A vessel from Tepe Hissar

Vessel from Tepe Hissar, a prehistoric site, continuously occupied between 5th to the 2nd millennium BC, Northeastern Iran. It depicts leopard and ibex (bezoar) goat

It seems that these two animals had a special significance for the people of Tepe Hissar...Here are two more bowls from the period 4500-4000 BC, one with Bezoar goats and one with leopards...

Bezoar and leopard were used in Western Asia, Mesopotamia and Central Asia as calendar markers for "rain season", because their mating seasons (Bezoar: Nov-Jan and Leopard: Jan-Mar) span the middle of the rain season (Oct-May). 

Look at the flowing water and plant depiction on the middle vessel above...

This is the temperature and rain chard from the area where Tepe Hissar is located

I talked about the same Leopard - Bezoar symbolism in Iraq in my post "Ibex and Leopard" 

But what I love about the original Tepe Hissar vase from this thread, is that this link between rain, water and mating of leopards and bezoars is actually depicted on the vase. Explicitly 🙂

One other very very interesting thing about the Tepe Hissar Bezoar depictions on many vessels (apart from giant erections or rivers of semen 🙂)  is the "thing" located inside of the goat's horns...

What is this? A flower? Or the Sun? Winter solstice falls in the middle of the Ibex-Bezoar mating season...I talked about this in my post "Goat"

That this is indeed most likely sun and not flower can be seen on this vessel shard from Tepe Hissar...