Foundational sacrifice

Serbs believed that someone from the family will soon die after they move into the new house, cause each house needs a protective spirit. To prevent this, a cockerel (ritual replacement for a human) was killed on the doorstep (the seat of the dead). 

Another ritual performed to provide the guardian spirit for the house is the ritual trapping of someone's (usually unsuspecting passerby, not someone from the family) shadow into the stone foundations of a new house by the house builders. 

I talked about this and many other beliefs and rituals from Serbia related to the building and moving into a new house in my post New house...

I also talked about this in my post "Blood and mortar" about sacrifices made to make the building stand in Slavic lands (areas where Slavs still or once used to live) of the Balkans...

The legend found in Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, Albania, Pontic Turkey talks about brothers (or a single builder) building a church, fortress, bridge. Whatever they build during the day was magically destroyed during the night, until one of the builders sacrficed his wife by building her into the foundations or walls of whatever was buing built. 

Serbian Saint Tsar Lazar fresco from Curtea de Arges Monastery, Romania, one of the buildings which could only be built after a human sacrifice...

In this post I want to present some other examples of foundational human sacrifices from around the world. 

Starting with:

According to Plutarch: Romulus and Remus quarreled over the location of the Imperial city. When they could not agree upon the site for the city, their dispute was referred to the decision of augury, and was decided m favor of Romulus, who was proceeding to open a ditch where the walls were to be built, when his brother, angered by the adverse decision of the augury, obstructed the work. He finally attempted to leap over the ditch to show his contempt for it, and fell in, or "as some say, he fell by the hands of Romulus". He was then buried by Romulus, in Remonia, which was the location on Mount Aventine chosen by Remus for the city...

You can read more about this in Foundational rites with some kindred ceremonies...

During the wars of the Lacedaemonians and the Messenians when continued reverses and expenditures had brought the affairs of the latter into a deplorable condition, with the desertion of their slaves and a pestilence upon them, they resolved to abandon their towns in the interior and move to the mountains. They selected for their future home the small town which Homer had characterised as "rocky Ithome." They sent an envoy to Delphi in order to learn the will of the gods, and were commanded by the oracle to sacrifice a pure virgin (selected by lot out of the family of the ^Epytidae) at night to the gods below.

The ancient Greek city built by returning Messenians around Mount Ithome was Ancient Messene...

You can read more about this in Foundational rites with some kindred ceremonies...

The builders of Antioch, had a girl sacrificed at their foundation. The 22d of May was set apart as the anniversary of this sacrifice. This virgin sacrificed at the foundation was afterwards worshiped as the fortune of the town. 

You can read more about this in Foundational rites with some kindred ceremonies...

At Laodicea the annual sacrifice of a stag that stood for a maiden, and was offered to the goddess of the city, stands side by side with the legend that the goddess was a maiden, who had been sacrificed to consecrate the foundation of the town, and was thenceforth worshiped as its fortune.

You can read more about this in Foundational rites with some kindred ceremonies...

Levant

There is a very old textual tradition concerning foundation sacrifice. The biblical passage concerning Jericho says: “Cursed be the man before the LORD, that riseth up and buildeth this city Jericho: he shall lay the foundation thereof in his firstborn…” (Joshua 6:26) 

In I. Kings xvi. 34, we can read "With Abiram his first-born he founded herand with Segub his youngest he set up her gates, according to the word of Yahwe through Joshua bin Nun." The idea of a curse being pronounced against the builder is not contained in it. There is nothing to show that the offering of the builder's sons was in the nature of a punishment.

Archaeology at Jericho has also produced human remains associated with architectural structures, although interpreting those remains specifically as sacrifices is disputed...

Also, the Hebrew word meaning "son" is derived from the Hebrew root meaning to build, to erect, to construct, according to Gesenius, as quoted by Mr. William Simpson, who raises the question whether the sacrifice of the first born was a foundation rite...

You can read more about this in Foundational rites with some kindred ceremonies...

We find this ritual foundational death at the root of Christianity. 

Christ was the corner stone and the apostles the foundation stones of the Church. 

Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious, . . . the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner.

