Snakeholder. Calendar symbol migration

Abstract

Traced the emergence of the symbol Snakeholder in southwest Asia in the V century BC on the settlements on the North Bank of the river Tigris (foothills of the Zagros mountain range) and then it spread to the South (Kingdom of Bahrain. Dilmun) and to the East. Through southern Turkmenistan and Central Asia (Bactrian — Margian archaeological complex), it enters Eastern and southern Siberia, and is found in the Amur region in the early 20th century. Rare burials of catacomb and pit cultures in South-Eastern and Eastern Europe and also Krotov culture in Western Siberia, modeling the shape of the symbol of Snakeholder. Migrations transformed the semantics of the original calendar model and the components of the symbol. A distinctive feature of the symbol Snakeholder in the archaeological cultures of the Okunevo circle is the doubling of the number of snakes that symmetrically flank the Central figure. This applies to the image of a sun-headed anthropomorph on the Askiz stele (southern Siberia, Khakassia), as well as to paired bone models of snakes on the bone in the burial of the Krotovo culture (Sopka-2). There are no images of snakes and the symbol of Snakeholder in the Karasuk and Tagar archaeological cultures of the post-Okunevo era. A similar style of plot is then recorded in the Amur region in the Tashtyk era (beginning of our era), and then in the Jurchen (X century ad). And then it is revealed in the cult images of the Tungus-speaking peoples of the Amur region in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.