Re: [tied] Tauride.

Thanks to all that responded.  The only problem with the Taurians is that the people being described in the web site seemed to be located in the area of Colchis, the far eastern shore of the Black Sea, not the Crimea.

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With the Orestes cycle, and the larger cycle involving the sons of Atreus and four children of Leda, there are multiple versions, none of which agree in all details. One of them puts Iphigeneia in Colchis. In another, she never gets anywhere near the Black Sea. The standard version is that of Euripedes' play, Iphigeneia in Taurus, where she is priestess of Artemis-Upright in the Crimea. This is the same Artemis who was worshipped at Sparta, and received the blood off of Spartan boys' backs when they were beaten.

 

This set of myths is at the core of Greek mythology, and preserves some genuinely ancient Indo-European (perhaps even PIE) elements, mixed together with Mediterranean elements.

 

Mark.