The Dioscuri in the Balkans

Abstract

This article is an attempt to establish a certain number of conclusions concerning the Dioscuri which are different from previous surmises. These conclusions are: First, an individual, on horseback or on foot, shown stabbing another figure beneath need not represent the triumph of good over evil, or the vanquishing of a foe, and in a set number of cases does not represent this. Second, at least one kind of antique mystery cult did not develop from a puberty initiation ritual, but from something else. Third, much of pre-Greek, or perhaps Thracian, religion, as indicated by contemporary ethnographic survivals, may have consisted of one extended ritual which could be segmented for a number of different purposes, excluding that of puberty initiation, for which, in this context, I have found no trace. Finally, the Dioscuri were an anthropomorphized object, of an ascertain-able kind. The evidence leading to these conclusions is given below.In the village of Mijatovci, in Hercegovina, at the site known as “Kalufi,” there was a tombstone dated to the fifteenth century on which is depicted a woman between horsemen (Figure 1). The same, or a similar, motif appears on other tombstones in neighboring graveyards (Figure 2, d, e). These horsemen have been identified with the Dioscuri. That is to say, they exhibit such striking features in common with classical monuments known to be representations of the Dioscuri that the possibility of chance coincidence is, in fact, eliminated.