Gelonus

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This page is about the archaeological site. For the insect genus, see Gelonus (genus)

Gelonus, (also transliterated Helonus) was the capital^{[citation needed]} of Scythia named for its inhabitants, the Geloni.

In his account of Scythia (Inquiries book 4), Herodotus writes that the Gelonii were formerly Greeks, having settled away from the coastal emporia among the Budini, where they "use a tongue partly Scythian and partly Greek":

"The Budini for their part, being a large and numerous nation, is all mightily blue-eyed and ruddy. And a city among them has been built, a wooden city, and the name of the city is Gelonus. Of its wall then in size each side is of thirty stades and high and all wooden. And their homes are wooden and their shrines. For indeed there is in the very place Greek gods’ shrines adorned in the Greek way with statues, altars and wooden shrines and for triennial Dionysus festivals in honour of Dionysus...

"The language of the Budini is quite different, as, indeed, is their culture generally: they are a pastoral people who have always lived in this part of the country (a peculiarity of theirs is eating lice)..."

The fortified settlement of Gelonus was reached by the Persian army of Darius in his assault on Scythia during the 5th Century BC, and burned to the ground, the Budini having abandoned it in their flight before the Persian advance. Recent digs in Bilsk, Ukraine have uncovered a vast city identified by the Kharkov archaeologist Boris Shramko as the Scythian capital Gelonus [1].

According to Herodotus Gelonus size each side is of thirty stades, and surface in today units about 3000 ha. The archeological site around Belsk, including necropolis, lay on 8000 ha, fortification enclose 4000 ha. The N/S axis, along river Worksla is 17 km long. Visible today remains of walls, high 12 m, go behind horizon. Ramparts Total length is 33 km. Inside fortification, lay three "keeps" with surface 15, 65 and 72 ha embraced by eroded still 16 m high earht wals. Several kurgans remind inhabitant burial tradition.