Gelonus
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- This page is about the archaeological site. For the insect genus, see Gelonus (genus)
Gelonus, (also transliterated Helonus), Ukrainian: Гелон, Helon, , was the capital of Scythia (now in Ukraine) and the biggest gord in Europe. Presently known as archeological site Bilske Horodyshche (Більське городище) localized beside villages Bilsk in Poltava Region.
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":
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- 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...
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- Above the Sauromatae (Sarmatians), possessing the second region, dwell the Budini, whose territory is thickly wooded with trees of every kind. The Budini are a large and powerful nation: they have all deep blue eyes, and bright red hair. The Budini, however, do not speak the same language as the Geloni, nor is their mode of life the same. They are the aboriginal people of the country, and are nomads; unlike any of the neighbouring races, 'they eat lice'[citation needed]. Their country is thickly planted with trees of all manner of kinds. In the very woodiest part is a broad deep lake, surrounded by marshy ground with reeds growing on it. Here otters are caught, and beavers, with another sort of animal which has a square face. With the skins of this last the natives border their capotes: and they also get from them a remedy, which is of virtue in diseases of the womb...Beyond the Budini, as one goes northward, first there is a desert, seven days' journey across...
The fortified settlement of Gelonus was reached by the Persian army of Darius in his assault on Scythia during the 5th Century BC, as burned to the ground, the Budini having abandoned it in their flight before the Persian advance. The Scythian send to Darajavus words: "We are free as wind and what you can catch in our land is only the wind". By employing partizan vel Parthian warfare, they avoided main battles, leaving "earth without grass" by burning steppe in front of advancing Parthian (re:Herodotus). Persian 700 thousand army returned disorderly the same year without a single battle.
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.
The numerously referenced Troy another lost and found city was 1000 times smaler by area.
Gelonus was the son of Echidna from Hylea and Heracles, he have also older brother Agathyrus and younger Scythes. [1] Hylea is pointed to be where was the Echidna's cave between people Arimi or Harimi, the Greeks on the Euxine believed that this was in somewhere Scythia.
[edit] Bibliography
- Мурзін В., Ролле Р., Супруненко О. Більське городище. – Київ-Гамбург-Полтава, 1999. – 104 с.
- Боплан Г.Л.де. Опис україни. – К., 1990. – 254 с.
- Шрамко Б.А. Крепость скифского времени у с.Бельск – город Гелон // Скифский мир. – К., 1975.
- Шрамко Б.А. Бельское городище скифской эпохи (город Гелон). – К., 1987. – 182 с.
- Більське городище в контексті вивчення пам’яток раннього залізного віку Європи. – Полтава, 1996. – 408 с.
