Fighting lion among the reeds

Akkadian cylinder seal, dated to 2400BC-2200BC, depicting "two antithetical groups, each consisting of a bearded hero fighting a lion"...Currently in the British museum...

There is a lot of speculation about the identity of the "hero". But no one is asking the question: why are there reeds depicted in the centre of the seal? Let me try to answer this question myself. 

Remember this seal from my post "Canals"?

Sun God Utu/Shamash with sun (heat) rays emanating from his shoulders, standing in in an empty canal, in Leo (between the lions), the hottest, driest time of the year in Mesopotamia, and the time when canals were repaired, holding reed cutting knife...

In this post I talked not just about the best time to repair the canals (August) but also about the best time to cut reeds for boat building (Also August):

"Marsh Arabs of Iraq say that Berdi reed, must be cut in August, and only in August, or it absorbs water quickly and sinks"...

So I wonder if this Akkadian seal also symbolically depicts that the best time to cut reeds is "between lions", in Leo (Jul/Aug). BTW Leo marks Jul/Aug, because this is when Eurasian lions main mating season used to start...

Another post, "Scarlet ware with goat" in which I talk about the exploitation of reeds in Mesopotamia, this time as animal fodder...

That's it. To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…Then check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am way way behind...

Minoan flying goddess with griffin

Minoan gold signature ring depicting a flying griffon and goddess, from cemetery at Archanes, Phourni, in Crete, 1700-1450 BC.

What does this mean? 

I believe that this means: The goddess of fertility arrives at the end of autumn symbolised by a griffin.

Minoan griffin consists of: 

Lion, animal calendar marker known as Leo, marks Jul/Aug, cause the mating season of Eurasian lions starts in Jul/Aug...

Vulture, animal calendar marker known as Eagle, marks Oct/Nov, cause the mating season of Eurasian vultures starts in Oct/Nov

I talked about it in my post "Origin of griffins" which contains symbolic analysis of this Proto-Elamite seal, dated to 3000 BC and depicting a griffin, followed by ibex goat, or goitered gazelle...

I talked about the Minoan griffins in several of my posts. Like "Minoan griffin fresco" about the griffin fresco from the throne room, palace of Knossos, Crete, dated to 1700-1450 BC. 

I also talked about Minoan griffins in my post "Minoan dolphins fresco" about the famous Minoan "dolphins fresco" from Knossos, Crete, dated to 1500BC...And about the symbolism of dolphins in Minoan art and culture...

And their (strange) link to griffins, depicted here on this very interesting Minoan sealstone discovered at Akrotiri, Thera, and dated to the 18th c. BC, which depicts a griffin suckling a dolphin...

Here is another interesting Minoan fresco. This one is commonly known as the "Saffron goddess". 1600 BC Akrotiri frescoes, Santorini, Greece. Griffin is depicted sitting next to the same fertility goddess... 

Why saffron goddess?

This is a part of the saffron harvest fresco. 

The goddess is depicted sitting on a throne among the blooming saffron crocuses...

The start of the Saffron crocus flowering/harvest season in Crete coincides with the beginning of the rain season (Oct/Nov)...And in Crete rain=fertility=life.

Posts about saffron and its symbolic role in Minoan mythology: "Saffron", "Origin of saffron"...

That's it. To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…Then check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am way way behind...

De Lamiis et Pythonicis Mulieribus

The other day I came across this illustration from the 1489 book "De Lamiis et Pythonicis Mulieribus" by Ulrich Molitor...It depicts "two witches conjuring up a destructive (hail) storm"...

Ulrich Molitor wrote his book as a response to Heinrich Kramer's 1486 book "Malleus Maleficarum" which "elevates witchcraft to the criminal status of heresy"...And which pretty much ignited "the witch-hunt craze in Europe"...

Now Molitor didn't dispute the existence of witches and witchcraft. He just claimed that "witches couldn't have any powers without god giving it to them"...You can read the analysis of "De Lamiis et Pythonicis Mulieribus" in this article...

What I found very interesting is that apparently the activity most witches engaged in most of the time was "conjuring of destructive (rain, hail, snow) storms"...Basically making wet and cold weather, which would then destroy crops and kill livestock and people...

Have you ever heard of the "Little Ice Age"? It is a climate change which stared hundred years before but descended into "Ice Age" territory around the time the above two books were written, and which caused temperatures in Europe to drop, causing havoc...

BTW, we are just now coming out of this "ice age" and the temperatures today are about the same as they were just before "the witches screwed the climate up and caused the world to freeze"...

It is interesting that it was only when the weather started turning too cold and too wet that (weather) witchcraft was "elevates to the criminal status"...Before that weather witchcraft was obviously practiced and tolerated...

