Mesa Mouliana vessel

A very interesting Minoan vessel found in Mesa Mouliana and dated to 1200-1100BC. Do you see the two nipple like things just under the spout? And wavy lines originating from each "nipple " and [my interpretation] symbolising the flow of water (milk of Mother Earth)?

This object is extremely stylised version of this. Ceramic vessel form Crete dated ca 2200-2000 BC. Probably during rituals the liquid would pour out of her breasts symbolically providing nourishment. It’s believed to represent the mountain goddess of Crete...

Both objects are in the Archaeological museum in Heraklion, Crete, Greece. 

What was poured out of this vessel was drinking water. I explained why in my post "Anavlochos mountain" about ancient Mother Earth sanctuaries found on it.

Now here is something that just occurred to me. Look at this beauty: Minoan jug decorated with flying swallows and small breast-like buttons - 1700-1650 BC, discovered in Akrotiri, Santorini. Currently at the Prehistoric Thera Museum, Santorini, Greece

Similar kind of jug, with nipples, but instead of water pouring out of the nipples, a swallow in flight is depicted  on the jug's belly. Why? I already talked about swallows as animal calendar marker for Apr/May, the beginning of summer, in Minoan art in my post "Minoan spring fresco". In it I analysed the animal (swallow) and plant (lily) calendar markers depicted on the "Spring Fresco" from the Akrotiri Site at Thera (Santorini), dated to 1550 – 1500 BC, and I suggested that based on the link between swallows nesting season and the lily blooming season, the fresco should be called "Summer fresco"...

But just now, I discovered that swallows were also linked with saffron crocuses. This is a strainer found in room 3 of the Xeste 3 house in Akrotiri. It is decorated with swallows flying over flowering saffron crocuses...The pic is from this paper...

Crocus flowers in Oct/Nov and is used in Minoan art as a plant calendar marker for Oct/Nov. I talked about this in my post "Male - female Minoan vessel", where I analysed this 16th c. BC Minoan vessel found on Thera, Akrotiri, depicting (according to the museum curators) on one side wild goats and saffron crocuses and on the other side dolphins and sea grass...

What is very very interesting is that swallows are summer visitors to Crete, arriving in Apr/May and leaving in Oct/Nov...

Minoans were maritime people and the swallow migrations marking the beginning and the end of the sailing season must have had a special place in Minoan culture...This veneration of swallows was also found in Ancient Greece. I talked about it in my post "Herald of spring". Did you know that Ancient Greeks had a constellation swallow (Ancient Greek: χελιδών). "...The sun entered into this constellation, when the swallow appeared in Greece as the herald of Spring..." 

And the same link between swallows and sailing was found in Roman culture and later European cultures...I talked about it in my post "Swallow tattoo"...

The period between the arrival of swallows (Apr/May) and the departure of swallows (Oct/Nov) marks the hot, dry half of the year on Crete.

How can this explain the nipple jugs with swallows? Well, the swallow migrations divide the year into female (Wet, Cool, Yin, Sowing - Creating life, No Sailing, Peace) and male (Dry, Hot, Yang, Harvesting - Destroying life, Sailing, War) halves...

The wet half being linked to the (earth) goddess, symbolised by saffron crocuses, goats and boobs 🙂 and the dry half being linked to the (sea/sun) god, symbolised by lilies, bulls and no boobs 🙂...

This is seriously cool...BTW, I already talked about the calendric symbolism of flowers in Minoan art in my post "Three Minoan flowers"...

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...

Three Minoan flowers

In this paper, Marcia Nugent talks about "3 flowers as 3 Minoan calendar markers for 3 seasons":

1. Madonna lily = Spring

2. Sea daffodil = Summer

3. Saffron crocus = Autumn

She is right about the flowers, but wrong about the seasons...Here's why:

Madonna lily starts blooming on Crete in Apr/May. This is the beginning of summer (summer solstice is "mid summer")...So Madonna lily is the flower calendar marker for summer, not spring...

