Is that you Gilgamesh?

This is a seal from the Sumerian city of Adab, dated to "after 2350 BCE". Official interpretation is: "Gilgamesh, fighting a lion and a buffalo. Dragon, unrelated to the other figures in the scene, is depicted under the inscription: "Urdumu, Ensi (Governor) of Udnunki (Adab)"

The seal and the interpretation can be found in a great book called "The seal cylinders of western Asia" published by William Hayes Ward in 1910. 

This book, together with pile of other amazing books can be found on Abzu, a guide to networked open access data relevant to the study and public presentation of the Ancient Near East and the Ancient Mediterranean world. 

Now I would like to offer alternative interpretation for the scene depicted on the seal of Urdumu, that will show that the dragon is very much related to the other figures in the scene...And that the whole thing has nothing really to do with Gilgamesh...

As I explained in my article "Symbols of the seasons", Bull was in the past seen as the symbol of summer (May,Jun,Jul) and Lion was seen as the symbol of autumn (Aug,Sep,Oct). The other two symbols of the seasons being Ram (spring) and Goat (winter) 

In several of my articles I talked about the link between snake and sun. For instance "The enemy of the sun". Snake is the symbol of the sun, more specifically sun's heat. Because snakes are out in "our world" during the sun dominated part of the year (spring, summer, autumn) and in the "underworld" during winter...

The end of summer (bull), beginning of autumn (lion), is the hottest part of the year in the northern hemisphere. The time of droughts. The time when the sun is at its most destructive. The time when snake turns into a fire breathing dragon...I talked about this in my article "Dragon who stole water"...

Now have a look at Urdumu seal again: Dragon (hottest, driest part of the year) stands between bull (end of summer) and lion (beginning of autumn), at the end of July, beginning of August, right where it's supposed to be...

But why are men fighting the bull and the lion? I believe that they are not fighting the real bulls or real lions. They are fighting the drought...

In Mesopotamia the year is divided into hot and dry part, summer (bull) and autumn (lion) and wet part winter (ibex) and spring (ram)...

But then I could be wrong...Maybe this is just some heroes fighting bulls and lions and random dragon just wandering about minding his own business...

But then maybe not...Have a look at this seal, from the Akkadian period, kept in the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago: Official interpretation: "Cylinder seal with a combat scene between a bearded hero and a bull-man and various beasts"...

This is even more interesting. Here the bull is facing down, meaning the end of summer (bull) and the lion is facing up, meaning the beginning of autumn (lion)...

And between them, at the hottest point of the solar year in the northern hemisphere, where on the seal of Urdumu we find the dragon, here we find Sirius (???)...Exactly where it should, be in the middle of "Dog days", the hottest part of the year, the time of the dragons...Or is this just a blazing sun of the hottest, driest, part of the year???

And what are the ibex goats doing in this scene? There is actually only one ibex goat (with two imprints created during the rolling of the seal to make the image symmetrical)...This is a cylindrical seal.

Is the ibex goat, just like the dragon "unrelated to the other figures in the scene"? I don't think so.

Ibex, is the symbol of winter, also marks the beginning of the rain season. This is because the beginning of the ibex goats mating season (November) coincides with the arrival of rains...Ibex was for Mesopotamians "The Goat of Rain"...I talked about this in several of my posts, for instance "Queen Puabi's seal". 

And on this cylinder seal, ibex, symbol of winter, the wettest coldest part of the year, is placed directly opposite Sirius (Blazing sun) of the point between bull (summer) and lion (autumn), the driest, hottest part of the year...

I don't think this is a coincidence...

But again, who knows...