Original scientific paper
A note concerning the equestrian on the Žrnovnica relief
Ante Milošević
; Museum of Croatian Archaeological Monuments, CROATIA, 21000 Split
Abstract
Over the past ten years, I have discussed problems
in the sphere of old Slavic religion on a number of
occasions, all after I had attempted to chronologically
and iconographically reinterpret the relief of the
man on horseback on the relief from Žrnovnica, next
to Split. One of the specific aspects of this relief is the
manner in which the equestrian sits on the horse, i.e.,
side-saddle, as women often do. This detail intrigued
A. Pleterski, who attempted to further explain it. As
a supplement to his discussion and my own earlier
texts on this topic, here I attempt to highlight a group
of interesting finds form the western Siberian districts,
where several dozen pendants and fibulae were
discovered that had on them depictions of equestrians
sitting in the same manner. To be sure, directly linking these finds chronologically and iconographically
to the Žrnovnica relief is unnecessary, but they
many point to a common cult source in the distant
past. They later developed independently of each other
in different regions, but nonetheless preserved the
same character of cult antiquity in the general sense.
Keywords
old Slavic religion; Perun; Veles; Žrnovnica; Pridraga; Dalmatia; Finno-Ugric pendants; western Siberian districts; Prioblje
Hrčak ID:
193307
URI
Publication date:
29.12.2017.
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