Heavenly Aphrodite Argimpasa

Great goddess of fertility, sovereignty and divination. The transmitted theonym Ἀργίμπασα leads the term (per the rule to lead with the attested form), with Ustinova's preferred Ἀρτίμπασα and the proposed Arti/Aṣ̌i etymology given in alt/notes. Closely identified with, but scholarly-distinguished from, the Snake-Legged ancestress. Aniconic among the Scythians; iconographic at the Bosporus.

Domains

• fertility
• sovereignty
• divination and priesthood

Powers

• renders her diviner-priests womanlike
• strikes her offending diviners with the 'female sickness'
• grants prophecy to the Enarees who divine by lime-tree bark

Epithets

• Ἀργίμπασα greek · ArgímpasaScythian goddess equated with Aphrodite Ourania (Heavenly Aphrodite)Herodotus 4.59 (primary)
• Ἀφροδίτη Οὐρανίη Greek (interpretatio graeca) · Aphrodite Ourania · cultHeavenly Aphrodite (Herodotos' interpretatio)Herodotus, Histories 4.59 (primary)

Relations

• equated with: Sarmatian Great GoddessReciprocal of sarmatian_great_goddess.equated-with — Scholarly 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)
• interpretatio: AphroditeHdt equates Argimpasa with Aphrodite Ourania, the celestial Venus-goddess. Preserves the great-goddess-of-love slot; breaks on Argimpasa's sovereignty and her ecstatic Enarees diviners, alien to Aphrodite.Herodotus, Histories 4.59 (Aphrodite Ourania = Argimpasa) (primary)

Sources

• Herodotos equates the Scythian goddess with Aphrodite Ourania (the Heavenly Aphrodite), worshipped by all Scythians; the transmitted Greek form is Ἀργίμπασα.: Herodotos, Histories 4.59 (Godley) (primary)
• Her priests, the Enarees, suffer the 'female disease' and practise a linden-bark divination; this cult of effeminate diviners is tied to the goddess.: Herodotos, Histories 1.105 and 4.67 (primary)
• Recent scholarship (Ustinova) treats the original native theonym as Artimpasa (Ἀρτίμπασα), the form Argimpasa being a Greek scribal/aural corruption; she is the Scythian reflex of the Iranian goddess Arti/Aṣ̌i, an androgynous goddess of fertility, sovereignty and the priestly power, continued in the Bosporan cult of Aphrodite Apatouros/Ourania.: Y. Ustinova, The Supreme Gods of the Bosporan Kingdom (Brill, 1999) (secondary)