An old hymn for the dedication of a church says:

Christ is made the sure foundation

And the precious corner stone, 

Who, the twofold walls uniting,

Binds them closely into one.

We find traces of foundational sacrifices in British Isles too. 

England

In the year 1876, the old church at Brownsover, Warwickshire, was restored; the earlier parts of the building were of Norman, the latter of early thirteenth century architecture. The church stands upon the site of an early British entrenchment about two miles from Rugby, and two from the Roman station on the Watling street road. It was found necessary to lower the foundations of the north and south walls of the church; and in doing so two skeletons were discovered, one under the north, the other under the south wall—about one foot below the original foundations—exactly opposite to each other and about six feet from the chancel wall which crosses the north and south wall of the church at right angles. Each skeleton was covered with an oak slab about six feet in length by ten inches wide and two inches thick—of the colour of bog oak; these pieces of oak plank had evidently been used as carpenters' benches from the fact that each of them had four mortice-holes cut in them in such a form as to throw the legs outwards, and from the cuts made in them by edged tools. The skeletons were found in a space cut out of the solid clay which had not been moved, on either side, and just large enough to take the bodies placed in them. The skeletons were seen in situ; they could not have been placed there after the original walls had been built. 

In 1881 the chancel of Hope Church in Derbyshire, fourteen miles from Sheffield, was pulled down...Apparently...there were no foundations, in the ordinary sense of the term. The walls were simply built on the surface of the ground, as was found to be the case during the late restorations at Rotherham and Sheffield Parish churches. The wonder is how such massive piles stood with so imperfect a bearing. But at Hope there was in one sense, and in two places, a foundation. Under the north wall and under the south wall, where these joined the nave of the church, were placed, face upwards, two massive ancient gravestones, and on these the walls were built...It seems that...the slabs at Hope...were expressly made for the purpose of being laid beneath the foundations, or of covering bodies laid beneath the foundations. But the evidence in this case is too imperfect to allow the inference that the walls of this chancel were built on the bodies of human beings sacrificed to ensure the stability of the building, for it does not appear whether bodies were found beneath the stones or not. In the absence of afhial sacrifice we may nevertheless conclude that the slabs were purposely laid under the walls in accordance with custom or ritual, for the symbols of sacrifice would survive after the more barbarous rite had ceased to exist. It should be mentioned that the Doomsday Book records a church at Hope...

In 1885 Holsworthy Parish Church was restored, and in the course of restoration the south-west angle wall of the church was taken down. In it, embedded in the mortar and stone, was found a skeleton. The wall of this portion of the church was faulty, and had settled. According to the account given by the masons who found the ghastly remains, there was no trace of a tomb, but every appearance of the person having been buried alive, and hurriedly. A mass of mortar was over the mouth, and the stones were huddled about the corpse as though hastily heaped about it, then the wall was leisurely proceeded with...

During the restoration of the church at Treeton in Hallamshire in 1892, under the supervision of Charles Hadfield, Esq., of Sheffield, architect, a child's stone coffin was found in a remarkable position. It appears that the wall of the south aisle was of great age—it was probably the oldest part of the building—and this wall, owing to its tottering and 'unsafe condition, had to be removed and rebuilt. The removal was effected by Mr. George Webster, the builder and contractor, and from him and from Mr. Hadfield I have received the following account of the discovery of this little coffin. It was found about twelve inches below the surface of the ground, and in the foundation of the old wall. It lay on its side lengthwise, with the hollow part facing the inside of the church, and with the head eastwards and close to the buttress of the Brampton Chapel. It had no lid or covering, and Mr. Webster informs me that there were no bones therein, but that it was "filled with dirt." The coffin, which is figured in the drawing, is now placed inside the porch of the south aisle, on the west wall of the porch, with the cavity facing outwards. Its interior measurements are: length thirty inches, length to the shoulders twenty-three inches, extreme breadth six-and-three-quarter inches, breadth in the narrowest part three-and-three-quarter inches, depth four inches. A piece of one of the sides of the coffin has been broken off, and it may have lost a little of its original depth owing to its having been trimmed by the mason so as to fit its new position in the porch. Such a little coffin could only have contained the body of a child of about a year old, and the thought of the horrible and cruel rite of which it is an appalling witness may well bring tears to the eyes. The position in which the coffin was originally placed shows either that a child was built in alive to ensure the stability of the wall or of the church, or else that an empty coffin was laid in by way of symbol of the ancient sacrifice.[5] The fact that the coffin was "filled with dirt," without containing bones, would seem to point to the conclusion that it was laid in merely as a symbol, but on the other hand we must remember that as the coffin was without lid its contents would be more freely exposed to the dissolving earth. The church, moreover, is very old, and a church at Treeton is mentioned in the Doomsday Survey. In so long a period the bones of a little child would hardly escape dissolution, and all that can be said is that there is no evidence whether the coffin was placed there as a symbol of the foundation sacrifice, or whether a child was actually buried there alive. But one of these two things must have happened, and if such sacrifices had ceased to be made at the time when the church was built, the position of the coffin nevertheless shows that children were once built in alive in England to ensure the stability of churches or other buildings.

