The Lod Mosaic is a mosaic floor dated to ca. 300 AD, discovered in 1996 in the Israeli town of Lod. It is one of the largest (180 m²) and best-preserved mosaic floors uncovered in the country...
And it has an interesting central piece...Not only because it prominently features rhinoceroses and giraffes, which were not common in Roman art. Or because of the absence of human figures, which is also rare in Roman art...
To me this mosaic is interesting because of this: The depiction of the vase with two leopards holding onto its rim...
Why is this interesting? Because of this: a marble vase with two tigers holding onto its rim...From the 5th century AD Christian church in Petra, Jordan. Just down the road so to speak...
Why is this interesting? Because apparently these kind of vessels are associated with Dionysus...Because both leopards and tigers are associated with Dionysus??? Why? Check my article "Leopard and tiger" out...
Levant climate chart:
And leopards (which do live in Levant) and tigers (which by the way don't live in Levant) mate during the middle of the cool, wet part of the year...During the rain season...The season of rebirth of nature in Levant...
Just thought of something: In these parts of the world, wine symbolically equals water, as wine is created from grapes during the rain season, which right after the grape harvest...
Are these vases symbolic depictions of this? Quite possibly yes...On the Lod mosaic, on the opposite side of the octagon we find lion attacking deer...
This is usually the symbol for the hottest, driest part of the year, Aug...The beginning of the mating season of both Eurasian lions and Persian fallow deer which were native to the area in the past...I talked about this in my post "Entemena vase" and many other...
And, between the two opposites, leopard = mid winter and lion = mid summer, we have on one side
Ibex goat, symbol of the beginning of winter, rain season in Levant
and on the other
hare, symbol of the end of winter, rain season in Levant...
Do you think this is random, accidental?
If you are interested in the symbolism of the animals associated with Dionysus cult, you should read this article about the Patera of Rennes and follow the links to other articles talking about it...
You'll enjoy it, I promise...
I am also convinced that the birds and the fish were not chosen randomly...I will have to spend some time and try to identify them and see how their lifecycles correspond with their place on the seasons circle...
Interestingly, the church from Petra, where the tiger vase was found, also has amazing mosaics. Depicting four seasons...In a more usual way Romans depicted seasons, in human form...
Archaeologists are also suspecting that the Lod building with mosaics could have also been an early church...Again with the depictions of "seasons", using animal calendar markers...
And both seem to have vases linked to Dionysus...
Kind of interesting and important, right? What's with the Early Christians and Dionysus and seasons???
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...
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