Depiction of a "mythical composite animal" on a plaster plaque from the 10,000BC Pre-Pottery Neolithic A layers of the archaeological site Körtik Tepe, located in the Diyarbakır district of Turkey. One of the first ever found...
Many such plaques were found in Körtik Tepe graves, so they obviously had some ritual meaning for the people who made them...The question is what meaning could that be?
Well, in order to answer this question, we first need to identify the animals from which this "mythical composite animal" is made...So have a look at my earlier post "Goat and snake from Kortik Tepe" about Ibex goat and snake symbolism in Körtik Tepe art.
In it explain that Ibex is an animal calendar marker for Oct/Nov, the start of the mating season of Ibex Goats. And that snake is an animal calendar marker for Apr/May, the start of the mating season of vipers...
Now if we look at the climate in the area of Körtik Tepe, will see that head, Ibex, wild goat, which marks Oct/Nov, also marks the beginning of the cool, wet season in the Körtik Tepe area, and tail, snake, which marks Apr/May, also marks the end of the cool, wet season in the Körtik Tepe area...
Together, they mark the season of rebirth (of nature), brought by rain...water...
This reminds me of the (ancient?) belief, preserved by Slavs, about the thirsty ancestors...Is this why we find all these "empty" vessels in Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Age graves? Were they placed in the graves full of water, for the thirsty dead? I talked about in my post "White feast"...
Körtik Tepe graves also contained "empty" vessels...
Why? Did they contain water too when they were originally placed into the graves, together with the "mythical composite animal", half goat half snake, a composite animal calendar marker for rain, wet, water season...
But is this a head of an ibex goat...🙂
Top: Ibex, wild goat
Bottom: Mouflon, wild sheep
Hmmm...The horns of the composite being look more like a Mouflon...Oh no!!! 🙂
But don't fret...Nothing changes...Mouflon sheep also mate starting from Oct/Nov...So as animal calendar markers, Ibex and Mouflon are interchangeable...
So whether the Körtik Tepe "mythical composite animal" has a head of an Ibex wild goat, or a Mouflon wild sheep, the meaning of this composite animal calendar marker is still "Oct/Nov-Apr/May, the rain season"...
The season of rebirth (of nature)...
So did people from Körtik Tepe believe in rebirth?
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...
Stone relief dated ca 50-150 AD from Croy Hill, Scotland. It depicts Jupiter Dolichenus (standing on a bull) and his wife and consort Juno Dolichena (standing on a cow). National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, UK...
Juno Regina is the Queen of the Gods and Queen of Heaven and the patron goddess of Rome...
Jupiter Dolichenus is a mixture between Roman Jupiter and a Anatolian sky god. Carrying a thunderbolt (Jupiter) and a double-headed axe (Teshub)...
Jupiter Dolichenus stands on a bull because the Anatolian thunder god stood on a bull...
Pics of the two stele from Tell Ahmar are from this paper...
And he stood on a bull because...Officially we don't know, but actually we do know. He stood on a bull because:
This Hittite symbol means storm god. Bottom part (Bull head) means storm, the above part means god...
The thunderstorm season in Anatolia starts in Apr/May, Taurus...Which is why Hittite Thunder God stands on a bull...I talked about this in my post "Bull god from Arslantepe"
Roman Juno was associated with cows and calves...And so was her Greek predecessor Hera.
Which is interesting considering that Apr/May, the start of the thunderstorm season in Anatolia and Southern Europe, is also the start of the calving season of the wild Eurasian cattle...
This is what Taurus, Bull (it really should be Calf), marks. It originally had nothing to do with stars. It was a marker for Apr/May, the beginning of the calving season of the wild Eurasian cattle. Talked about it in many of my posts...
BTW, Jupiter (Zeus) Dolichenus was also known as Jupiter (Zeus) Heliopolitanus. This is because the cult originated from the area between the cities of Doliche and Heliopolis, which both housed important temples of the god...
Between the two cities lies the mount Caisus, the sacred home of Ba‘al Hadad, who was the Ugaritic version of the Hurian storm god Teshub...
It is in this area that we see the local storm god, wearing local clothes...
Become Romanised/Hellenised, and starts wearing Roman military attire, and gets his lightning trident replaced with lightning bolt...
Here is another relief, this one from Rome, 3rd c. AD, depicting Jupiter Dolichenus and Juno Dolichena. See the eagle killing snake in the top left corner, the symbol of Zeus/Jupiter?
I love this one a lot. A sculpture of an eagle devouring a serpent from Roman London.
It depicts a snake eagle killing a snake...
