Vertiyenko H. The Iranophone Nomads Concept of Death

The thesis is dedicated to the research of the concept of death in the traditional worldview of the Iranophone nomads of the Western area of the Eurasian steppe and adjacent territory in Antiquity using of the complex of writing, archaeological, art (representational) and ethnographical sources and also materials of а comparative religion studies. As а result of the research the basic ideological model of the funeral rites of the Iranophone nomads is reconstructed and particularly - the mythologems of the "first death", "postmortal travel of the soul" and "resurrection"; the main traits of the mythological model of the Afterworld and postmortal destiny are made clear; new interpretation of the semantics for a number of Greek-Scythian toreutics is given.