Oyuna Galdanova
Russian State University for the Humanities, Russia
There are many publications about the iconography of images from Scythian scabbards and gorytoi. B. V. Farmakovsky, G. Richter, C. Meyer, K. Stahler, M. V. Rusyaeva wrote about iconographic prototypes of some of the pieces and in general context of art development. We examine the issue to find consistent patterns of prototypes choice.
Our investigation illustrates, that convention pervaded from monumental sculpture into the practice of goldsmiths of the 4th century BC. We find both 5th and 4th century BC. prototypes: friezes of the Parthenon, the temple of Athena Nike, the Erechtheum, the temple of Apollo at Bassae, the Heroon at Gjolbaschi, the Nereid monument, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Tholos at Epidaurus and Attic gravestones. By means of comparison between scenes from the sculpture and the scabbard and gorytoi reliefs we can see that craftsman could use both just the same motive with loose rendering and pattern after familiar iconography pretty exactly. For instance, it’s noticeable that the author of the Vergina gorytos’ matrix closely replicates figure postures and drapery folds of the frieze from Bassae; whereas the author of the scabbard relief contents with only somewhat of a borrowing and displays more latitude in representation.