Attila Kagan of the Huns from the kind of Velsung

Among the many living attributes of Apollo, the swan rightfully occupies the main place. The popularity of the Apollo and Swans motif has been attested throughout antiquity. This beautiful proud bird accompanies the divine twins Apollo and Artemis “the most beautiful inter-glorious descendants of Uranus” (Hes. Theog., 920). Sometimes a “golden Aphrodite” or her tomboy Eros appears on a swan (and more often on a goose, judging by a vase), but this is already late Hellenism).

Poets and philosophers often call the swan the bird of Apollo (H. h., XXI. 1 sq; Sapph. Frg. 147b, Plato, Phed., 85b.), “The vocal singer of God”, “the most melodious of birds” (Call. Hymn., II, 5; IV, 249), “the favorite of the muses” (Eur. Ipphig. T., 1103—1105), “the Pythian and Delosian” (Aristoph. Av., 870). “The long-necked joy of Apollo” calls the swan Bacchillides (Dyph., 16). The motive of the “swan song” was not known in antiquity; Homer, Hesiod, and also in Homeric hymns do not have it. On the contrary, the swan in the sacred places of Apollo constantly sings, glorifying the birth of God on Delos (Call., II, 250—254), or portending his appearance (II, 5; Aristoph. Av., 769—770), or singing in the land of Hyperboreans hymns during the rites. According to Elian (De nat. An., XI, 1), at that time clouds of swans flocked from the Riphean mountains, “they fly around the temple, as if cleansing it with their flight,” and then gracefully sit on the fence of the temple, “representing a sight majestic in multitude and beauty. “When the singers begin to praise God accompanied by the citharists, “then the swans together join in singing and in no way do they sing awkwardly or inaccurately”, masterfully performing a melody, like experienced singers, led by a choreographer. And all day long, “the aforementioned feathered singers collectively glorify and glorify God.”

Belief in the living, evil dead, silver weapons against them

There are extremely interesting exhibits in the State Historical Museum, these are the silver tips of copies from the Borodino treasure, and obviously, the more ancient silver tips belonging to the Seima-Turbino Culture.

SHM exhibits, Seminsky-Turbinskaya culture

Silver spear tip Borodino treasure, silver spears. SHM

The detachments of warriors with silver spears are mentioned by Arrian at Alexander the Great and are called argyraspids, from argyr – silver, and speyra-spear, to call them silver-cut is a clear mistake. A detachment of soldiers with silver spears was also owned by the Persian king, according to the testimony of Quintus Curtius Rufus. “Behind the chariot were 10 thousand spearmen with richly decorated silver spears.” The squires of Moscow’s grand dukes and tsars – the market men – were remembered by all foreign guests of the Kremlin. During the ceremonial receptions of foreign ambassadors, they stood on both sides of the royal throne, dressed in ceremonial clothes, with silver hatchets. And here, too, silver weapons, and everything somehow coincides, one to one. If we recall the property of silver, which was considered important in antiquity, to drive away or kill evil spirits.

This is the custom of neutralizing the dead, known only in the Ciscaucasia and the Volga and Don basin. The dissected burials of the Bronze Age are known in the burial mounds of the pit and catacomb cultures. At the same time, they do not form a single chronological layer, often their dating is complicated by the lack of inventory. Often, the practice of dismembering two buried, buried in one pit. The specific forms of manifestation of the ritual of dismemberment of bones could vary, which can be explained by different motives of dismemberment. But, despite this, common to all options is that such a practice has never been applied to all members of the community and has always been unique. There are two types of dissections, each of which has its own motivation:

Type I – dismemberment caused by necrophobia, rather the desire to render harmless the dead, and to make safe his dead body, which already had no relation to the dead person, that is, the soul. And in later eras, the Indo-Europeans did not sign the graves of the dead, did not put any plates with the names of the dead, even the famous royal burial sites of Macedonia were depersonalized, in contrast to the Athenian burials of the same era. The corpse was dismembered, or mutilated, designed to “render harmless” the deceased. You can recall the belief, already widespread in the historical era, that a vampire can be killed with a stake pierced in his heart or cut off his head, but it can also be killed with silver weapons. Both phenomena have the same motivation. In the Bronze Age, such a dismemberment could probably be subjected to mentally ill or worshipers, priests, sorcerers, fortune tellers. The ritual was intended to deprive the powerful dead man of sacred power. Type 2 – dismemberment of the victim, as atonement for the sins of the organizers of the funeral rite and transfer of the “wrath of the deceased” to the dismembered victim. Either this was used to “alleviate” the suffering of the main deceased or undergo posthumous trials. Type 2 was not used in single burials.

