Silver Griffins
Griffins are my favorite mythical beast. So, a 4th century BCE Scythian archaeological find of silver griffins perched around divinities caught my attention. The barrows where archaeologists found this intriguing piece of decorative silver lie on an upper tributary of the Don River in Russia. That’s pretty far from the areas where griffin iconography developed—roughly the Middle East, Anatolia, and Greece. The Scythians pursued a nomadic lifestyle across a broad swath of Eurasian steppes.
Keeping Divine Company
The article describes a fertility goddess, whom the article names as Cybele, surrounded on both sides with “winged eagle-headed griffons.” It adds, “Depictions of this type, where the traditions of Asia Minor and ancient Greek are mixed, are often found in excavations of the Scythian barrows of the Northern Sea region.”
A second area of the piece depicts an “anthropomorphic character with a crown on his head standing surrounded by two griffons.”
Sadly, the photo in the article isn’t terribly clear, so this fascinating later borrowing from the regions I focus on is tough to make out. I don’t have copyright on the photo, but you can take a peek on Archaeology News Network, “Scythian Deities on a Silver Plate: A Unique find in the Middle Don”
The photo at top, by the way, is another piece of beautiful Scythian metalwork. In gold, it depicts an elk with a griffin. Possibly the elk is flying. This example of a Scythian griffin comes from Kazakhstan. The photo is by Derzsi Elekes Andor on Wiki.
Buried in Barrows
Apparently, at the site of the Don find, there are nineteen barrows in two parallel chains. Lots of barrows. That brought Tolkien and the barrow wights to my mind, but no wight sightings were reported. Grave robbers stripped most of the barrows, but oak beams supporting the burial chamber of this one had collapsed, which protected some grave goods from pillage.
There are some translation issues I suspect in this article. The piece is referred to as a plate, but the two round pieces are referred to as buckles. Perhaps the silver band was a belt. By the time someone put it in the grave, silver nails attached it to a wood backing.
Fantasy Griffins
If you are interested in griffins, you will enjoy my Bolthar the griffin novella, The Scent of Slaughter and Love. Sign up for my newsletter and you’ll receive it as a gift. Some of the readers of this blog are already subscribed to my newsletter, and you should have seen the email offering it to you earlier in January. (If not, maybe you need to look in your spam folder.) Have fun reading Bolthar’s tale. Enter the realm of griffins, a land of mythical creatures, bloodthirsty feuds, insatiable hungers, and unconquerable love.