#estruscan

[twintailedsiren]

Artemis as Mistress of Animals

An Etruscan terracotta antefix of Artemis, as the Mistress of Animals or Potnia Theron. About 2nd century BCE.

I've written about Artemis as Mistress of Animals here.

[artifacts-archive]

Hand Mirror

Etruscan, 470-450 BCE

Found in women’s graves, bronze mirrors were luxurious personal possessions used in life and then buried with the dead for use in the afterlife. One side was highly polished; the other side was usually engraved with a mythic scene, such as this one, which shows the goddess Eos carrying the body of her son, Memnon, who was killed by the hero Achilles. The episode was taken from Homer’s The Iliad, the epic poem that narrates the Greek siege and eventual defeat of the city of Troy.

[sepulchrypha]

chamber_discovered

A capture from a lost archaeological documentary.

[arjuna-vallabha]

Gold oak leaf diadem, Etruscan jellewry, Italy

[giuliaorsattiphotos]

Archaeological Nature Park of Vulci, Italy

© Giulia Orsatti - Follow me on Instagram @giuliaorsattiphotos

[sjru]

Boar Vessel, 600-500 BC, Etruscan, ceramic but it's a Toon (2018 Colorized)

​​​​​​​Art by me.

[theoldstone]

Tuchulcha (above) is an Estruscan daemon (not to be confused with “demon”). It has pointed ears, a beak, a mane of hair made of snakes, and a bristly beard.

The only known rendition of Tuchulcha is on a wall painting in the Tomb of Orcus II in Italy. It was constructed sometime around 325 BC

[twintailedsiren]

Potnia Theron, Artemis, or Scythian ancestral goddess?

I’ve struggled to understand the origins of imagery of the snake-legged Scythian ancestral goddess for over a decade. I started researching her, as she looked like a likely origin for two-tailed sirens and mermaids, the focus of my research and this blog. However, after looking back through my articles and notes, I know I’m not alone in my confusion. There aren’t a lot of clear answers here, sorry. 

The Scythian ancestral goddess, or Vegetation Goddess, is depicted as a woman, facing forward, with two snake tails or leafy vines curling up on either side of her, like the Vergina mosaic above. She looks like a clear link to the two-tailed siren, pictures next to her. One of the first articles I read in my search for the two tailed siren was by Laws, "A Herodotean Echo in Pompeian Art?" and had this figure, a plaque from Olynthos:

That this image was included confused me. I’d been looking for sources for the Starbucks siren, or images with a very specific type of two tails. This grumpy looking drawing didn’t have any tails at all. So why was it included in an article about two-tailed beings?

I saw the drawing of this plaque from Olynthos in a few other places, like Ustinova’s excellent analysis and history of Scythian goddess imagery. I just didn’t see the connection between this figure and the Scythian goddess. 

Especially seeing images of Artemis as Mistress of Animals, like the figure on the right. The Mistress of Animals is an ancient fertility motif from Near East art. To me, these two figures seem much more likely to be related than the Scythian ancestral goddess and the grumpy Olynthos plaque. For one, they’re both surrounded by animals, who stand symmetrical; the figures have wings; there’s a bird in the image. 

Any connections to the Olynthos plaque and the Scythian goddess seemed like a stretch. What, that weird curling thing around the waist is going to evolve into tails? Are the curling things around the bird at the bottom significant? I understand that the core meaning is similar: the Scythian ancestral goddess is said to be mother to the Scythians, and the Mistress of Animals / Potnia Theron is a fertility symbol.

(Drawing on the right: Artemis as Potnia Theron. Handle of Grächwil hydria. c. 570 BCE. Potnia Theron holding hares and flanked by two seated lions. Bern, Bern. Hist. grumpy plate lady. 11620. LIMC Artemis 47. Information from: A GRIPPING TAIL: Re-interpreting the Archaic Potnia Theron Schema By Emily Simon; drawing from: Reinach, Salomon. Répertoire de la statuaire grecque et romaine: Sept mille statues antiques. 2. éd. 1908. France, E. Leroux, 1908.

Let’s take a dive into this image by looking at what academics had to say about it. We’ll start with the first article I read,"A Herodotean Echo in Pompeian Art?” by Guitty Azatpay Laws:

“Possibly related to this motif is a figure depicted several times on an early fourth-century bronze plaque from Olynthos (pl. 21, fig. I). As in the Leningrad acroterion and the Roman thrones, the figure from Olynthos represents a bearded and winged male torso with extended arms which in this case grasp the horns of lion-griffin protomai that grow instead of tendrils from the acanthus skirt of the figure. Features such as the palmette, griffin manes and acanthus skirt show that, whatever the origin of the figure, it is brought into the repertory of Greek art already at the beginning of the fourth century B.C. and is produced by Greek artists for Greek patrons.”

Here’s the plaque drawing and the St. Petersburg statue for reference. Ok, I see it. They’re bros: both holding animals out to the side, like the Master of Animals, and they’re winged. They hang out and trade stories about hunting. I see it. I get it.

(Image info: New Hermitage - Hall 121. Acrotery with the image of Arimasp holding griffins by the horns. Greece, 3rd century BC. Marble. Inv. No. A.937. Image via Wikipedia)

Next let’s look at what Yulia Ustinova wrote in The Supreme Gods of the Bospiran Kingdom: Celestial Aphrodite and the Most High God about the Olynthos plaque, pgs 105-106

“The solution to the riddle is probably supplied by bronze reliefs from Olynthos (plate 7…) featuring a bearded winged deity, with an ornament emphasising the breasts, a plant above the head, two panthers emerging from branch the waist…” She suggests the relief could represent the androgynous Astarte-Aphrodite.