You can read more about it in Strange Survivals: Some Chapters in the History of Man

Ireland 

During the 19th century, antiquarians excavated the interiors of several Irish round towers and frequently found human skeletons buried beneath the foundations...

Scotland

According to the Iona tradition, St Columba's builders repeatedly constructed a chapel only to find the work destroyed by the following morning. A divine message eventually instructed them that one of the monks had to be buried alive beneath the foundations. St Oran volunteered and was buried beneath the chapel which is today known as St Oran's chapel.

You can read more about it here...

Wales

In Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae we read that Vortigern was trying to build a tower, but, the foundations laid each day are swallowed up by the earth. His magicians therefore advise him to find a fatherless boy and sacrifice him, pouring his blood over the foundations. The boy was Merlin, who instead exposed the real cause: a pool of water beneath the foundations...

Pic: Roman de Brut - Vortigern Tower

Germany

In his Teutonic Mythology, Grimm talks about numerous human sacrifices that were once performed in Germany to secure various buildings from collapsing. 

To make Liebenstein Castle (pic) impregnable, there was walled-in a child, whom its mother for base gold had parted with; while the masons were at work, says the story, it sat eating a roll and calling out, 'Mother, I can see you,' then, 'Mother, I see a little of you still,' and when the last stone was let in, 'Mother, I see nothing of you now.' In the outer wall of Reichenfels Castle a child was built in alive: a projecting stone marks the spot, and if that were pulled out, the wall would tumble down at once...

When the new bridge at Halle, finished 1843, was being built, the common people fancied a child was wanted to be walled into the foundations... 

A young lady was built into the wall of Meder-Manderscheid with an opening left, through which she was fed as long as she was able to eat, according to tradition, and in 1844, the wall was broken through and a cavity in which was a human skeleton was actually discovered...

The reason assigned for the great strength of the tower of Winneberg is that a child of the master-mason was built into the wall... 

It is also believed a child was built in alive in the outer wall of Reichenfells Castle, and that a projecting stone marks the spot, and if that were pulled out, the wall would tumble down at once.

The village authorities bought a child of a poor motherand built it alive into the foundations of the church at Blex in Oldenburg and in 1615, Count Anthony Gunther of Oldenburg rescued an infant child that the workmen were about to bury under a dyke which they were repairing; yet tradition says that this same Count buried a living child in the foundations of his own castle...

A boy named Hugo was sunk alive in the foundation when a portion of the dyke gave way at Butjadeirgen... 

Two children were immured in the basement of the wall of Sandel; and one in that of Ganderkesee... 

You can read more about this in Foundational rites with some kindred ceremonies...

Denmark

It is said that many years ago, when the ramparts were being raised around Copenhagen, it was impossible to make the walls stand firm till they took a little innocent girl, placed her in a chair by a table and gave her playthings and sweetmeats, and while she was thus enjoying herself, twelve masons built an arch over her which they covered with earth to the sound of drums and trumpets.

You can read more about this in Primitive culture: Researches into the development of mythology, philosophi, religion, art and custom...