In addition to the Oksko-Sur interfluve, such burials are also known in other territories. But the distribution area of this rite is so great that listing all areas of its existence is very difficult. In addition to the ancient Mordovians, this rite was quite widespread both among Finno-Ugric peoples and beyond. So in the III – IV centuries. the rite of neutralization was known to the Sarmatians (II Akhmerovsky, Salikhovsky burial ground), up to the VII century. it existed among the Turbaslinsky tribes (Dezhnevsky, Turbaslinsky burial grounds), Bakhmutin culture (Birsky burial ground), in the VIII – X centuries. in Saltovo-Mayak culture it is (Mayatsky, Saltovsky, Rubezhansky burial grounds), in the 7th-10th centuries. the rite was present in the graves of Mary (Khotiml burial ground, mounds near Kineshma), in the IX – XI centuries. Vymsk culture, in the XII -XIV centuries. in the monuments of the Makushensky type (Makushensky burial ground), Relkino culture (Relka burial ground), the Udmurts, Rodanovskaya culture, etc. (Matveeva G.I., 2003. S.210—211; Flerov V.S., 1993, 2000a, b; Aksenov V.S., 2002; Finno-Ugric peoples and Balts …, 1987. S.74, 78, 125, 221; Goldina R.D., Kananin V.A., 1989; Shutova N.I., 2001).

All this testifies to the wide distribution of the rite of neutralization of the buried, its evolution in time and the emergence of local features in the population of the Oksko-Sura interfluve..

On the territory of Russia, and it was in the Volga-Don basin, there was a custom of neutralizing sorcerers after death in the 20th century, as it were. In the 1900s, in the Menzelinsky district, at the sorcerer’s funeral, it was customary to put him face down in the grave. In Bogava, the Sviyazhsky district was also laid in this case, the deceased was laid face down, as well as they cut out his heels and stuck aspen against the heart. As everyone understands that, these people did not read at the beginning of the 20th century. “Count Dracula”, and it is natural that these customs have their origin since the Bronze Age.

Historiography

However, in historiography XVIII – 1st floor. XIX centuries, the Huns were considered Mongols. This point of view was first expressed by Pallas, and then supported by Bergman and Thierry. Joseph de Guinse was the first to express the opinion that the Huns could be of Turkic or Proto-Turk origin. English scientist Peter Heather considers the Huns so-called. “The first group of Turks” invading Europe. The Turkish researcher Kemal Jemal sees confirmation of this version in the facts of the similarity of names and names in the Turkic and Hunnic languages. This version is also accepted by the Hungarian researcher Gyula Nemeth. And it is with this erroneous and unacceptable theory that the following presentation conflicts and refutes the ideas of Joseph de Guin, as if based on nothing. Writes about the history of the Huns Alfan Louis. Great empires of barbarians. From the great migration of peoples to the Turkic conquests of the 11th century. Gumilyov’s significant book on the Huns, the book of M. I. Artamonov, “History of the Khazars”, also made a considerable contribution to the study of this problem.

Adam of Bremen writes in the Slavonic Chronicles, “that the Danes called Russia Ostrogard or Hunigard,” that is, the country of the Huns. The Chronicles say that the River Ens was the border between the Huns and the Bavarians, that is, that the Western Slavs were also considered Huns. The Gustrow ode says that the encouragers wrote from the Ob River, that is, they are also Huns, and the Bronze Age mounds in Germany are called the graves of the Huns. Hansa, the medieval trade and political union of the North German cities, is also called the city of Azerbaijan, Ganza, and this area was in the sphere of influence of the Ephtalite Huns. Mavro Orbini speaks of the island of Philopodius, as he writes in his book “Slavic Kingdom,” the Russians from Biarmia discovered it, and it is inhabited by Slavs, and the island is also called New Earth. As you know, this island is located opposite the Yamal Peninsula. The word “Philopodius” in Greek means “holding Love, the basis of Love”, but Love is the quintessence of the divine essence. In favor of the fact that it is Yamal that is the ancestral home of the Huns and all Indo-European peoples, and says all of the following in this book.

