Sarmatian Great Goddess
Sarmatian · deity · Sarmatian period, c. 3rd c. BCE 4th c. CE; continuity of the Scythian great goddess · Recorded classification
Great-goddess continuity figure requested by the brief. No native Sarmatian theonym is recorded; she is a scholarly reconstruction of the persisting Scytho-Sarmatian goddess, so all terms are left empty rather than carrying a disclaimer. Distinct 'Sarmatian' tradition tag.
Domains
- fertility
- sovereignty
Relations
- equated with: Heavenly Aphrodite ArgimpasaScholarly continuity-identification of the Sarmatian enthroned great goddess with Scythian Argimpasa. No native Sarmatian theonym survives, so the equation rests on iconographic continuity alone.Y. Ustinova, The Supreme Gods of the Bosporan Kingdom (1999) (secondary)
Sources
- The Scythian Great Goddess (Argimpasa/Artimpasa, the snake-legged ancestress) had no recorded distinct Sarmatian name, but her type as winged fertility-goddess, mistress of beasts and patroness of sovereignty and divination persisted into Sarmatian religion and survived at the Bosporus as the Celestial Aphrodite/Apatouros.: Y. Ustinova, The Supreme Gods of the Bosporan Kingdom (Brill, 1999) (secondary)
- The prominence of armed priestess- and warrior-women in Sarmatian burials is connected by scholars to the continuing cult of a sovereign female deity of the Scytho-Sarmatian Iranian world.: V.I. Guliaev, 'The Cult of Female Warriors and Rulers in the Scythian and Sarmatian Cultures' (2019) (secondary)