Baltic 

This is the Gothic-style single-nave Jõhvi Fortress Church from Estonia. According to a legend, everything the workers built during the day was turned into rubble by Satan at night and even sank underground, until a person was found who allowed himself to be walled up alive in the church wall...

You can read more about this here...

Russia

According to folklore recorded in 19th-century studies of comparative mythology, Detinets, the Old Russian word for a central city fortress, also known as Kremlin, has a root in the Slavic word for child (dijete / deti). This is because, according to the legends, when a fortress (Detinets) was built, local builders would send out scouts to capture the very first child they encountered. The captured child was then said to be walled alive into the foundations of the town or fortress to appease spirits and secure the stability of the walls. 

Official etymology says that the term Detinets comes from the Russian word for the Retinue (Deti), and designated the part of the fortress which housed the prince’s junior military retinue, often referred to metaphorically as the "children" (deti) of the ruler or defenders of the fort. Or that it comes from the word det’ meaning "to put" or "to shelter", as Detinets was the secure, innermost part of the town where young children and the elderly were placed during enemy sieges.

Pic: Novgorod Detinets

Ukraine

At Subotiv in Ukraine, excavators discovered the skeleton of a teenager associated with the construction of a rampart. The researchers explicitly describe it as a "building sacrifice". Radiocarbon dating gives approximately 834–807 BC.

You can read more about it here...

Georgia

According to ancient legend linked to the Surami fortress, the fortress was crumbling apart overnight every time its construction was finished, and a local fortune-teller said that someone should volunteer to be immured in its walls for the fortress to stand. It ended up to be a young boy by the name of Zurab, his mother's only son, who was sealed within the fortification, and to this day, stories say that his mothers tears still drip from the section of wall into which he was entombed.

Algeria

The walls of the Algiers fort were built of concrete blocks made of lime and sand, rammed in a mold and exposed to dry in the sun. When baked thoroughly solid they were turned out of the mold and ready for use. Geronimo was a Christian who had served in a Spanish regiment. Captured by pirates he was turned over to the Dey of Algiers. In 1569, September 18th, Geronimo was put into one of the molds and the concrete rammed around him, and when the block had hardened, it was placed in the walls of the fort. After the occupation of Algiers by the French a subsidence in the wall led to an examination of the blocks. Subsequently the block was removed ( December 27, 1853), in order to make room for a new fort. When this block of concrete was exploded it was found to contain a skeleton of a human body, the whole of which was visible from the neck to the knees, in a perfect state of preservation. The cast of the head, the remains, and the block of broken pise are now preserved in the Cathedral of Algiers.

You can read more about this in Foundational rites with some kindred ceremonies...

India 

When Rajah Sala Byne was building the fort of Sialkot in the Punjab, the foundation of the south-east bastian gave way so repeatedly that he had recourse to a soothsayer, who assured him that it would never stand until the blood of an only son was shed there, wherefore the only son of a widow was sacrificed. 

You can read more about this in Primitive culture: Researches into the development of mythology, philosophi, religion, art and custom...

William Crooke's The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India records traditions in which buildings, bridges and forts required human victims.

One example concerns a bridge over the Jargo River at Chunâr:

When the bridge repeatedly fell, a Brahman girl was supposedly sacrificed to the local deity. Her ghost then became the local Marī and was worshipped in times of trouble.

Crooke also records the belief that if a castle would not stand, or a pond would not retain water, a human victim could be offered.

Japan

Hitobashira (人柱, "human pillar"), was a human sacrifice formerly practised in Japan. A person was buried alive under large buildings like dams, bridges and castles, to protect them from being destroyed by natural disasters or by enemy attacks...

The legend about the Maruoka Castle, located in Fukui Prefecture, says that its stone wall kept crumbling. A poor one-eyed woman named Oshizu was buried alive under the central pillar after bargaining for her son to become a samurai, a promise the lords later failed to keep. Locals still blame the spring rains on her sorrowful tears...

China

Archaeological records confirm that foundational human sacrifices—sacrifices made during the construction of city walls, gates, and major buildings—did occur in ancient China, dating back to the late Neolithic period.