I talked about it in my post "Minoan spring fresco", in which I explained why this Minoan fresco from the Akrotiri Site at Thera (Santorini), dated to 1550 – 1500 BC, should be called "Beginning of summer" fresco and not "Spring Fresco" 🙂...  

Sea daffodil start blooming on Crete in Jul/Aug. This is the beginning of autumn (autumn equinox marks the middle of autumn)...So Sea daffodil is the flower calendar marker for autumn, not summer...

I talked about it in my post "Minoan griffin fresco", about this detail of the griffin fresco (reproduction) from the throne room, palace of Knossos, Crete, dated to 1700-1450 BC, in which I explained why I think that the flowers depicted around the lying griffin are sea daffodils...

Saffron crocus starts blooming on Crete in Oct/Nov. This is the beginning of winter (winter solstice is "mid winter")....So Saffron crocus is the flower calendar marker for winter, not autumn...

I talked about saffron in several of my posts, "Saffron", "Origin of saffron", "Pan goat of rain", "Crocus fairy", in which I also talk about the famous Minoan "Saffron gatherers" fresco. In them I also talk about the origin of saffron crocus...And why saffron crocus was the sacred plant on Minoan Crete...And why it was linked with Ibex goats...And mother goddess...

Knowing this, here is the fixed flower-season diagram

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...

Male - Female Minoan bowl

A 16th cent. BC Minoan vessel found on Thera, Akrotiri, depicting (according to the museum curators) on one side wild goats and saffron crocuses and on the other side dolphins and sea grass...

According to the museum curators:

The vessel was found in the so-called "House of the Ladies", a building of both residential and ritual character...We think that the vessel had (possibly) ritual meaning and use, but we don't know what meaning and what use...

Maybe I can help here. This vessel is a ritual calendar, depicting a division of a solar year into cool/wet half of the year (goat) and hot/dry half of the year (dolphin)...

Why goat and dolphin? The beginning of the hot dry season coincides with the beginning of the mating of the dolphins (Apr/May) and the beginning of the cool wet season coincides with the beginning of the mating of the wild goats (Oct/Nov)...

I actually talked about this in detail in my post "Horned animal attacked by a dolphin" that analysis this strange Minoan seal...

Hot dry season Apr/May - Oct/Nov (Dolphin season) is also the sailing season...Extremely important if you were a Minoan...

I talked about this in my post "Minoan dolphin fresco" about the famous Minoan "dolphins fresco" from Knossos, Crete, dated to 1500BC...

What about crocuses? Well, wild Cretan crocus, the ancestor of all the saffron crocuses, starts flowering in Oct/Nov...

At the beginning of rain season, when wild Cretan Ibex goats start to mate...

Talked about this in my posts "Saffron" and "Origin of saffron"...

Which is why crocus was The Flower of The Goddess of Fertility...2nd millennium BC faience (glazed ceramic) models of female garments decorated with crocuses excavated by Arthur Evans during the excavations of the the Temple Repositories at Knossos...

This is the famous Minoan Hagia Triada Sarcophagus, a late Minoan limestone sarcophagus, dated to around 1400 BC. 

On it, we see a priestess presiding over a bull sacrifice wearing a skirt decorated with crocus flowers...

I talk about this in my posts "Agia Triada sarcophagus" and "Minoan bull sacrifice"...

BTW, Apr/May, the beginning of the sailing season in the Eastern Mediterranean is marked with a Bull, Taurus...This is because Apr/May was the time when wild Eurasian cattle calving season used to start...I talked about the "Old Taurus" in many of my posts...

I talked about the symbolic division of the Minoan year into Goat and Bull halves in this post "Theseus ring", about Winter (Ibex) and Summer (Bull) Minoan rings. Article about the opposite goat - bull symbolism in Minoan art. 

