9. Sarmathian culture

Sarmathians (IV-II BC), Iranian nomadic people who belonged to Indo-European language family. are Antique Besides archeological excavations and works of Herodotus, Roman historians Pliny the Elder, Strabo (I AD) are also the sources of information about Sarmathians and. Although archeologists discovered rich material culture, our knowledge about spiritual culture, mythology and religious believes is very poor. Ancient authors did not focuse these questions may be because of hostility of Sarmathians to Romans. Sarmathians had highly hierarchical society, consisted of military aristocracy and slaves. They were highly developed in horsemanship and warfare. Therefore the god of war was the main in their pantheon. Sarmathian female warriors inspired Greek legends about Amazons. Sarmathian crafts, especially jewelry, used widely geometrical, floral motives and were well colored.

10. Peculiarities of Indo-European mythology

Mythology of Indo-European peoples, the main population of Ukrainian lands, contained some features that were common for all of them. The World Tree was one of the most symbols of Indo-Europeans. The World Tree was an oak tree, which symbolized three levels of the universe: its crown represented the sky, the realm of heavenly deities; its roots represented the underworld, the realm of the dead; and the trunk was the middle of the universe and represented the world of people and nature. Also Indo-Europeans had the cult of Mother-Goddess and supported the idea of bilateral arrangement of the world (good-evil, black-white, beautiful-ugly).

11 The idea of national culture

Many nations are constructed around the idea of a shared culture, the national culture. The national culture can be assumed to be shared with previous generations, and includes a cultural heritage from these generations. As with the common ancestry, this identification of past culture with present culture may be largely symbolic. The archaeological site of Stonehenge for instance is owned and managed by English Heritage, although no 'English' people or state existed when it was constructed, 4.000 to 5.000 years ago. Other nations have similarly appropriated ancient archaeological sites, literature, art, and even entire civilizations as 'national heritage'. A nation can be constructed around a common history i.e. a chronologically recorded events in the past, their ancestors have gone through.

12 Sources of Ukrainian culture

1. environment (earth)

2. Ukrainian ancient religious believes and ethnoculture in general ETHNOCULTURE – is a collective creativity (myths, customs, folklore, crafts, language) Ukrainian literary language experienced professional adaptation but it is created at the base of popular culture.

Ethnoculture is a conservative element of culture: its archetype are essential issues of the national culture

3. Christianity differentiates itself from ethnoculture, but it suffers its influence in the process of spreading (includes at the level of rituals, legends, and myths)

4. external influences (eastern and western)

- Antiquity

(pre-Indo-European, Germanic

Indo-European Byzantium

Pra-Slavic Western European

Balkan

Iranian

Altay)

5. professional culture – is a part of European culture (It is impossible to understand Ukrainian professional culture without Antique and Christian sources)