Akinaka

This is brilliant 🙂 The akinaka, (acinaces, akinakes) is a type of dagger or short sword, used mainly in the first millennium BC in the eastern Mediterranean region, especially by the #Medes, #Scythians and #Persians and known as "Persian sword"...

Now western Scythians, those who settled in Pontic (Black Sea) steppe around 900BC, made beautiful akinakai.  Here is a beautiful example found in 2019 at "Mount Mamai" in Ukraine. It dates to the 6th century BC.

This is the hilt after some cleaning...

Now I found the above pics on the amazing site called "Iron, Steel and Swords" maintained by Helmut Föll of the German Kiel university, Faculty of Engineering 🙂

And on this page, he asks: How can you tell that some akinaka is of Pontic Scythian origin? The answer: well, look at the guard. It always has a peculiar shape, reminiscent of bollocks...

There is no doubt that the old Scythians did have bollocks in minds when they designed their akinakai. Just look at the kurgan stela of one of their chieftains from Khortytsia, Ukraine...Bollocks akinaka and bollocks...🙂

Now remember that Scythians venerated their swords...Before seeing this I couldn't understand why. But now it all makes sense...Here is why: Now Herodotus says that Scythians worshiped male god named Agin, whom he identifies as Ares...

Herodotus notes that "it is not Scythian custom [...] to make images, altars or temples to any except Agin (Ares), but to him it is their custom to make them". He describes the construction of the altar and the subsequent sacrifice as follows:

"In each district of the several governments they have a temple of Agin set up in this way: bundles of brushwood are heaped up for about three furlongs in length and in breadth, but less in height.

And on the top of this there is a level square made, and three of the sides rise sheer but by the remaining one side the pile may be ascended. Every year they pile on a hundred and fifty wagon-loads of brushwood, for it is constantly settling down by reason of the weather. 

Upon this pile of which I speak each people has an ancient iron sword set up, and this is the sacred symbol of Agin. To this sword they bring yearly offerings of cattle and of horses.

And they have the following sacrifice in addition, beyond what they make to the other gods, that is to say, of all the enemies whom they take captive in war they sacrifice one man in every hundred, not in the same manner as they sacrifice cattle, but in a different manner.

For they first pour wine over their heads, and after that they cut the throats of the men, so that the blood runs into a bowl; and then they carry this up to the top of the pile of brushwood and pour the blood over the sword."

Now I originally thought that the sword was just a warrior symbol and that sword veneration was part of a warrior cult...But considering the link between the sword and the genitals, I wonder if this was also an ancestor cult? And I wonder: was Agin (Ares) their ancestral deity?

Did Scythians see themselves as the son's of Agin? By the way, was Agin just misheard Agni?

But why would Herodotus say that Agin is Ares? What does the god of fire, fire personified, have to do with the god of war? 

I'll talk about this soon...