Why is this a symbol of Zeus/Jupiter? Because:
Eagle-Snake struggle is a complex animal calendar marker for the thunderstorm season in Europe Apr/May - Sep/Oct, when migratory snake eagles can be seen in Europe...I talked about this in my post "Eagle snake struggle"...
Interestingly, main snake mating season, when snakes coil like this, also starts in Apr/May...
And so:
Why is Hermes, the herald of Zeus, carrying a staff with two coiling snakes, given to him as a present by Apollo, the sun god?
Cause snakes (solar animals) mate (coil) in Apr/May, (heralding) the beginning of the thunderstorm season. I talked about this in my post "Lyre of Apollo"...
So...The visual depictions of Jupiter Dolichenus and Juno Dolichena are full of animal calendar markers for Apr/May...
The time of the year when snakes start mating, snake eagles arrive back from Africa to Anatolia/Southern Europe, wild cows start calving, and when the thunderstorms (ThunderGod) arrives riding on a bull...In Taurus...
BTW, If you want to see how Teshub the thunder god is actually symbolically equated with the snake eagle check my post "Teshub killing snake" out. It gives symbolic analysis of this Neo-Hittite basalt stele from the 9th-8th c. BC and explains why is Teshub standing on a bull and why is he holding a snake in his left hand...
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...
This map shows surnames in different languages which mean "smith".
Look at Ireland (Mac Gabhain) and Scotland (Mc Gowan)...
Both the Irish and Scotish surnames mean son of a smith (Gaelic gobha, gabha, pronounced gova which comes from Old Irish gobae, gobann meaning smith, cognate with Middle Welsh gof, Middle Breton goff, Old Cornish gof, Gaulish gobedbi, "Of disputed PIE origin possibly only found in Celtic languages and coming from Proto-Celtic stem *goben-, meaning smith"...
Hmmm...
Now look at all the Slavic countries...
Slavic languages have a whole cluster of words based on the root "kov" meaning metal:
kov(ina) - metal/iron
kovati - to forge, to strike hot metal to perform metal work
nakovanj - anvil, that on which forging is done
kovačnica, kovnica - forge
kovanica - something forcefully stack together like being forged
kovač - smith
From Proto-Slavic "kovati", from Proto-Balto-Slavic "*kauˀ-", from Proto-Indo-European "*kowh₂-", from the root "*kewh₂-" meaning to strike, to hit...
But for some weird reason, Celtic words for smith can in no way be cognates with Slavic words for metal and smith...God forbid...
Now, in Celtic lands we find several gods, Irish deity Goibniu, Welsh deity Govannon, Gaulish deity Gobannos, whose names have a hypothetical Proto-Celtic root "*goben-", smith...
I will here like to talk about the Irish smithy, Goibniu (pronounced gov-nu), cause he will also help you understand what I am going to say about Lugh...
In Irish mythology Goibniu was the smith of the Tuatha Dé Danann. He is believed to have been a smithing god and was also associated with feasting.
According to Lebor Gabála Érenn, his father was Tuirenn...Who is basically, Taranis, The Celtic Sky/Thunder god in disguise.
At the same time, in Irish mythology and folklore, his father was also named "Esarg" and "Tuirbe Trágmar".
"Esarg", meaning "striker", is derived Old Irish root esorcon, meaning "smiting," "striking," "beating," or "a blow dealt to a foe in battle".
So far so normal and expected. Sky/Thunder gods were after all "Mighty Smiters"...
"Tuirbe Trágmar" which means "the axe-thrower" is a character which appears in Irish mythological texts as a warrior ancestor or father of Goibniu.
In the Metrical Dindshenchas (Lore of Places) he is described as a "man of skill" and the father of Gobbán Saor "a highly skilled smith or architect". The text describes his feat of hurling his magical battle-axe from Tulach Bela (the Hill of the Axe) into the face of the incoming flood-tide to order the sea to stop rising.
In the Lebor Gabála Érenn (The Book of the Taking of Ireland) Tuirbe Trágmar appears as an alternate name or epithet for Esarg (Striker, The thrower of axes), listing him directly as the father of Goibniu the smith-god.
In the Oidheadh Chloinne Tuireann (The Tragedy of the Sons of Tuireann) he is mentioned as Tuirenn Tuirbe Trágmar, (Taranis, The thrower of axes) and is identified as the father of the divine smiths.
Tuirenn, Striker, Thrower of Axes, the father of the Smith God...
Remember the PIE root "*kewh₂-" means to strike, to hit. Striking, hitting is an integral part of axe making process since the Palaeolithic.
Stone axes are made by striking a large flint nodule in such a way that small chips of stone are gradually removed until a sharp axe shaped blade is produced.