The geography of the region from the Volga and the Don to the Danube and the Ob

The Yamnaya culture, which is generally accepted in modern science, is Indo-European, and in international science it is proved that the Indo-Europeans came to Europe from the Ciscaucasia, and specifically the Volga and Don region, and in the Anglo-Saxon passports of the white Europeans are called “Caucasians”, that is, immigrants from Of the Caucasus. The pits were shepherds, but were not nomads, and the structure of food and social wealth was based on cattle breeding and dairy farming.The measure of wealth, in the “Iliad” and “Odyssey” of Homer, and in the Vedas of India was the presence of bulls and cows in the household. Being a shepherd was an honorable and respected occupation, the god Krishna in India is called the Shepherd, Gopal, and his girls “GOPI”, that is, shepherdesses, accompany him. Homer calls Apollo also herding cows on the slopes of Mount Ida, when Apollo and Poseidon built the walls of Troy to King Laomedont. Cattle breeding in itself lays the need for a large amount of water and grass for animals, and therefore the cattle breeders were and are residents of Finland and Russian Pomerania, as well as the Volga and Ural regions, then eat with plenty of water and grass. That is, these cattle breeders naturally tried to occupy lands with a large amount of water, grass, and spread west and south through the basins of full-flowing rivers. And therefore, the appearance of these tribes on the Danube River in the early days, where they are mentioned in the written sources of Ancient Greece and Rome, is quite natural. The toponymy, the names of the settlements on the Danube speaks of this, these are the cities of Staraya Rasa in Serbia and the city of Savaria in Hungary, now called Sambathei (by the way, Sambatei was so called one of the suburbs of Kiev, and Konstantin Bagryanorodny writes about it). So the shepherds penetrated all the rivers suitable for the milk valley, and captured them.

Ancient Huns-Huns

It’s extremely interesting that “Gustrow Ode says that the encouraged people came from the Ob River,

“And the wind drove majestically the waters of the rivers,

So that the Ocean can feel their running

Connecting together the Elbe, Wesel, Ob,

Where the Nereids play in the waves.

From there, our Mecklenburg traveled a long way,

Through the land of Rus to his princess: “Gustrow Ode.

In Germany, giants are called, interestingly, hunami. (in Russian transcription the spelling of “guna” would be more correct, but the “huna” more conveys the German pronunciation). This word is characteristic of continental Germany and Holland and means giant. In addition, there are other words denoting giants, and, as the legend from Pomerania shows above, sometimes this word even required clarification (“giants, which were called huns”). a. In most German legends and traditions, megaliths and ancient mounds are usually associated with giants, the former primordial population of northern Germany. According to legend, when one of the huns died, then he was buried in a stone box, littered with a huge number of the largest stones. Such tombs are called the graves of the Huns (giants). So the Rügen legend says that the largest mound on Rügen, dating back to the Bronze Age – Doberworth – arose from the fact that there once lived a giantess who wanted to marry the Rügen prince. That is, for the Wends, the giant could be considered as some kind of legendary ancestor and defender, unlike the Germans, and an example here is the legend of the Lusatian Serbs about the giant Sprejnik, who helped them. The tomb of King Hinz is a word-of-mouth story of 3000 years. [Germany] One of the most significant historical monuments of the Bronze Age – the so-called “tomb of the king” – is located in the historic region of Prignitz, in the north-west of the federal state of Brandenburg. The monument is the largest in Germany and one of the largest tomb mounds in Europe. Archaeological excavations confirmed the name – this is really the burial place of the powerful ruler of that era. But the most interesting thing in this whole story is that this is an extremely rare, even unique case, when folk traditions in the last century retained the memory of events several thousand years old. In the 19th century, in the remote countryside of Prignitz, north of Brandenburg, legends were spread among peasants about countless treasures buried in the grave of the king of giants (guns), which was repeatedly recorded by German local historians.

