Pages: 335-369

The Homer ethos reveals an extremely sophisticated, ramified structure of the sign symbolic, which is, most often, designated by the terms of σκηπτρον and  ραβδον and their derivatives. This symbolic is virtually characteristic of all the possible levels of the public life and on the divine level – of the representatives of the Pantheon, and on the earth – of all the mortals in their everyday secular life under the circumstances of war and even in the underground realm of Aid. This work is devoted to revealing the social and cultural function of this symbolic at all the levels of its use and to the characteristic of the rituals, associated with this symbolic. The functioning of the scepters under the circumstances of the war expansion – the Trojan cycle is of interest. Its complex of data allows working out the model of the possible reflection of the symbolic in question in the archeological complexes.
The survey is aimed at revealing the main trends, which can, under certain pretexts, be used in estimating social processes, characteristics of ancient communities, studied on the basis of archeological remains and revealing the similar symbolic.