Harvest in Scotland

Harvesting in Scotland by a Scottish painter Joseph Farquharson (1846-1935). 

Scottish harvest customs. From "Carmina Gadelica - Hymns and Incantations, Ortha Nan Gaidheal, Volume I" by Alexander Carmichael [1900]

Reaping blessing. From "Carmina Gadelica - Hymns and Incantations, Ortha Nan Gaidheal, Volume I" by Alexander Carmichael [1900]

The Sun god to whom Scots gave thanks for their grain and their wellbeing is Crom Dubh of the Irish (Scots). The deity to whom the Irish prayed in the Early Bronze Age "Grange Circle" on the first day of the harvest. 

The biggest and the only square stone in the circle is still known as the Crom Dubh stone. And next to it is the pile of flat bread like stones known as the Grain Child...

I talked about this amazing ancient monument in my post "Grange circle" 

He was the good whose holy mountain was and is the holiest place in Ireland. Except it is now called St Patrick's mountain...

I talked about this in my post "Sun mountain"...

They prayed to him on the last Sun-day in July, which is still known in the area around the holy mountain as the "Domhnach Crom Dubh" which means "Crom Dubh's Sunday"...

People prayed to Crom Dubh because they believed that "It was he who was giving them the light of the day, the darkness of the night, and the change of seasons"...Basically The Sun...I talked about this in my post "Dun Briste"...

Crom Dubh was said to be another name for Dagda, the Giving God of the Irish... 

Hromi Daba was another name for Dabog, the Giving God of the Serbs...

Both of these gods had a bull cult associated with them...

I talked about this in my posts "Bull of Crom Dubh" and "Bull of Grom Div (Hromi Daba)"...

And Dabog (Hromi Daba), The Sun God, is the god to whom Slavs still "raised stones" until very recently "for the weather". 

Just like the Early Bronze Age Irish raised stones and built stone circles to Dagda (Crom Dubh)??? 

I talked about these weather manipulation rituals involving stones in "The last megalithic ritual in Europe" and "Weather stones"...

The Sun God of the Pagan Serbs, Dabog, Hromi Daba, became the Devil of the Christian Serbs. 

The Sun God of the Pagan Irish, Dagda, Crom Dubh became the Devil of the Christian Irish. 

But after all these years, in Ireland "By Crom" still means "By God" 🙂 

From "How old is Crom Dubh?"

Giant eagle dude with mouflons

In 2011, this beautiful object was sold for 97,000 pounds sterling...A Bactrian gold stamp seal, c. 2200-1900 BC...

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..."

What the heck is the meaning of this scene? Here is the stamp print which makes the scene depicted on the stamp much clearer...

Well to understand this, we need to first identify the two animals the "winged giant" is holding in his hands. They are not Ibex goats...They are not goats at all. They are wild sheep. Mouflons...

Look at the horns...

Bezoar goat, native to Bactria. 

Mouflon sheep, native to Bactria...

But I am just being picky...It actually makes no difference whether these are Bezoars or Mouflons, from the point of view of understanding this scene...

This is because both species have the same mating season, which starts in Oct-Nov, at the beginning of the rain season in Bactria...And the beginning of winter...

You can see that in Bactria, the climatic year is roughly divided into hot and dry and cool and wet parts

Both animals were used in Eurasia as animal calendar markers marking the beginning of the rain season and the beginning of winter...The rejuvenation of nature...Like on this vase design from Jiroft culture, just a bit down south from Bactria...

Both animals mating season last throughout the winter, Nov-Dec-Jan...Which is also the time when local vultures have their mating season....

Which is why vulture, and more specifically, a vulture dude, like our winged giant, became a symbol of the rain season...Basically the vulture (eagle) dude is the rain god...I talked about this in my post "Eagle calendar markers"...

Here is another Bactrian seal, with the same eagle dude, this time actually holding two Bezoar goats...Just so you see that Bezoars and Mouflons are actually interchangeable as calendar markers...

I talked about this seal in my post "Fluffy"...

And here is the same eagle dude, this time with two heads, on an axe head from Bactia...

I talked about this amazing artefact in my post "Double headed eagle"...

Why two heads? Because the main vulture mating ritual is the synchronized flying...

Which from the ground looks like this: A double headed eagle...

So...Another very very cool example of animal calendar markers, which are found all over Eurasia and North Africa...

To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…then check the rest of the blog posts related to animal calendar markers I still didn't add to this page, and finally check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am 9 months behind now...

Bull-Lion

This is truly incredible object. Composite Lion and Bull, bronze, Iran, 1500-1000 BC. It is currently kept in the Cleveland Art Museum. The meaning of this object is unknown. It is presumed that it has served as an object of worship in a temple or shrine...

Worship of who? Who else. The beast of course. 

The beast in this case is The Sun during hot, dry season, which in Mesopotamia starts at the beginning of May, beginning of summer and ends at the end of October, the end of autumn.

The hot, dry season spans summer (symbolised by bull) and autumn (symbolised by lion). 

I talked about the animal symbols of the seasons and why these particular animals were chosen to be the symbols of the seasons in my article "Symbols of seasons"

The dry season in Mesopotamia is the season of drought and death...Completely dominated by the blazing summer and autumn sun....The god of death: Nergal...The Late Summer Sun was equated with the God of Death, Mot, in Levant too. 

I talked about this in my post "Oldest Arabic poem"...