This 14th-13th c. BC larnax (a container for human remains), found in Mycenaean Tanagra cemetery, but created under strong Minoan influence, depicts:

The top part: Ibex goat (ritual?) hunt

The bottom part: Auroch bull (ritual?) leaping

Why?

This is typical Cretan climate chart:

Top: Ibex goat, symbol of cool, wet half of the year. Ibex goat animal calendar marker for Oct/Nov, start of the Ibex mating season

Bottom: Auroch bull, symbol of hot, dry half of the year. Auroch bull animal calendar marker for Apr/May, start of the Auroch calving season

Ritual ibex goat hunt marks the start of the cool wet half of the year and the end of the sailing season?

Ritual bull leaping marks the start of the hot dry half of the year and the start of the sailing season?

You can find more interesting things about this in my post "Goat riding thundergod"...

Because sailing was male dominated activity and saffron gathering and processing was female dominated activity, we could say that the Thera vessel is divided into male (Bull/Dolphin) and female (Goat/Saffron) halves...

Reflecting the division of the Cretan year into female (Wet, Cool, Yin, Sowing - Creating life, No Sailing, Peace) and male (Dry, Hot, Yang, Harvesting - Destroying life, Sailing, War) halves...

That's it. What do you think?

To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, which are at the root of all our mythologies, start here…Then check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am way way behind...

Milk for the dead

After Vespers on the eve of All Saints' Day, Bretons would commonly visit the cemeteries to kneel at the graves of their loved ones; to pray and anoint the hollow of the gravestones with holy water or milk...

A very interesting custom indeed...Here we have pretty explicit water/milk libation sacrifice to the dead...

I first talked about the "thirsty" dead first in my posts "Thirst" and "White feast" about South Slavic beliefs that the dead are linked to rain and grain fertility...And that thirsty ancestors will "drink rain from the clouds and will cause drought"...

I then talked about "thirsty dead" in my post "Lapis Manalis" about Roman belief that the dead are linked to rain and grain fertility...BTW, do you see the similarity between cup and ring marked stones and rain caused ripples on water? Or is it just me?

I finally talked about "thirsty dead" in my post "Care of the dead" about Hittite and Sumerian belief that the dead are linked to rain and grain fertility...And if you forget to respect the sacred bond with the dead...

It is interesting that in Brittany, the libation was poured into what looks like a stone mortar (quern) hole...

These are knocking stones from Scotland...

They were used as mortars for husking and pounding barley and other cereals...I talked about them in my post "Knocking stones"...

Interestingly, some of them were locally known as "fonts"...Confusion? Well, no, not really. From: 

In Baltic countries, quern stones were once buried as "corner stones", the most important stones in the house foundation...

And milk libations were poured into the hollow "for the house snake", which was believed to contain the spirit of the ancestors...I talked about this in my post "Stones with narrow bottom bowls"...

Meanwhile in Scotland: in the Highlands, knocking stones were occasionally used as the receptacle into which a daily offering of milk for the Gruagach was poured. Gruagach, a domestic spirit which looked after the cattle/household...

The above is copied from historian, Stuart McHardy's essay, "Gruagach; a wee remnant of something much bigger?"...

That's the same house snake I talked about in my post "House snake"...

In Belarus, when storytellers want to emphasise that something happened long time ago, they would say "in the old days, when people kept snakes in their houses"...And fed them milk...Again because they believed that these snakes contained the spirits of their ancestors and were protecting the family...

Interesting, right? 

Ultime grida dalla savana

Petroglyph, Wadi Mathendous, Libya

After the mandatory giggle, let's think what this image could represent?

Remember this? "We owe our existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact it rains".

My guess is that in places like Libya, where life depends on rain, life is created by Sky (Father) inseminating (raining on) Earth (Mother)...

I talked about this in several of my posts: "Riddle", "Living nature", "An Ki Ankh"

Srbska zagonetka: Visok otac, široka majka = nebo i zemlja 🙂

Serbian riddle: Tall (high) father, wide mother = sky and earth 🙂

Father Sky and Mother Earth creating Life, preserved in Serbian tradition.

