Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-6bb9c88b65-lm65w Total loading time: 0.006 Render date: 2025-07-24T07:42:58.797Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

7 - Golden Fleeces

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2025

Roger D. Woodard
Affiliation:
University at Buffalo (SUNY)
Get access

Summary

Chapter 7 examines the sheep’s fleece filter used in the preparation of Soma. A cult ideology in which such an implement played an important role was preserved for some time in Iranian tradition in the Caucuses, ultimately giving expression to Greek ideas about the presence of fleecy filters impinged with gold in the vicinity of Dioscurias – rationalizing accounts of the Golden Fleece of Aeolian Argonautic tradition. Particular elements of the Golden Fleece myth find parallels in Indic poetic accounts of the performance of Soma cult. The common Hellenic and Indic elements constitute a shared nexus of ideas that earliest took shape in Bronze-Age communities of admixed Mycenaean and Luvian populations into which Mitanni Soma ideas had spread via Kizzuwatna. The Golden Fleece mythic tradition, with its geographic localization in Transcaucasia, is a Mycenaean Asianism that took shape in Asia Minor under Indic and Iranian influences and that continued to evolve among the Iron-Age Asian Greeks.

Information

Type
Chapter
Information
Myth, Ritual, and Society in Mycenaean Anatolia
Identifying Asian Influences
, pp. 238 - 272
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge-org.demo.remotlog.com is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Golden Fleeces
  • Roger D. Woodard, University at Buffalo (SUNY)
  • Book: Myth, Ritual, and Society in Mycenaean Anatolia
  • Online publication: 18 July 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009424479.008
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Golden Fleeces
  • Roger D. Woodard, University at Buffalo (SUNY)
  • Book: Myth, Ritual, and Society in Mycenaean Anatolia
  • Online publication: 18 July 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009424479.008
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Golden Fleeces
  • Roger D. Woodard, University at Buffalo (SUNY)
  • Book: Myth, Ritual, and Society in Mycenaean Anatolia
  • Online publication: 18 July 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009424479.008
Available formats
×