The riddle mentioned is the question of the Olynthos figure plaque’s gender. I really want to devote a whole post about the figure’s gender, but the main gist is: Master of Animals and Mistress of Animals have similar iconographic history, and some of the figures have ambiguous gender, with both breasts and a beard, like this figure from Cyprus:

Marble capital, 300-250 BC, Salamais, Cyprus, Greece. Currently in the British Museum.

The last article I’m quoting about the Olynthos plaque is by Julia Valeva, titled “Valeva-1995 The Sveshtari Figures (An Attempt to Specify Several Hypotheses).”

“Two monuments from Olynthos are cited as being the earliest:… a bronze plaque with a male deity from the beginning of the 4th century BC. These are followed chronologically by the gold plaques adorning clothing from the Kul-Oba tumulus, dated to the first half of the 4th century.”

This explains why the Olynthos plaque keeps coming up: it’s one of the oldest versions of Scythian goddess imagery. 

Also, her article is the first time I’ve seen a photo of the actual plaque, and not just a drawing. Sadly, it’s quite damaged:

For reference, here are the Sveshtari figures the article refers to, as well as the gold pieces from Kul-Oba:

Carytids, from the Thracian Tomb of Sveshtari, the village of Sveshtari, Razgrad Province, Bulgaria. Around 300 BCE.

The Thrace caryatids have outstretched hands, mimicking how the Scythian goddess often holds her own tails. Also, the caryatids skirt curls up in that distinctive manner: like the Olynthos plaque, and in a way that the skirt looks a bit like two curling tails.

For reference, here’s the gold Kul-Oba piece for reference. Here, it’s easy to see her dress morphing into tails, as the edges of her skirt have animals heads on them.

Gold plaques from the burial mound in Kul-Oba, near Kerch, Crimea, Ukraine. First half of the 4th century BCE. (Date from Valeva.)

These lovely gold pieces show how this imagery— of the Scythian ancestral goddess and the Mistress of Animals— are interconnected:

Above: “Greek gold jewellery, Mistress of the Animals, possible Macedonia or southern Russia. 4-5th century. Altes Museum, Berlin.”

The winged figure on the right doesn’t have any legs, but she has a calathus on her head, as the Vergina mosaic. The figure on the right looks more like a standard Mistress of Animals: she doesn’t have tails, but she is winged, and holds two lions at her side.

Ustinova includes a drawing of the figure on the right in a book, "Snake-Limbed and Tendril-Limbed Goddesses in the Art and Mythology of the Mediterranean and Black Sea,” and identifies her as: “Gold pendant from the Bol'shaya Bliznitsa tumnlns (from Petro, and Makarevich 1963, fig. 1: 4).

I just love when I can find the original objects from drawings.

Finally, I got a little curious about the relationship with Artemis, Mistress of Animals, and Potnia Theron, and Etruscan imagery— the drawing of Artemis in this blog is Etruscan. 

Grummond on Etruscan Artemis, page 99-100:

“We must also include here the Etruscan Artemis, whose name occurs as Artumes or as Aritimi, and who probably does not in fact qualify for the title of “great goddess” in Etruria. Her claim depends on the identity of a female figure shown frequently in the very earliest Etruscan representations, who is depicted as controlling a pair of animals such as lions, birds, sphinxes, deer, horses, or even wolves (Fig. V.21)34 A powerful nature goddess is known in Greece from the Bronze Age, and is often referred to as Potnia Theron, “Mistress of Animals.” She has been equated with Artemis in Greece, and there are those who support this designation in Etruria as well. But there are no known representations of the Mistress of Animals with an Etruscan inscription labelling her as Artemis, and it is probably best to reserve judgement and await new evidence on this subject.”

To me, this shows my original issue: none of these figures have clear, agreed-on names. I’ve seen Mistress of Animals written as Lady of Animals and Mistress of Beasts. The Scythian ancestral goddess definitely doesn’t have an agreed on, commonly used name. 

It’s easier to see how the snake-legged, Scythian ancestral goddess came to be: by looking at many images of her. Individually, they look perhaps unconnected— but when you set them side by side, the patterns, the motif, the evolution of her image becomes clear.

There you have it:  some theories, images, and no answers. The path to enlightenment isn’t paved with knowledge.

Update: I finished the post about the deity's nonbinary gender.

Sources

Laws, Guitty Azatpay. "A Herodotean Echo in Pompeian Art?" American Journal of Archaeology 65, 1 (1961): 31-35.

Ustinova, Yulia. The Supreme Gods of the Bospiran Kingdom: Celestial Aphrodite and the Most High God. Boston: Leiden, 1999. Plate 7.1, figure 1.

Ustinova, Yulia. "Snake-Limbed and Tendril-Limbed Goddesses in the Art and Mythology of the Mediterranean and Black Sea." Scythians and Greeks: Cultural Interaction in Scythia, Athens and the Early Roman Empire (Sixth Century B.C. - Fist Century A.D.). Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2005. 

Valeva, Julia. “Valeva-1995 The Sveshtari Figures (An Attempt to Specify Several Hypotheses).” Thracia 11, Studia in honorem Alexandri Fol, Sofia. (1995): n. pag. Print.

Grummond, Nancy Thomson De. Etruscan Myth, Sacred History, and Legend. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, 2006.

Artemis / Mistress of Animals drawing:

Information from: A GRIPPING TAIL: Re-interpreting the Archaic Potnia Theron Schema By Emily Simon, and Moore, Daniel Walker. “The Etruscan Roots of the Reinheim Armring.” Germania, 2021, https://doi.org/10.11588/ger.2021.92210.

Image from: Reinach, Salomon. Répertoire de la statuaire grecque et romaine: Sept mille statues antiques. 2. éd. 1908. France, E. Leroux, 1908.