Lions vs buffalos

"This cylinder seal and rolling show a pair of lions holding a bull at each end, while a hero is attacking one of the lions! A26312: limestone, Iraq, Akkadian period". From a tweet by @orientalinst (Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago)

The two kitties are identified correctly as lions. But I don't think this is an ordinary bull...This looks like a buffalo to me...Do you see the ribbed horns? And that makes all the difference...Here are some buffalos:

Now remember this post in which I talked about water buffaloes being already present in south western Iran (Jiroft) 2000 years earlier than people thought? In this article I talked about this artifact depicting buffalos, dated to the early 3rd millennium BC. 

You want proof of Indus Valley civilisation - Mesopotamia links, there you go. These buffaloes didn't wander into Iraq all the way from Indus Valley by themselves...Someone had to bring them there...Via Iran of course...

Now about the seal...It is another example of a complex animal calendar marker.

Buffalos start mating at the beginning of the the rain season...Beginning of winter...November...

While Eurasian lions main mating period starts at the beginning of the drought season...Beginning of Autumn...August...

This is why Leo is where it is on the zodiac circle. It is an ancient animal calendar marker for Jul/Aug, the beginning of the main mating season of the Eurasian lions...

Leo is the hottest and driest part of the year in Mesopotamia. The time when water levels in the two great rivers and the irrigation canals that they feed is the lowest. Leo is the time when canals were repaired...See, sun god, in an empty canal (river bed) between lions (in Leo)...

I talked about this in my post "Canals"...

This time of the year was the time of droughts and death...Which is why the god of death in Mesopotamia, Nergal, was actually a "destructive sun of the late summer"...And was depicted as a lion...

I talked about Nergal in my post "Winged superhuman hero"...

Also, because the Eurasian lion mating covers the whole of Autumn (Aug,Sep,Oct), lion was in the past a symbol for autumn

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

But I wonder if Lions vs Buffalo here means dry vs wet season? Where Lion represents the whole of the hot, dry season (May-October), season of the sun, while Buffalo represents the whole of the cool, wet season (Nov-April), season of rain???

Is this why Mesopotamian dragons have lion's bodies??? I mean 7 heads here represent the 7 months of "summer" (the whole dry and hot season, not just autumn)...

I talked about this in my post "Seven headed dragon"...

How's this for a symbol of hot dry season? Cute Bactrian lion, whose head looks like a blazing sun, and whose body radiates heat, just like the body of the sun god Shamash/Utu...From the same period, 3rd millennium BC...

I talked about this in my post "Lion radiating heat"...

So if lions represent the dry, drought season, and buffalo represents the wet, rain season, then what's that over buffalo's head, two crescent moons pointing up...Why?

The same moon is placed on other Mesopotamian seals over sowing ploughs, next to scorpions, which also symbolise the start of winter and grain sowing season...Scorpions disappear when weather gets too cold...At the start of winter.

I talked about this in my posts "Seven stars of scorpio" and "Ploughing"

But what about the crescent moon pointing up? When the crescent moon points upward and looks like a dish gathering rain water...And when the buffalos start mating...And when the scorpions disappear...Then the rains will start falling...After which, it's time to sow grain...

The last thing: Who's the dude with the axe? Looks suspiciously like a storm god...Ishkur / Adad...He loved axes...

Well, all storm gods used to love axes. And especially stone axes...

I talked about this in my post "Kataibates"

So is the dude from the Akkadian seal "a hero" or a storm god ending drought and bringing rain? 

Have a look at this:

I was planning to do a lot of boring stuff, but then you posted this tweet and ruined my plan...🙂 Thank god...

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...