"...But the Hebrew Bible rarely refers to such agricultural activities taking place at such sites...
Instead, biblical narratives repeatedly depict threshing floors in ancient Israel as sites for mourning rites, divination rituals, cultic processions, and sacrifices...Kings consult prophets there; even the Solomonic temple was built on a threshing floor...
These originally agricultural sites were also considered sacred spaces connected to Yahweh, under his control, and subject to his power to bless, curse, and save and that Israel had a special ritual access to Yahweh in these powerfully symbolic sites..."
This is an intro to "Threshing Floors in Ancient Israel: Their Ritual and Symbolic Significance" by Jaime L. Waters...
Now, we know that goddess Asherah was linked to "high places" where she was worshiped...These were holy grounds of sort, raised platforms where religious ceremonies were performed...Pic: High Place, Megiddo...
And you know how every "high place" had an "Asherah pole" made of wood..."which marked the place as sacred and was itself an object of worship"...And no one is really sure what this pole was or what it looked like...
Is it possible that originally these high places with a sacred wooden pole were just threshing floors with a central pole to which threshing animals were tied?
Like this traditional threshing floor from Ithaka, Greece...Definitely a "High place" with a "Central Pole"...
BTW, this is what Homer says about Demeter, the goddess of grain harvest, and threshing floors:
"And even as the wind carries chaff about the sacred threshing-floors / of men that are winnowing, when fair-haired Demeter / amid the driving blasts of wind separates the grain from the chaff"...
You can find this quote in "A Compendium of Similes in the Iliad and Odyssey"...Which is why Eugene Vanderpool in "ΕΠΙ ΠΡΟϒΧΟΝΤΙ ΚΟΛΩΝΩΙ: The Sacred Threshing Floor at Eleusis" proposes that threshing floors were sacred to Demeter and were in fact her temples...
Here is another traditional threshing floor, this time from Croatia?
In the Balkans, among the Slavs, threshing floors were considered sacred until recently. They were platform where many religious ceremonies from the agricultural cult were performed...And sacrifices were made to the central pole until very recently...
I talked about this in my post "Bogovo gumno (God's threshing floor)"...
Including blood sacrifices...Serbs actually sacrificed a cock to the central threshing floor column at the end of the harvest, most likely as a replacement for a human sacrifice...Based on ritual tying of girls to the central threshing floor column...
I talked about it in my post "Cock bashing"...
In "The Threshing Floor as Sacred Space in the Hebrew Bible A Spatial and Anthropological Perspective" Tamara Prosic asks: "Is the building of the Yahweh’s temple on the Jebusite threshing floor just a Yahwehisation of the holy threshing floor?"
Considering that there are many indications that the First Temple was built by solar worshippers, and that threshing floors were used, among other things, as solar observatories, it is kind of obvious why the First Temple was built on the threshing floor...Right?
I talked about this in my post "Boaz and Jachin"...
Why would you care where the true east is? Well, if Sun is your god you'd want to face your lord properly, right? The royal seal of the Kingdom of Judah from the time of the King Hezekiah (739 - 687 BC) with the winged sun. Abut First Temple solar cult:
I talked about this in my post "Sun god from the first temple"...
In the Balkans, threshing floors were not just centers of religious life, but also of communal life. People met there, celebrated weddings and funerals there. Cilipi, Dubrovnik. Circular dance "kolo" danced on a threshing floor.
Zetsko kolo, circular dance with a couple dancing in the middle of the circle imitating mating eagles, from Montenegro, danced on a threshing floor
Dancing Linđo on an threshing floor in the village of Mrčevo, Croatia...High Places...In mountain villages threshing floors were usually the only flat platforms suitable for social gatherings...
The birthplace of Greek circular dance "horos" is said to be the island of Crete, were Rhea, the Mother of Zeus, taught the Curetes how to dance...Minoan "Dancers from Kamilari" dancing "horos" (most likely) on a threshing floor...
I talked about this in my post "Shield of Achilles"...
Threshing floors were used for religious ceremonies in Mesopotamia too. In the "Threshing floor in reality and metaphor" we can read that "The annual sacred marriage reenactment between Ea and Ishtar (Asherah) was performed on a threshing floor"...
Ea, Enki was the god of water who every year ejaculated Tigris and Euphrates. It was his semen (water) that enabled grain agriculture in Mesopotamia...The water level in both rivers peaks in Apr/May...
Interestingly, Inanna/Ishtar, was in "A song of Inanna and Dumuzid" described as: "Maiden, glossy mane, lovely beauty...colourful as a pile of grain, fit for the king, fit for Dumuzid! Maiden...a stack of...barley, fully developed in loveliness"...
This is Inanna/Ishtar speaking:
"...Before my lord, Dumuzi,
I poured out plants from my womb.
I placed plants before him,
I poured out plants before him.
I placed grain before him,
I poured out grain before him,
I poured out grain before my womb..."
I talked bout this in my post "Mother of grain"...
This is Inanna again:
"...
As for me, Inanna,
Who will plow my vulva?
Who will plow my high field?
Who will plow my wet ground?
..."
Grain harvest starts in Apr/May (time of the year dominated by Enki/Ea), and ends in Jul/Aug (time of the year dominated by Ishtar/Inanna)...
Hence the sacred marriage between Ea/Enki and Ishtar/Inanna performed on the threshing floor...At the beginning of the harvest...
Well...standing on a lion means "In Leo"...
And you know how everyone thinks that Inanna/Ishtar "The queen of heaven", "The morning star" is Venus...Well, when this "mythology" was developed, Sirius rose before the sun, in Leo (Jul/Aug), pretending to be "the morning star"...I talked about this in my post "Ninshubur"...
In "A hymn to Inana as Ninegala" we can read "Inana, great light, lioness of heaven..." Why?
Well, this, combined with Inanna's obsession with standing on lions only makes sense if she is Sirius, rising with the sun in Leo...
And Jul/Aug is when Sirius starts rising with the sun in the morning...The real "Morning star"...Ishtar, Inanna...
Oh, and by the way, Leo marks the beginning of the main mating season of Eurasian lions, (Jul/Aug)...
By the way, this "Lady standing on a lion", "Lady sitting on a lion", "Lady standing between lions", "Lady sitting between lions", "Lady riding in chariots pulled by lions"...I surprisingly popular...I talked about her in my post "Assumption of Mary"...
Soo...Interesting...Right? Does this get us anywhere near to understanding why threshing floors were so important to Bronze and Iron Age Canaanites? And does this help us understand the link between "High Places", Asherah, Asherah Poles and Threshing Floors?
After everything I wrote in this article...What does "this" tell us about Mycenaeans? A pole between two lions (means in Leo)...Anything interesting?
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