Semantics of the Scene of Mauling a Fish or Dolphin by a Bird of Prey in the Eastern European Scythian Animal Style

Abstract

The interpretation of the meanings of the works of fine art of the Scythian animal style is the most current issue of modern Scythology. The scene of a fish or a dolphin being mauled by a bird of prey is traditionally interpreted through the prism of the concept of the world tree as the contact of the upper and lower worlds. The novelty of the work lies in the interpretation of this scene as endowed with a double meaning: the hidden meaning is a scene of love seduction. The purpose of the study is to define the set of motifs of ithyphallic images and techniques of "semantic shift" as a system of means for creating a scene of male homoeroticism. Fifteen original images of a scene of a fish being mauled by a bird of prey and one image of a scene of a dolphin being tortured by a bird of prey are analyzed for the presence of motifs of ithyphallic images and techniques for creating a homoerotic scene. The work uses a comprehensive methodology, including the traditional iconographic, formal-stylistic and structural-semiotic methods, as well as the methods of the general scientific hypothetico-deductive method. The traditional interpretation of images - a bird digging its claws into the head of a fish or a dolphin, and into the body, as well as a fish or a dolphin as an object of mauling by a bird – is reinterpreted and considered in the aspect of motives and techniques that create ithyphallic images in an erotic scene. We group set of motives within the images containing them, which, as a result of a semantic shift, become participants in the scene of homoeroticism. Several set of motifs were identified, which, as a result of a semantic shift, are also the motifs of ithyphallic images, and the scene of a bird of prey mauling a fish / dolphin acquires the meaning of a homoerotic scene of love seduction. The semantics of the scene and the items decorated with it can most likely be attributed to the ritual, containing the attributes of the ancient Greek symposi and komos, the presence of enlarged eye motifs in the images suggests that the items also t fulfill the function of apotropaea. The prevalence of these products and the popularity of the scene itself are a vivid example of Greek cultural influence and the Hellenization of Scythian art in the V – IV centuries BC, as well as a significant religious and cult influence among the Scythian nobility.