“Legends about the king of giants are told all over Prinitsa,” noted German researcher E. Friedel.Another German collector of ancient legends – Adalbert Kun – in 1843 reports that peasants from the village of Chemnitz, near Pritzwalk, spent three days digging a giant’s grave (i.e., an ancient mound) in search of a golden coffin in which, like believed that the king of giants (huns) was buried. However, instead, they found only a few pots with ashes, which were a lot upset. That is, a burial in the form of cremation was recorded. For the first time, the legend that the golden coffin is located exactly under the barrow in Seddin was recorded by the German explorer Ledebur in 1844: “There is a large stone hill on the agricultural field. Many tell the legend that the king of encouraged in a gold coffin is buried under him.” It was called Mount Garlin, by the name of the last owner of this land, but more often it was called Mount Hinze, because according to legend, the king of the giants Heinz or Hinze was buried under it. This king, according to legend, rests in a golden coffin, and the golden coffin itself stands in a silver coffin, and the silver coffin in a bronze one. The king should have his golden sword and other things. “But so far all this has not been verified by excavations. In 1899 an expedition took place, which ended quite successfully. True, the reality was much more prosaic. The first “coffin” turned out to be a stone chamber in which a large ceramic vessel was left – the second “coffin” of tradition. In this ceramic vessel there was another, very elegantly finished, vessel made of bronze with the ashes of the deceased – the third, “golden” coffin of King Hinze. The king’s sword was also found in the burial chamber, but not gold, but bronze. In addition to the sword, the deceased was left with another rich inventory – decorated with bronze knives, battle axes, bracelets, rings and more. So the tradition was confirmed. And it turns out an extremely interesting fact – the legend was preserved among the Germanized Slavs, and according to generally accepted history, the Slavs came to Pomerania in the 5—6th centuries AD. e, and the finds are dated to the 10th century. BC. therefore, the Slavs (or some part of them) already lived on this earth earlier. But this coincides with the story narrated by the Gustrowian Ode, that is, the encouraged people came from the Ob River, and according to the finds, the legendary Hun-Huns also lived there.

Artifacts from the mound of King Hinze (Hunze).

This find made a real sensation in Germany at one time. Still, the case in all senses is unique – both the burial itself, and even more so that the memory of it was preserved in detail for almost 3000 years! But the tradition was extremely stable. The German peasants were far from the first to know the story of the king buried in three precious coffins. This is how the Gothic historian Jordan described in the 6th century AD death of Attila – the legendary leader of the Huns:

“After he was mourned by such moaning, they celebrate” Strava “on his mound (as they themselves call it), accompanying it with a huge feast. Combining the opposite [feelings], they express the funeral grief mixed with glee. Secretly, the corpse is buried at night by night, firmly imprisoned in [three] coffins – the first of gold, the second of silver, the third of strong iron. ([Jordan, Getika)

And again, three coffins: iron, silver, gold, and again this is about the Huns, the truth is about Attila, and the Slavic terminology of the funeral feast is used here.

Volota (velets) – East Slavic mythological characters known from folklore and from some medieval manuscripts, in ancient Russian texts volota – giant and beautiful ancestors of people who grew from seeded Serpentine teeth. In folklore traditions, volots are heroic giants, tearing trees and moving mountains. According to legend, they turned into stones or left alive in the ground. Their graves are mounds called “volotovki”, “volotki”. In many legends, volots belong to the other world. Researchers point to the similarity of the images of Volot and the pagan deity Volos. But there is also the word Giant, which consists of two roots, “Veli-Kan”, as you can see, Veli-from Volot, as -gan is quite consonant with the Huns of Pomerania, especially since the name The mound is also formed from the “Burial of Ghana” (Chickens – possession, chicken, Cossack, translation of the word possession, and hence the city name is the name of the city of Kursk). In terms of meaning, this concept is completely identical to German Pomerania, as the burial place of giants-huns. The finds of the temporal rings of the Volyn type in Gnezdovo and on the Volga are also interesting already in historical time, dating back to the 10th century. As described above, these temporal rings are characteristic of the Caucasus Huns of the 6th century AD and are found in Yamal., And the temporal rings of the Slavs are one of the most accurate indicators of the classification of tribal affiliations of Slavic tribes, and similar rings were found in 2008. on the island of Bornholm M.Naum.

Temporal rings Bornholm.

GIANTS AND GANS OF GREECE

There were memories of giants in Hellas, but there they were called Giants (dr. Greek Γίγαντες; singular Γίγας) – in ancient Greek mythology, giants. That is the creation of the Earth. There are myths about the struggle of giants with the gods of Olympus, gigantomakhiya (Greek. Γῐγαντομᾰχία, literally. “Battle with giants”). Describe giants as huge monsters with a human body to the waist, with dragon tails instead of legs (born from Gaia and Tartarus