It still was practiced until very recently...Among Slavs...

It is also interesting that this weather witchcraft, which was performed to bring wetness and coldness...was performed by women...

For instance Balkan rain making ritual performed during summer droughts, was performed by a naked girl covered in greenery, called Dodola, Dodolka, who was followed by an entourage of young girls and boys...

This is the last megalithic ritual in Europe, performed until recently (by women) during severe draughts in Belarus to appease the Slavic god Dabog (Giving god) who was also known as Daždbog (Rain giving god)...I talked about this in my post "The last megalithic ritual in Europe"...

In Slovenia, as part of the White Cross ceremony, four young girls span around the circle interconnected by ivy branches, singing prayers for "sun, rain and abundant crops"...

This is the reconstruction of the Beli križ (White Cross) shrine which was once located in the valley southeast of the village of Prelože, Slovenia, and which was used in weather manipulation ceremonies...From the article "White cross" about Slavic weather stones...

In Slavic folklore, it is a female dragon, ala, that brings hailstorms and unseasonably cold, wet weather during summer months, which destroys crops...I talked about this in my post "Pozoj"...

And the male, fire breathing dragon, zmaj, brings hot, dry weather during summer, causing droughts...The main worry of the Bulgarian farmers at the beginning of the summer (Apr/May) is drought. Traditionally people thought that drought was caused by a winged dragon (zmey), who "stole and locked up" the waters...I talked about this in my post "Scaring off the dragon"...

Why is cold and wet female domain? 

Ever seen this before?

Yang - up, light, warm, dry...man...Sun...

Yin - down, dark, cold, wet...woman...Earth...

I talked about this in my post "Yin and Yang"...

In Slavic folklore, cold and wet weather was believed to be controlled by "Baba" (Grandmother)...This Baba is Mother (Grandmother) Earth...The Mother Goddess...

In the Balkans shepherds used to pray to Baba (Mother Earth) stones (rocky crags, exposed bedrock) for good weather. Rocks were seen as body of Baba (Mother Earth, Yin) who was also seen as the source of cold, wet (bad) weather. 

This belief is imbedded into Slavic languages...Example from Croatian and Serbian, where "Baba" (Grandmother) is directly linked to winter, cold, damp weather...

I talked about this in my post "Gryla", "Living stone", "Babe(le)", "Sawing the old hag"...

But not just in Slavic folklore...

The Old Sky Woman controls the snowfall across North Cornwall and children were told when the snowflakes began to fall, the Old Woman was up in the sky plucking her Goose....

Here she is again...The Hag of Winter...Winter, Cold, Wet, Earth...

Scottish goddess Beira, Queen of Winter, appears as a blue-skinned hag carrying a magical staff that freezes the ground & a hammer for shaping hills & valleys. At the end of her seasonal reign, & she drinks from the Well of Youth to become young again...I talked about this in my post "Holy water"...

And again, the Ugly Old Witch (winter) killing her Beautiful Young Daughter (spring, summer, autumn) with red (crab) apples, the only fruit to remain on tree branches when the winter arrives...

Crab apples covered in snow...I talked about apple as a calendar marker in the story about the Snow White, and few other interesting things found in various versions of this old story in my post "Snow White"...

This too...

Indian summer is in many parts of Central Europe known as "Grandmother's summer" because grandmother is the euphemism for winter. 

Check these articles out: "Grandmother's summer", "The old woman of the mill dust", "Grandmother's mill"...

In the Earth (Yin) - Sun (Yang) system, in the areas of the northern hemisphere with continental climate, winter is pure yin...In Slavic mythology, this was the domain of Baba, Grandmother, The Old Hag...The Goddess of Cold (Marzana) and Death (Morana)...

But every spring, The Witch, The Old Hag (Winter Earth) dies and gets reborn as The Bride, The Young Maiden (Spring Earth)...

And every Spring, Slavs perform a ritual in which they "Burn the Old Hag, The Witch, The Goddess of Winter, The Goddess of Death, (Barren) Winter Earth"...This symbolically represents the heating up of the Earth by the Sun...

Sometimes, the Old Hag, The Witch, The Goddess of Winter, The Goddess of Death, (Barren) Winter Earth is drowned...Or burned and then drowned (to be sure🙂)...In flowing water... This symbolically represents the snowmelt...The first "period" of the Young (fertile) Spring Earth...

It is really interesting that during the Little Ice Age witch-hunt, witches, whose (apparently) main sin was causing bad, cold, wet, destructive weather, just like The Old Hag, The Witch of Winter...were burned and drowned...Just what the Slavs did with with the Old Hag Winter...Coincidence probably...🙂

Ok, amazing, I can hear you say, but slightly disappointing, cause you didn't get any Animal Calendar Markers into this article...