At the Shimao archaeological site in Shaanxi province (dating around 2300–1800 BCE, late Neolithic), excavators discovered pits containing roughly 80 human skulls ritually buried directly beneath the outer city's eastern wall. Forensic analyses indicate these victims were primarily teenage girls, likely captured or conscripted from neighboring groups during the fortress's monumental construction.

You can read more about this in this article...

During the later Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BCE), oracle bones explicitly document thousands of sacrificial victims offered not only for royal funerals (renxun) but also for architectural rites (jianzu), dedicating new halls, altars, and ramparts.

You can read more about this in this article...

Borneo / Dayak

There was a tradition among the Milanau Dayaks of Borneo in which, when erecting a large house, a hole was dug for the first post and a slave girl was placed in it. The enormous post was then released so that it crushed her, making her the sacrifice associated with the principal structural support.

You can read more about this in Primitive culture: Researches into the development of mythology, philosophi, religion, art and custom...

Polynesia

At Maeva, on the island of Raiatea, the central pillar of a marae temple was reportedly erected over the body of a human victim.

You can read more about this in Primitive culture: Researches into the development of mythology, philosophi, religion, art and custom...

You can read more about marae temples in these articles: 1, 2

Thailand

It was formerly a custom in Siam, when a new city gate was to be erected, for public officers to seize the first persons that passed by, who were then buried alive under the gate-posts to serve as guardian spirits of the city.

The belief was that a violent, sudden death would create a highly territorial, ferocious guardian spirit (Chao Thi) bound to the structure to ward off enemies and evil forces...

The earliest and most authoritative written text documenting this practice is the 1630s chronicle by Jeremias Van Vliet, a Dutch merchant who worked for the Dutch East India Company in the old capital. 

Van Vliet recorded that when King Prasat Thong rebuilt or repaired the massive fortified walls and city gates of the Royal Palace of Ayutthaya, he ordered his officials to violently seize pregnant women.

According to his journals, the women were thrown into the muddy pits underneath the gate posts, and the heavy structural pillars were dropped directly on top of them.

You can read more about this in Foundational rites with some kindred ceremonies and in Death at the Building Site: Construction Sacrifice in Southeast Asia...

So that is all I have to say about foundational human sacrifices from around the world...For now. I hope you found this article interesting...  

Khwarrah

Elamite bronze shield centerpiece, or umbo, dated to 1400 B.C. – 1000 B.C. Recently sold by baidun.com

It is decorated with a ring of wild sheep ewes surrounding a smaller circle of wild sheep rams, interspersed with stylised plants...

Is this just a meaningless decoration? I don't think so. I will explain why in this thread...

To figure this out we need to look at the climatic year in Iran and the annual life cycle of the wild sheep in the same area...

This is the climate chart for Susa, the capital of the Ancient Elam. We can see that the climatic year was divided into hot/dry half (Apr/May - Oct/Nov) and cool/wet half (Oct/Nov - Apr/May)...

The beginning of the rain season (Oct/Nov), the most important annual climatic event in this part of the world, coincides with the beginning of the mating season of wild sheep...

The mating season, which overlaps with the rain season, is the only time of the year when male and female wild sheep are seen mixed together. They normally live in separate single sex groups...

So I think that our Elamite bronze shield centrepiece depicts the start of the wild sheep mating season, which announces the arrival of rain season, which triggers mass germination of native grasses and wild flora across the plains and lower Zagros foothills of ancient Elam...

I already talked about Ram as an animal calendar marker for the beginning of the rain season in my 2020 post Giant eagle dude with mouflons about this mad object which was in 2011 sold for 97,000 pounds sterling...

A Bactrian gold stamp seal, c. 2200-1900 BC...

Depicting (official description): "...central figure of a winged giant, with muscular human torso and legs, the head and talons of an eagle, wearing a short open tunic with wide belt, and a pendant necklace, grasping in each hand an inverted ibex (my comment: this actually a mouflon/wild sheep)..."

Again, to understand what this object symbolically represent, we need to know that Griffon Vulture mating season, marked by synchronous flying aerial displays, also overlaps with the wild sheep mating season and the rain season...

Which means that this object again symbolically depicts the deified rain season animal calendar markers...

Fused into a proto-god of rain...

