antiquities. Speaking of Scythian culture, scholars typically refer to so-called animal style while the fact that it was very notable in Scythian culture they tend to explain by a certain «zoomorphic perception» allegedly inherent in Scythians. Meanwhile comparison of Scythian zoomorphic and anthropomorphic imagery refutes this statement, whereas the semantics of the animal style cannot be properly understood without due reference to other pictorial motifs characteristic of Scythia – «Scythian themes» produced by Greek artists, Scythian stone sculpture, rather primitive anthropomorphic characters and even scenes from Hellenic mythology found on Scythian objects. All these finds in combination with the objects of the markedly animal style can be regarded as different means of materializing the Scythian world pattern at different stages of Scythian cultural history.