78 CHAPTER 1
and sable.269 Verethragna, the Iranian god of battle and victory, is depicted as a
bull, horse, ram, goat, bird of prey and a camel. He is the companion of Mithra,
whom he helps in battles in the form of a wild boar.270
V. Flerova associates Verethragna with a group of Saltovo amulets in the
form of protomes of camels (the camel is one of the sacral symbols of Eastern
Iran that depict Verethragna as a deity of victory) and which the Saltovians
regarded as interchangeable with water birds.271 The camel was the symbol of
kingship in ancient Kangju and Khwarezm, especially the depictions of winged
camels, sometimes with bird heads. In Sogd the camel-bird was the symbol of
the Bukhara dynasty. In the frescoes of Panjakent the images of camel-birds
are replaced with Simurgh-like creatures.272 The Simurgh (or dog-bird) also
appeared in Danube Bulgaria, in monuments from the tenth century. It was
widespread in Middle Asia and in Sassanid Persia (as the royal emblem of the
dynasty). It was part of the cult of fertility and of the world tree.273 The grif-
fon is closely related to this expressive system as well and it was widespread
in Khazaria and Danube Bulgaria. It also combines the notions of sovereignty
and the cult of fertility.274 According to V. Flerova, the cult of fertility, personi-
fied by the griffon, lies in the basis of the worship of the khagan, the sacral king,
killed after a bad crop. She assumes that this semantic field is the place where
the symbols of the trident and the griffon meet.275
According to ancient (Neolithic) notions, the bull represents the earthly and
chthonic male deity, while the Great Goddess, his spouse, is the celestial deity,
depicted as a cow. Later, the bull became the symbol of the Supreme Celestial
Thunder God, while the Great Goddess began to symbolize the earth and all
things chthonic.276 This “switching of places” is not complete, since in many
cultures and especially in the steppe ones the celestial goddess was seen as the
wife of the Supreme Deity (one example are Tengri and Umay). The Iranians
269 Korogly 1976, 39 and 45; the first ruler of the Wusuns, Gun-mo, was also raised by a
she-wolf (see Kradin 2001a, 157).
270 Kliashtornyi and Sultanov 2000, 29; Flerova 2001a, 52. Verethragna can also be seen as an
Iranian replica of Indra (Minaeva 2002, 21).
271 Flerova 2001a, 52. On a mythological level Verethragna depicts the Iranian perception
of the ruler as a culture hero, carrier of “sacral grace” and often portrayed as a slayer of
various wild beasts or dragons. In Stepanov’s opinion, it is possible that the same idea is
reflected on the rock relief at Madara (Stepanov 2001, 11).
272 Vainberg 1990, 303; Darkevich 1976, 24.
273 Doncheva-Petkova 1996, 56–58.
274 Flerova 2001a, 79–82; Doncheva-Petkova 1996, 13–47.
275 Flerova 2001a, 82; See also Doncheva-Petkova 1996, 32.
276 Golan 1993, 53–59.