Funny you should say that...I was just about to talk about animal calendar markers found in the depiction of the ice storm making witches...🙂

The two witches depicted conjuring a hailstorm on the original image from De Lamiis et Pythonicis Mulieribus, are depicted burning a cockerel (symbol of sun's light) and a snake (symbol of sun's heat)...

Two things you need to get rid of if you want to bring forth darkness, coldness, wetness...Coincidence again (probably)...🙂

That's it. That's it. To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…Then check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am way way behind...

Minoan griffin fresco

This is a detail of the griffin fresco (reproduction) from the throne room, palace of Knossos, Crete, dated to 1700-1450 BC. 

In this shortish article I would like to explain why I think that the flowers depicted around the lying griffin are sea daffodils...

To start, check my article "Minoan spring fresco" in which I showed that Minoans basically treated both the animals and plants they depicted together as calendar markers. For instance swallows nesting season overlaps with Madonna lily flowering season, as depicted on the so called "Spring Fresco" from the Akrotiri Site at Thera (Santorini), dated to 1550 – 1500 BC...

Then check my article "The origin of griffins" about this 3000 BC Proto-Elamite seal, in which I explained why I believe griffin is not a mythical animal, but actually a complex animal calendar marker for autumn (Aug/Sep/Oct)...

Now check this out: this is sea daffodil, a flower native to Crete. Compare it to the flowers depicted next to the griffin...Now the best bit is that sea daffodil flowers from Aug to Oct...Basically during autumn (Aug/Sep/Oct), the same period of the year marked by griffin...

Now of course we can't be 100% sure the flowers depicted around the lying griffin are sea daffodils, but there are no other similar flowers that bloom in Crete in August...So...

That's it. To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…Then check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am way way behind...

Gisgis relief

The other day @Anatolian2023 alerted me to this amazing artefact: The Gisgis relief, a 2900 years old relief located on a hard-to-reach south facing cliff within the borders of the village of Gisgis in Diyarbakır's Ergani district in Turkey. You can read more about this relief in this article...

The relief depicts a king facing a procession of gods. From left to right: 

Ishtar on a lion.

Moon god Sin, symbolically depicted with the crescent moon standard, on "a complex creature".

Sun god Shamash, symbolically depicted with the winged sun standard, on a bull.

So why is this relief so "amazing"? Cause this is another complex animal calendar, which divides the year into three parts, and confirms what I have stated in my article "Moon god Nana/Sin" about why the god Sin was so important to Mesopotamians. 

In short, for the lazy ones, I postulated that the god Sin was the god of the "Wet moon", the moon of the wet, cool, half of the year in Mesopotamia, Oct/Nov-Apr/May...

And this relief actually confirms this. But to see how, we need to look at the animal mounts of the gods in the procession as animal calendar markers...

Let's start with Lion: Lion marks the period Jul/Aug, which is when the main mating season of Eurasian lions, which once lived in Levant, Mesopotamia and Persia, starts...

This is why Ishtar stands on a lion:

For those who will say "Ishtar was the morning star", yes she was, in Leo (Jul/Aug), when Sirius rose in the morning with the sun...Which is why Ishtar stands on a lion (with sun above the lion) and why Ishtar is known as "The Lioness of heaven"...

For those who say Inanna/Ishtar is Venus and not Sirius. This article, "Sirius the mother of Venus" and linked articles might be of interest...

Apart from being the symbol for Jul/Aug, lion is also the symbol for Autumn, Jul/Aug-Oct/Nov, the main mating season of the Eurasian lions...

One of many Lion (autumn, starts in Leo) killing Bull (summer, starts in Taurus) scenes found all over Eurasia, this one depicted on the wall of the Great Mosque of Diyarbakir the oldest mosque in Anatolia.

Some articles that analyse artefacts which contain this animal calendar marker and related symbols: "Mystery seal", "Angra mainyu", "Bull leaping in Syria", "Lion killing bull under date palm", "Butt chewing"...

Then we have the "complex creature", which has scorpion tail, hind legs with claws like those of birds of prey, wings and [my suggestion, not clear] feline [leopard] head and front legs. This "complex creature" is of course a complex animal calendar marker...They all are...

Scorpion is an animal calendar marker for Oct/Nov, the beginning of the wet, cool half of the year, because this is when scorpions disappear from the fields and appear in people's homes...

I talked about this in my post "Angra Mainyu". 