Bronze axes are first cast, then the edge is cold hammered to harden it and then it is wet sand polished to sharpen it.
Iron axes are first wrought (hot melted bloom, mix of ore and charcoal, folded, hammered, folded, hammered...) and then forged (reheated wrought iron hammered) to desired shape, then the edge is wet stone polished to sharpen it.
So striking = making axes...
That's "Maker of Axes"...This doesn't explain why Goibniu's father was called "Thrower of Axes"???
Striking, hitting is also what sky gods did a lot. With thunderbolts. Which were imagined by people all over the place as stones...
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...
What is also interesting is that people thought that these thunder stones were actually (shaped like) stone axes...This belief existed in Europe until well into the Middle Ages...Which is why ancient stone axes were believed to be petrified lightnings and were kept as talismans as a protection against lightning strikes...
Which is why a lot of thunder gods wielded axes...Like Hadad...Whose name has no known etymology, possibly from Northwest Semitic root hdd meaning "to thunder," "to crash," "to make a loud noise"...
Now look at the smith surname map again. In Semitic languages we have word for smith "haddad", which apparently comes from the Proto-Semitic root *ḥdd = "to be sharp, pointed"
So we have:
Hadad → the divine striker (lightnings, thunderbolts which were imagined as being made of stone)
ḥaddād → the one who makes sharp edges by striking metal
But apparently, linguists currently keep ḥdd ("sharp") and the proposed root of Hadad separate because they begin with different Proto-Semitic consonants (ḥ vs. h).
As I already said, in Stone, Bronze and Iron Age, striking was the universal method by which cutting tools were produced or improved, whether in stone, bronze, or iron. That makes "striker" and "maker of sharp edges" naturally adjacent concepts in many ancient cultures, even if they are not always etymologically identical.
As I said already, stone axes are made by striking a large flint nodule in such a way that small chips of stone are gradually removed until a sharp axe shaped blade is produced.
Now if, while making a stone axe, you strike, hit a flint nodule with a pyrite nodule, cause you just happened to have picked this particular shiny stone to use as knapping stone, you will generate a spark, a mini lightning, strong enough to light combustable dry material and start fire...
Here is a video showing how this is done
In several of my posts I asked the question: How old is the connection between stone axes and thunder gods?
In my 2019 post "Sun stones", about ceremonies with exploding flint axes performed in Late Neolithic Vasagård site located on the southern side of the island of Bornholm, Denmark, I suggested that this link between a stone, more specifically flint axes, and thunder gods, already existed in the 4th millennium BC Europe...
In my post "Oldest symbolic monument" which I wrote last year, I suggested that the link between flint axes and lightning could be 40,000 to 160,000 old. At least based on "the oldest symbolic monument, that is to say, one with no obvious practical use and probably responding to a belief", which, according to this article is this pile of stones piled up next to a spring at El Guettar (Southern Tunisia) which has flint nodules placed on top of a pile of other round stones...
Round stones (like sling stones), falling (being thrown) from the sky...Where did I hear about this before? All over the place actually. I talked about this in my post "Cetus", "Mithras", "Rudra"...
In Ireland, that was the speciality of Lugh...
But the latest archaeological discovery indicates that it is possible that this link already existed 400,000 years ago. According to this paper Neandertals struck chunks of iron pyrite against flint to light campfires - the oldest evidence of humans intentionally making fire. And the flint pieces found were actually flint axes...
Did Neanderthals link stone axes with lightning? Anyway...
Remember this:
A blacksmith has to strike his anvil with his hammer on every Christmas morning before sunrise. If he doesn't do it, his hammer and anvil should be broken and he and his family should be expelled from the tribe (medieval Vasojevići tribe law cannon, Montenegro)...
Striking anvil with hammer produces sparks and sparks create fire. And Christmas Day is the day when the fire of the sun gets rekindled (the old winter solstice, the rebirth of the sun and solar year)...
This is what Yule log rituals are all about...
A toast to yule log, Dalmatia, 1893. South Slavs believed that yule log was the earthly seat of god, addressed it with utmost respect and made sacrifices to it, during cutting, bringing in, burning...
Everything indicates that the Yule log ceremonies are solar ceremonies. But why was Oak, the holy tree of Perun, The Thunder God, used as Badnyak (Yule Log)?
To understand the link between the heart fire, yule log, thunder god and the sun, you need to check this out:
"It is a great secret how Svarog (heavenly and earthly fire) is at the same time Perun (thunder) and Svetovid (Sun)"...
Mathis (Matthias) Gerung, The Mighty Angel with the Little Book (Revelation 10), illuminated miniature on parchment in the Ottheinrich Bible, vol. 8, fol. 293r, c. 1530–1532 AD. Collection: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich...