BTW, ibex (wild goat) and mouflon (wild sheep) are identical calendar markers. This is because they both start their mating season in Oct/Nov, at the start of the rain season in Iran. I talked about this originally in my post Grazing horned animals about one of the most common designs found on Bronze Age Jiroft culture vessels from Halil River catchment area in Iran: "horned animals grazing on green shoots"...

I think that it is because Ibex goat is much bigger and more imposing (and it makes a lot louder noise during mating fights) that Ibex became the most often used animal calendar marker for the beginning of the rain season in Iran. 

Here we see prancing (fighting) male Ibex goats flanking the tree of life. This is because the rain these fights announce is what supports (the tree of) life in Iran...I talked about it in my post Sassanian goats with tree of life...

Then, because people are very good at noticing patterns in nature and very bad at distinguishing between correlation and causation, ibex got turned into the "Goat of Rain", goat which brings rain. This is the root of all our religions...Then, because it is easier to pray to a human than to a goat, the "Goat of Rain" got turned into a God of Rain with goat horns...And eventually...into a fully human rain god associated with Ibex goats...  

I talked about this in many of my Blog articles and X threads. You can start here if you are interested. An article Kuseh gardani about 

"Kuseh" (Goat God of Rain turned Devil of Drought) 

An echo of the Elamite bronze idol of a (goat-) man with large ibex horns, 3rd-2nd millennium BC...

Now remember the eagle dude with mouflons? There are also identical depictions of an eagle dude with ibexes. From Bactria. End of the 3rd beginning of the 2nd millennium BC Bactrian seal showing an eagle dude holding "winged" ibex goats...

I talked about this symbolic link in Bactrian culture in my post Fluffy...

Recent archaeological data from Zawi Chemi Shanidar, Iran indicates that this symbolic link between vultures and ibexes/mouflons most likely originated in the 9th millennium BC Iran...

And that this is also the most likely place and time where and when vulture and ibex animal calendar markers for rain season got deified and turned into god of rain. 

I talked about this in my post Zawi chemi shanidar...

Anyway, another reason why ibex/goat became main animal calendar marker for the beginning of the rain season, is because mouflon/ram eventually became more associated with Mar/Apr, the end of the lambing and the beginning of the milking season...

Throughout Eurasia, 

Ram, marks lambing of Eurasian wild sheep 

Bull, marks calving of Eurasian wild cattle 

Lion, marks mating of Eurasian lions 

Goat, marks mating of Eurasian wild goats 

I originally talked about this in my post Symbols of the seasons...

In Iran Ram (Feb/Mar/Apr), also marks the snowmelt season which kickstarts the flood season...The second most important annual climatic event in this part of the world...

Hence Ram (Aries) depicted lying in water from the "Zodiac from Isfahan". I talked about it in my post Sagittarius from Isfahan...

BTW, Ram marks the same thing here: Ever seen this symbol? It consists of a goatfish, which on its back, close to its tail, has a pedestal with a ram's head...

Apparently, no one really knows what it means...

Well, let's see if Animal Calendar Markers can solve this "mystery" 🙂. 

So we have

Goat (Oct/Nov, beginning of the mating of wild goats and the beginning of the rain season)

Ram (Feb/Mar/Apr, the lambing season and the snowmelt season which kickstarts the flood season)

Fish,Carp (Apr/May, the beginning of the giang carp mating migration season, the end of the rain season, the peak of the flood season)...

You can fing the full analysis in Goatfish with ram head...

Anyway, the fact that Aries is the time when the flood waters start to rise, is also the reason why the final words spoken by Kay Khosrow, a legendary king of Iran at the end of  Shahnameh, The Iranian Book of Kings are: "The whole world is my kingdom. All is mine from Pisces to Taurus"...This basically means "in Aries"...Which is why "The Ruller of Aries" was established title of supreme power in Iran...And why on this 6th or early 7th c. AD Sassanian silver bowl the king is depicted seated on the ram throne. 

I talk about this in these two posts: Kay Khosrow and Eyeballs platter...