They had shaggy thick hair and long beards. The lower limbs passed into the dragon-covered bodies of dragons. By tradition, every giant was armed with a spear. The battle took place on the Flegreysky fields (Phlegraei Campi, τά Φλεγραία πεδία, ή Φλέγρα, property “scorched earth”), which are usually placed in volcanic countries (in the Far West, in the Campaign of Arcadia, Thessaly and others. Giants were born, according to legend, according to legend also on Flegreysky fields or on Pallen. Only the latest authors report on the struggle of giants with Zeus and other Olympians, gigantomakhii (other Greek. γῐγαντομᾰχία, letters. So, according to a mythical legend, Gaia, angry by the conclusion of the titans in Tartarus, gave birth to an ogro many monsters with a human body to the waist, with dragon tails instead of legs (born from Gaia and Tartarus). They had shaggy thick hair and long beards. The lower extremities turned into dragon-covered bodies of dragons. By tradition, every giant was armed with a spear (Polybot exception Poseidon’s enemy fought with a trident, like the god of the seas himself.) There were 150 giants in total, but among them there were only 12 of the most important and powerful ones that were supposed to defeat the twelve gods of Olympus: one giant for one Olympian god. Thus, the oldest giant named Alkioney was born with the goal of overthrowing Hades himself, Enkelad was the enemy of Athena, Polybot was born to destroy Poseidon, Mimant was the doom of Hephaestus, and Porfirion was the rival of Zeus. But these giants, according to the prophecy of the goddesses of fate and Hera (wife of Zeus) were vulnerable: they can be killed by a god, but only with the help of the forces of a demigod. Therefore, the gods called the ancient heroes to help in the new war. From the Phlegrean fields, which are usually located in volcanic countries (in the Far West, in Campania, Arcadia of Thessaly, etc.), they began to hit the rocks with burning fragments and burning tree trunks. Born on Flegreysky fields or on Pallen. According to the Arcadians, the battle took place at the town of Baphos in Arcadia.

A terrible battle broke out in which the gods, thanks to the help of the Cyclops, the hundred-armed giants and Heracles, won and killed the giants: some of them were buried under volcanic islands (e.g. Enkelad – under Sicily, Polybot – under Kos.According to Lucan, Athena showed them the head of the Gorgon, and they became mountains.

The word Γίγαντες consists of two words of Gei (dr.) Γῆ, Γᾶ, Γαῖα – “Earth” and γαντες. The name of the giants of Hellas is also similar to the Pomeranian huns, and the Slavic gans (Kans, Velikans) and are associated with the serpent cult, like the Huns of Eurasia.

And this is what Homer writes about a leader named Guney. (Gunei (dr. Greek. Γουνεύς)) a character in ancient Greek mythology. He is the son of Okit and Avrophyta, from Kif, from north-western Thessaly, he brought the Enian under Troy on 22 ships, Gunei was called the leader of the Enian and Perreb, and upon his return he fell into a storm near Mount Kafereya. Leaving the ships, he arrived in Libya and settled on the banks of the Kinipa River. Here, under the name Enian Homer, he gives the oldest mention of the Wends (enedis, which Quintus Rufus refers to as genetics as well. I must say that the word WANAX, the king, the Greeks pronounced ANAX).

But from Kifa Gunei with twenty and two ships

Sailing, leading the Enians and warlike, strong perb,

The tribe of husbands who settled near Dodona cold,

The land of the plowers, by which the cheerful Titaresius makes noise,

Swiftly in Penny the sweeping lushly rolling waters,

Which doesn’t merge with Peneus silverfish anywhere,

Homer. Iliad II 748.

That is, Homer indicates where the Huns-Gantts lived at a time close to him-in Thessaly, where it was possible to engage in horse breeding, and here eneti-venets are mentioned. And next to the Huns, which will be important in other parts of the book. The leader of the Huns of Asia Minor was obviously Gannimed, the hero of the Hellenic epic. According to myths, he was a Trojan prince, and for beauty was taken alive to heaven by Zeus himself. And here, it should be remembered that judging by the findings in Troy lobed temporal rings, jade axes, incredibly similar to stone with the axes of the Borodino treasure, attributable to the Seyminsky —Turbino culture, Troy of the same time obviously also belonged to this culture. And the name Gannimed – “Leader of the Gans” here does not look like an accident, but shows that the Hellenes remembered the name of the tribe that came from Asia.

Giants of Russia

And judging by the numerous finds, the serpentine (dragon) cult and with the Sarmatians (their banners, judging by Bannikov, were in the form of developing dragons), and with the inhabitants of Yamal. You can also recall similar mythological creatures, described similarly, and who also lived in the North, and these are the Gundyrs of the Komi people. Gundyr is the image of the many-headed giant in the Komi mythology. In folklore, Komi-Zyryan and Komi-Permyaks Gundyr had a human image, but under the influence of Russian folklore he turned into a giant snake or dragon. The ceremonial dishes of the Pozdnyakovskaya culture, from the island of Rugen, and the Andronovo culture, which are identical in form and attribute, are also interesting.

From left to right: vessels with an attributed pattern in the form of a meander and a swastika. Andronovo culture, 12th-century Rugen island, Pozdnyakovskaya culture, GIM.