Apparently, no one knows what this image really represents. I think it represents this:
Modern science has confirmed that it is indeed (heavenly) fire of the Sun which through Lightning descends to earth and becomes (earthly) Fire. I talked about this in my post "Sun Thunder Fire"...
So this is why the Yule Log is an Oak Log.
An Oak Yule Log (The Holy Tree of the Thunder Gods) is placed in the house hearth, the seat of the Earthly Fire on Christmas (Winter Solstice) eve to (symbolically) link it to the Sun's Fire...As long the Yule Log is burning, these two fires are (symbolically) connected and on Christmas (Winter Solstice) morning, the earth fire will (symbolically) ascend from the hearth to the sun and will restart the sun's fire...
BTW, this is how Ancient Greeks symbolically depicted the same thing:
"Hestia, you who tend the holy house of the lord Apollo...come now into this house...having one mind with Zeus the all-wise..." (Homeric Hymn To Hestia)...
What does this mean? Sun (Apollo, Helios) creates Fire (Hestia) through lightning (Zeus)...
In Serbia, one of the most important part of the Yule log ceremony was the sparks divination performed by the first footer, the luck bringer...I talked about this in my post "First Footer"...
The First Footer repeatedly "strikes" the fire to produce sparks. After each strike, he exclaims:
As many sparks, as much luck!
As many sparks, as much love!
As many sparks, as much health!
As many sparks, as much money!
This "creation of sparks by striking burning Oak (the sacred tree of the thunder gods) Yule log" seems to me to be symbolic enactment of the creation of lightning by the thunder god...
Smith "creating sparks by striking hot iron with a hammer" seems to me to have the same symbolic meaning and directly links smiths with thunder gods...
Which is why, I suppose, Thor wields a hammer...Like here on the 11th century Altuna Runestone...
But is Thor holding a hammer or a double axe?
You might find my post "Axe or hammer" interesting. It explors the origin of Thor's hammer (axe?) Mjǫllnir and its relation with Perun's axe:
Anyway, this is all important to know if you want to understand the following:
So the father of the Irish smith god Goibniu was the sky god, Tuirenn, the Thrower of Axes (thunderbolts)...
Guess whose father was Goibniu? Lugh's...
According to an Irish legend, Balor hears a prophecy that he would be killed by his grandson.
To avoid his fate, he locks his only daughter, Ethnea (Eithne), in a tower to keep her from becoming pregnant.
Balor goes to the mainland and steals the magical cow of abundance Glas Gaibhnenn belonging to Cian.
Cian learns he can only get the cow back when Balor is dead, so he manages to secretly enter the tower, finds Ethnea and impregnates her.
When she gives birth to three sons, Balor orders the three to be drowned, but one survives without Balor's knowledge.
The kid, Lugh, is fostered by a smith who is also Lugh's uncle.
Balor eventually encounters his grandson by chance and is killed by him.
That magical cow of abundance Glas Gaibhnenn, was in other Irish legends said to have belonged to one of several figures variously named Gavida, Gavigan, Gaibhlen, identified as smiths, and believed to be Goibniu in disguise and who were in some way involved in the conception of Lugh.
BTW, the name of the magic cow Glas Gaibhnenn means "grey cow of the smith (god)", basically a rain cloud of the sky god...
Heavenly cows (rain clouds) are a common mythological image found all over Eurasia.
In Indian mythology we find story about Indra's cows (rain clouds) being stolen by Panis demons who also steal sunlight (it is the sun that creates the wet summer monsoon) and hidden "inside the mountain" (Himalayas create up-drift which pulls the moist air from the sea).
The cows are found by Indra's hound (the wet summer monsoon peaks during the Dog Days, Jul/Aug)...
Why are dog days in Jul/Aug?
When our mythologies were made out of animal calendar markers, Sirius, the Dog Star rose with the sun in Jul/Aug, when mating season of the old dog breeds began...
In Slavic mythology we find Perun (thunder) who every year fights Veles (dragon, burning sun) who steals heavenly cows (rain clouds) from Perun...And every year Perun triumphs over Veles and rescues his heavenly cows...
In Ireland we find Balor (dragon, burning sun) who steals "grey cow of the smith (god)", from a smith or someone related to a smith (god) so the smith (god) impregnates Balor's daughter, whose son, Balor's grandson, eventually kills Balor by striking his burning eye with a shiny (sling) stone, after which the cow of abundance is returned to the smith (god)...And this also happens in...Jul/Aug...Which is the peak thunderstorm season in Ireland...
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