Now a while back I wrote this post Ram with royal ribbon about 400–699 AD Sassanian silver plate originally from Iran, currently in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA. In it I postulated that this is not just a ram, but that, because of the fact that it is wearing a royal ribbon, it is the deified animal calendar marker for the snowmelt season which kickstarts the flood season and the symbol of Iranian royal power...

At that time I didn't know that 

"In ancient Iranian tradition, khwarrah (also spelled farrah or farr) was the divine, luminous aura that gave a monarch the legitimate right to rule. Zoroastrian texts and legends heavily associate this divine entity with Ram. According to the Sasanian epic "The Book of the Deeds of Ardashir", khwarrah appeared to the empire’s founder Ardashir I as a magnificent ram running alongside his horse, guiding and securing his absolute triumph. 

Incorporating ram's horns into royal headwear visually broadcasted that the ruler possessed this divine favour...

You can read more about this here...

Interesting...

It is the "rising" spring sun that causes the spring snowmelt, which fills the rivers and caused the annual flood which makes land fertile...And through this "grace" makes life possible in Mesopotamia and Iran. 

I talked about this in my post When Utu steps up into heaven...

Which is why Sun god Shamash was in Mesopotamia (and most likely Elam) seen as the source of (water of) life...And why Shamash is depicted here holding the original An-Ki (Father-Mother) Ankh - Life symbol...

I talk about this in my post Sun god tablet...

BTW, the stick represents earth (original square) and string/circle represents sky/sun (original compasses)...

Considering that khwarrah is symbolically represented by a ram, the symbol of spring, the snowmelt season, and that "The Ruller of Aries" was established title of supreme power in Iran, I wonder if the sun was "the divine, luminous aura that gave a monarch the legitimate right to rule"???

I want to thank @dalaygiz for this contribution: The term xwarrah / farr, ‘(royal) glory’ derives from the same root as Av. hvar-, which is where we also get Av. hvarə-xšaēta, ‘radiant sun’. Originally from PIIr. *suHar-, ‘sun’. Similarly the farr is associated with blazing, fiery or solar imagery...

And is khwarrah, the solar aura, what is symbolically represented by the "Ring of Power" that Ahura Mazda gives to kings to legitimise their rule? Like here on the famous relief from Taqe Bostan where the recepient of the diving grace is king Ardashir II...

I talk about this ring in my post The ear ring of god...

Oh, look who is behind the king, with a radiant halo, shining "like the sun"? Mithra...

I talk about Mithra and the Sun in my post Mehr...

And it is believed that khwarrah Ring of Power is the same ring that we see on the faravahar, the best-known symbol from ancient Persia, being held by the figure (thought to be Ahura Mazda) depicted riding on a winged sun disc...

I mean that ring can only be the symbol of the sun disc...They are depicted in identical manner...

BTW, Remember the Bronze Age eagle/vulture dudes holding ibexes/rams that I talked about earlier and explained what they symbolically represented? 3000 years later, we find Sasanian seals depicting a creature with the body of a bird (I would say a eagle/vulture) and the head of a ram, in the Berlin Museum and the British Museum collections... 

Pic from Catalogue of the Western Asiatic seals in the British Museum. Stamp seals.

And no one knows what this means...Apparently...

Oh, and check this out. Stucco decoration from the Sasanian palace at Kish (Iraq). Depicting a winged Ram with the royal ribbon...

The Field Museum of Natural History. After: Kröger 2006: fig.

Just like the eagle/vulture dude holding ibexes/rams, and just like the eagle/vulture with ram head, this is a complex deified animal calendar marker for the cool/wet half of the year, between the start of mating (Oct/Nov) and end of lambing (Apr/May) of wild sheep. The time when vultures also nest...

Pic from The Beribboned Ram in Sasanian Art and Its Possible Religious Associations...

What does the shape of the wings remind you of? I'll talk about this next...

As I said already, khwarrah (also spelled farrah or farr) was the divine, luminous aura that gave a monarch the legitimate right to rule which manifested itself as a divine Ram.

So, incorporating ram's horns into royal headwear visually broadcasted that the ruler possessed this divine favour...

For Sasanian queens, like Yazdan-Friy Shapur depicted here, the Ram carried an additional layer of divine association. 

