The Bird’s Head Motif with a Volute Beak in the System of the Eastern European Version of the Scythian Animal Style and its Probable Origins

The Eastern European Scythian animal style is characterized by some peculiarities both in the repertoire and in artistic technique that distinguish this local version of the Scythian-Siberian animal style from another ones. The article describes the motif of a separate head of a bird of prey with a twirled (in development — volute) beak as a good local marker of the Eastern European Scythian animal style. This is one of the most characteristic repertoire preferences, much less inherent in other local variants of the Scythian-Siberian animal style (excluding the Pazyryk art). The article characterizes morphological types of numerous images of this kind, these types were revealed by the author in the course of classification of images of the Scythian local variant of the animal style. The author reveals the stylistic dynamics of this motif in chronological context against the general background of implementation of the mega-image of bird in the Eastern European Scythian animal style. Also analogues from other local variants of the Scythian-Siberian world are presented. There are determined probable origins of the discrete head of bird of prey with twirled beak in the Eastern European Scythian animal style, where this motif is regular during the 7th—4th centuries BC, i. e. throughout the existence of this local variant. The study supports the version of the polycentric origin of the Scythian-Siberian animal style and the Scythian-Siberian cultural and historical community as a whole

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Beak · Biology · Cartography · Geography · Literature · Motif (music · Repertoire · Style (visual arts · Zoology · Ancient and Medieval Archaeology Studies · Eurasian Exchange Networks · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · History

• A Fading Tradition

  Open Access•Olena Frunt•Archaeology and Early History of…•2022

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