And the hottest and driest part of the year in Mesopotamia is the end of July beginning of August, the end of summer, beginning of autumn. The moment when lion (symbol of autumn) finally catches bull (symbol of summer)...  This moment is "marked" by all those "lion killing bull" images, like this one from Persepolis...Lion (autumn) killing (ending) Bull (summer)...

This is the lair of the fire breathing dragon...Like the one depicted on this seal from Tel Asmar. 

This, hottest and driest part of the year, Leo, is the seat of the beast...I talked about this in my article "Seven headed dragon"...

This Iranian two headed figurine is showing us that Bull (summer) and Lion (autumn) are just two heads of the same beast. The two phases of the dry season which follow each other...They are just calendar markers...

Lion radiating heat

One of the coolest lions ever. Bactrian seal. From: "Sulla Via delle Oasi. Tesori dell’Oriente Antico" Ligabue and Salvatori 1989, fig. 46, p. 196).

Lion with "sun's heat" rays coming out of his back. These are usually seen coming out of the shoulders of the Mesopotamia Sun God Utu (Shamash). 

Or out of the back of dragons of Sumer and Akad who had 7 snake heads and lion body...I talked about these dragons in my post "Seven headed dragon". 

Snakes being the symbol of sun's heat, because they are only out when it's hot....I talked about this in my post "The enemy of the sun"... 

Dragon being the symbol of extreme heat and drought of the late summer...I talked about this in my post "Dragon that stole rain"...

So why do Mesopotamian dragons have lion bodies? And why are there sun rays coming out of our original lion's back?

Leo (July 23 and August 22), which marks the end of summer, beginning of autumn, is the hottest part of the solar year in the northern hemisphere. 

In Iraq, this is the hottest and driest part of the year

Which is why on this seal we see Shamahs, the Sun God, standing in the middle of a dry canal, river bed, in the middle of Leo (see the two columns with lioness, left, and lion, right), in the middle of the hottest and driest part of the year...

This is why Mesopotamian dragons have lion bodies...

But why is this part of the year marked by a lion? Because of the Eurasian lions and their mating habits. 

Their main mating season starts in August...

I talked about it in my post "Entemena Vase"...

Because the Asiatic mating season overlaps with autumn, lion is also the symbol of autumn...

I talked about this in my post "Symbols of the seasons"

Hence the sun (heat) waves coming out of the lion's body on our Bactrian seal...Just so you don't think that this could be one of a kind "coincidence":

"Bactrian seal of the sun god (see the wavy lines depicting heat coming out of his body). Sumerians depicted their sun god in the same way. Bactrian sun god is holding two snakes because the sunny part of the year is the period between the appearance and disappearance of snakes"...

From my post about "Bactrian snakes and dragons"...

Here is the actual seal, currently kept in the Met Museum...

What I didn't know until today is that this is a double sided stamp seal...Guess what's on the other side Winged Lion Dragon....

In Bactria Leo (Jul-Aug) is the hottest and driest part of the year...

So no wonder that there too lions radiate heat...And ibex goats bring rain...Their mating season coincides with the beginning of the rain season in Bactria...

I talked about Bactrian climate in my post "Fluffy"...

A32553

Oriental Institute - University of Chicago posted this image on their facebook page the other day. OIM A32553; Late Uruk period, 3350-3100 BC; Iran, Chogha Mish...

Their answer: "This artefact is a clay seal impression with a “master of animals” scene...First introduced during the Uruk period, this motif undoubtedly reflects increasing concern with managing the production of animals in the new urban economies."

My answer: "Master of animals is modern invention, created by archaeologists who couldn't understand what all these images of people and animals meant". There was never any "Master of the animals" in any of the cultures of the ancient world...

This seal depicts a composite beast, with one body and two heads: ibex head looking left and bull head looking right. Or bull looking right standing behind ibex looking left. 

The "human" figure connects the head of the bull (to his left) with the head of the ibex (to his right)

What does this mean? The climate in this part of Iran (Khuzestan) is divided into dry season (May-Oct, summer-autumn) and wet season (Nov-Apr, winter-spring). 

Bull marks the beginning of summer. Is the symbol of summer. Ibex marks beginning of winter. Is the symbol of winter...So from Bull (left) to Ibex (right) = dry season...

I talked about the reason for the animal symbols of the seasons in my post "Symbols of the seasons"...

The "human" figure is either the old representation of the sun god, who dominates the dry season, or a representation of a man who has to "fight" the dry season to survive...I would say sun god before the horned hats became fashionable...

Grazing horned animals

One of the most common designs found on Bronze Age Jiroft culture vessels from Halil River catchment area is "horned animals grazing on green shoots"...

The two animals depicted on these designs are:

Wild goats (Bezoar ibex)

Wild sheep (Mouflon)

Both animals have mating seasons which start at the end of Oct, beginning of Nov, at the exact moment when the rain season starts in the Halil river (Jiroft) valley...

The baby Bezoar goats and baby Mouflon sheep are born in April, at the end of the rain season...So the mating (Oct/Nov) and birthing (Apr) of wild goats and wild sheep marks the beginning and the end of the rain season in the Halil river (Jiroft) valley...

The rain season is also the "green" season, the time of new growth...Which is why these two animals are always depicted together with branches or bushes or trees full of new (green) leaves. Basically, they are used as calendar markers for beginning (and end) of the rain season...

So two more animals to add to already identified list of Jiroft culture animal solar year calendar markers I talked about in these two articles: "Khafajeh vase" and "Jiroft flood vase"...