Because of the above identification of Sky = Father = Male and Earth = Mother = female, in many cultures around the world we find symbolic and ritual linking between:

Male fertility (ability to produce semen), sky fertility (ability to produce rain), seed and sowing...

Female fertility (ability to conceive after being inseminated), earth fertility (ability to grow plants after them being sown), fruit and harvesting...

I talked about this in my post "Sowing", in which I discussed this strange Serbia custom: In Serbia in the past people lived in extended families called "zadruga". When grain needed to be sown, the family would choose one man to do all the sowing. He had to abstain from sex from that moment until all the seeds were sown...

This brings me to a great Italian documentary I saw years ago, "Ultime grida dalla savana" ( Final Cry of the Savanna) which was in 1975 directed by Antonio Climati and Mario Morra...

And in it, if my memory is serving me right, they showed men from some African tribe, ritually inseminating Mother Earth, by each digging a small hole in the ground, lying down over it and...

Basically ritually playing the role of the Sky Father...

Thunder axe

Few days ago @CotswoldArch posted this on X:

Imagine digging Iron Age and Roman pits in central Bedfordshire, and coming across 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 Neolithic beauty? 🤯

This polished Late Neolithic axehead is made of a volcanic rock called gabbro. These axeheads were widely exchanged around the British Isles, and sometimes even across the Irish Sea into Ireland, but that doesn't explain how it ended up in a pit some 2000 years after its creation!

Older artefacts found in newer archaeological features are often termed as 'residual' – redeposited from earlier activity – yet our pit appeared undisturbed. We want to think it was intentionally kept – possibly a prehistoric "curiosity", treasured by the people living centuries later...

I don't think this stone axe was kept as "curiosity". I think it was kept as a protective talisman known as "thunder axe"...

Check this out:

Prehistoric axe head, engraved during the medieval time (9th–early 13th century.) with the image of Christ and St Elijah (Byzantine, Balkan???). Currently kept in Met museum...

Balkan Slavs believed that these stone axes fell from the sky when lightning struck the ground and were attributed to Perun. They were known as thunderstones...Hence Perun's axe...I talked about this in my post "Axe or hammer"...

St Elijah was in Balkan Slavic countries known as St Elijah the Thunderer...So a thunder god replaced with a thunder saint...

I talked about Elijah in my post "Thundering sun god"...

Here is also a very interesting article about Elijah and Teshub, which proposes that Elijah was just a thinly disguised Sky (Thunder) god...

So that explains St Elijah being depicted on the Thunder Axe...

Interestingly, Zeus's thunderbolt was imagined to be a stone or a stone axe. Hence the belief that stone axes had protective powers which is why they were used as magical amulets. 

I talked about (stone) axe as a symbol of Zeus/Jupiter and thunder (gods) in general in my post "Kataibates"...

I also talked about why storm gods from different cultures carry (stone) axes in my post "Mamaragan"...

Adad, Mesopotamian storm god, holding an axe and lightning bolt...

Teshub, Hittite thunder god, also wielded a (thunder) axe. While standing on a bull...About to kill a snake/dragon...I talked about this relief in my post "Teshub killing snake"...

How old is this association between storm (thunder) gods an (stone) axes? 

I suggested that this link between a stone, more specifically flint axes, and thunder gods, already existed in the 4th millennium BC Europe...I explained why I thought so in my post "Sun stones" about exploding flint axes rituals fron Neolithic Denmark...

Knowing all this, it is no wonder that people believed that thunderbolts were made of stone well into middle ages...A 15th-century engraving depicts the town of Ensisheim in present-day France being struck by a thunderbolt (stone)...I talked about this in my post "Jack and magic beans", about giants who lived on a stone sky and who hurled giants rocks down on earth...The original sky (stone) thunder gods...

One of these "thunderbolts" was found and secured in a church to ensure it wouldn’t escape back into the sky...