The old Sumerian summer, the 7 headed dragon, can be depicted using animal calendar markers like this too: starts in Apr/May, Bull head, Taurus, peaks in Jul/Aug, Lion body, Leo and ends in Oct/Nov, Scorpion tail/Eagle wings and talons, Scorpio/Eagle...

Eagle/Vulture, is the animal calendar marker for the beginning of the vulture mating season, Oct/Nov...

Which is also the beginning of the wet season in Mesopotamia...

I talked about this first in my article "Double headed eagle" about this amazing silver gilt cast shaft-hole axe head, made between 2500-1500 BC in the area along the Oxus and Murghab rivers in modern Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan...

And I talked about this in my post "Eagle dance" about the "Eagle dance", Syria, 1800BC...

Eagle (vulture) couples dance above the mountains at the beginning of their mating season, which coincides with the beginning of the rain season in Fertile Crescent...

And in my post "Kassite seal with Apkallu", aout this mad Kassite seal, where we see two headed eagle spewing water from the sky.  Originally people believed that rains were brought by the rain god, who was in Bronze Age Mesopotamia imagined as huge black eagle...

And in many other articles. So together the eagle and scorpion mark the beginning of winter, Oct/Nov, and winter as a whole, Oct/Nov-Jan/Feb. Hence Eagle-Scorpion dude...

"On this seal, a bird-man with a scorpion tail aims a bow and arrow at a winged lion-griffin standing on a hillock". 

I have to say I love this description. It says that officially they have no idea what this all means...

But "we" actually do. I it winter killing autumn...I talked about this in my article "Scorpion man". BTW, I talked about the origin of Griffin as an animal calendar marker for autumn, in my article "Origin of griffins"...

Now why do I think the front of the "complex creature" is leopard? Because winter is followed by spring, and spring starts in Jan/Feb, when Eurasian leopards mate. I talked about this in my article "Mosaic floor from Sulcis, Sardinia", about this mosaic which depicts leopards drinking from a krater for mixing wine and water with a grapevine growing from the krater...

And in my article "The oldest narrative scene" about this 11,000 years old relief from Anatolian Neolithic that no one can interpret...

And in my article "A vessel from Tepe Hissar", about this neolithic vessel which is a great example of related animal calendar markers used together. Mating Ibex (start of winter) followed by Mating Leopard (start of spring). Both winter and spring are rainy seasons...Semen turns to flowing water... 

And in many other articles. So leopard marks the beginning of spring, Jan/Feb, and spring as a whole, Jan/Feb-Apr/May.

Together Scorpion/Eagle/Leopard, mark the cool, wet season, Winter/Spring, Oct/Nov-Apr/May, the time of the "Wet moon" god Sin...

The Scorpion/Eagle/Leopard is followed by a bull. Bull which is an animal calendar marker for Apr/May.

Silver stater from Korkyra. Circa 510-480 BC. A sun above a cow suckling her calf. Summer sun. Summer starts in Apr/May, in Taurus, when wild Eurasian cows started calving...

I talked about this in many of my posts, like "Cow and calf ivory", "Foundation peg of the goddess Nanshe", "Elamite water bull"...

Apr/May, Taurus, marks the beginning of summer, Apr/May-Jul/Aug. Hence, A Sumerian song exclaims: "Hero emerging from the holy interior of heaven...the great wild bull, youthful Utu [Shamash, the sun god], who like a torch illuminates the Land from the holy heavens..."

And another one says:

In "Enki and the world order" we can reed that: "Enki placed in charge of the whole of heaven and earth the hero, the youth Utu (Shamash), the bull standing triumphantly, audaciously, majestically..."

Triumph, Taurus, Peak of the Flood, Leo, End of the flood. I talked about this in my post "Butt chewing"...

There is also this

Maran (Lord) Shamash (Sun) with bull horns, the main god of Hatra, an ancient city in Mesopotamia, whose full name was Hatra (Temple) Shamash (Sun)...

Maran...Like Maran-Atha (Our Lord - has come) from the bible? Which lord? Golden calf. Sun in Taurus. 

I talked about this in my post "Maran"...

And this

This is one of the most interesting seals I have ever seen. It was found in the 3rd mil. BC layers of the scribal quarters of Nippur. And it depicts Shamash, The Sun God (the central light of the Menorah) between two bulls (means in Taurus, Apr/May). 

I talked about this in my post "Menorah from Nipur"...

And I talked about this in many other articles...

So bull marks the beginning of summer, Apr/May, and the summer as a whole, Apr/May-Jul/Aug...

And so...It seems that the symbols representing Ishtar (left), Sin (centre) and Shamash (right), as depicted on the upper half of a kudurru of Meli-Shipak II and many other artefacts, are not ordered randomly after all...

To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…Then check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am way way behind...