Scholars point out that isolated or ribboned rams in Sasanian art were symbols which were also linked to Anahita, the Zoroastrian goddess of water and fertility. 

"By wearing a horn-adorned headdress, a banbishn (queen) closely aligned herself with the ultimate feminine divine power protecting the empire". 

You can read more about this in The Beribboned Ram in Sasanian Art and Its Possible Religious Associations...

See the Tree of Life growing between Ram's horns???

I already talked about Anahita in several of my articles. Like this one, Rainbows and peacocks, about this Sassanian dish, 400-600AD, Iran, Currently in Al Thani collection, which depicts goddess Anahita, Zoroastrian goddess of water and fertility, holding a rainbow, and surrounded by peacocks, the rain birds...

In this same article I also talk about the origin of this goddess in (at least) 3rd millennium BC Elam, where we find her also linked to (holding a) rainbow, the annual flood, wet moon (upward pointing crescent moon)...and Sirius...The original star of Inanna/Ishtar/Asherah/Anahita...

I talked about why Sirius was the original "star" of Inanna/Ishtar/Asherah/Anahita in many of my articles. You can start with: Sirius mother of venus, Inana and Sukaletuda, The brightest star, Inanna in Egypt, Temple of Isis on Philae Island, Apocalypse, Whore of Babylon, Dog coin...

I talk about the Wet Moon and why Moon Gods were so important in places where winter is the rainy part of the year, like Mesopotamia, Iran, Levant, Northern Arabia in many of my posts...

In short, during the winter/spring, the ecliptic plane intersects the western horizon at its steepest, most vertical angle at sunset. Because a waxing crescent Moon follows right behind the Sun along this steep line, it sits directly above the Sun. This makes the crescent look like a upright bowl (the "wet moon which catches the rain") that sinks straight down into the horizon...

Now look at these Sassanian seals: 

L: Spread wings above the head of the Ram with the Tree of Life growing from the Ram's head between the wings...while a star and a crescent are depicted on the left. 

R: Beribboned Ram’s head with wings in the place of horns supporting the star and crescent

Pic from Sasanidische Siegelsteine de P. Horn et G. Steindorf revisité...

No one knows what this symbols represent...Well...

This brings me to this small lapis lazuli disc, dated to 2100-1900 BC, Trans-Elamite period, from Southeastern Iran. Currently in Louvre...

See the "Wet Moon", "The Star of Inanna" above the goddess drinking (water?) from the drinking cup?

I provide full symbolic analysis of this amazing artefact in this post A toast to Inanna...

Now the drinking cup brings us to this:

Seated female figure (goddess? ) drinking out of a goblet - next to a tulip, bronze seal, late 3rd - early 2nd mill BC, (BMAC), Afghanistan. Currently in a Private collection Linenthal, San Francisco. Tulips are another, this time plant, calendar marker for snowmelt/flood season...I talked about this in my post Tulip goddess...

Guess when the peak Tulip season is? Mar/Apr...Aries...

So I wonder if these Bronze Age Bactrian goddesses are also a version of Anahita/Inanna?

And this brings me back to the Elamite bronze shield centrepiece that started this post, and the fact that the plants depicted between rams look very much like flowering tulips...

I want to thank @IboGulsen for pointing this to me in his comment...

One other thing that just occurred to me: Mar/Apr (Aries) was, across the eastern Mediterranean and Near East, Mesopotamia, Iran...the time when the annual military season started...

One of the main reasons is that Mar/Apr was just before the start of the grain/vegetables harvest season, which means the invading armies would have food waiting for them in the areas they are invading (at that time armies ate mostly what they foraged)...

Which adds another symbolic layer to the Sacred Ram, the symbol of Khwarrah that gave Sassanian monarchs the legitimate right to rule....

Plate with Bahram II out on a Hunt, Iran, Sassanid, 4th – early 5th c. AD. Discovered as part of a hoard in Perm province in 1893. Entered the Hermitage in 1894...

Oh and BTW, king, wearing ram horns (ram is a symbol, animal calendar marker, for spring) is killing a wild boar (boar is a symbol, animal calendar marker, for winter)...

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...