Spots and stripes

Asian Leopard. The real thing...

And depicted on  Neolithic pottery found in Iran, standing over the zig zag design depicting flowing water..

Leopard is the second most popular animal depicted on Neolithic Iranian pottery. The most popular being of course, Ibex. The Goat of Rain. I talked about the depictions of Ibexes on Iranian Neolithic pottery in my post "Iranian goat of rain"...

I Iran and Mesopotamia, Leopards and Ibexes are often depicted together, leopard chasing ibex...Like on this Late Uruk/Jemdet Nasr Period seal, dated to 3200-3000 BC. I talked about it in my post "Leopard and Ibex"

This could be because leopards naturally hunt ibexes. 

But also because they both have mating seasons during the local winter and rain season. 

Ibex at the beginning (Oct/Nov) and leopard at the end (Jan/Feb) of winter. Leopard naturally follows Ibex as the animal calendar marker.

Both animals are thus linked to rain and fertility...Their mating, semen, brings rain, heavenly semen, which fertilises the land...I talked about this in my post "Vessel from Tepe Hissar"...

This link between leopards, goats winter and fertility was in Europe preserved in Dionysus cult...I talked about this in my posts "Leopard", "Furious maenad", "Maenads with hare", "Thyrsus", "Woman and pitcher"...

Another animal which Dionysus uses as his mount (in later depictions) is Tiger. Another animal symbol for winter, because it too mates during the winter...I talked about this in my post "Leopard and tiger"...

Which is why tiger is found as symbol of winter from Europe to China. The earliest known depiction of Dragon - Tiger symbol, Yangshao culture burial...

I talked about tiger as a calendar marker in Neolithic China in my post "Tiger and dragon"...

Caspian/Siberian Tiger. The real thing

And depicted on Neolithic Iranian pottery. I just love how tiger has disappeared in the zig zag of the flowing water. And only its tail is still "realistic"...

Finally: "His face is that of a lion. When he looks at someone, it is the look of death. Humbaba's roar is a flood, his mouth is death and his breath is fire! He can hear a hundred leagues away any [rustling?] in his forest! Who would go down into his forest!"...

I wrote about this in my post "Humbaba"...

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...