Birth giver from Luristan

Luristan bronze disk pin, c. 1500 to 700 BC, showing a woman giving birth while holding her breasts, between 2 gazelles, and among flowers. Louvre museum, Paris. From Iranian province of Luristan...

Archaeologists interpret this image as "depiction of Mother Goddess", basically Mother Earth giving birth to all and providing food for all...And I 100% agree with this...

I think the fact that the Birth Giver is depicted between the two gazelles (Goitered Gazelles to be more precise) and the flowers is the proof that this is indeed Mother Goddess, Mother Earth...

Here is why. This is climate chart for Luristan...You see how the year is divided into hot dry summer (May-Oct) and cool wet winter (Nov-Apr)?

Guess what happens in Oct/Nov? Goitered gazelles start mating...Which is why they are used in this part of the world as animal calendar markers for the beginning of the rain season (winter) and for the whole rain season (winter)

So this image basically means: Mother earth gets fertile and produces life and food because of the rain (and snow) which falls during winter, period between the mating and birthing of Goitered gazelles (gestation period of Goitered gazelles is 5-6 months)...

Here is the same "girl", this time holding a shawl, basically a stylised rainbow...Bronze disc from Luristan, western Iran. 8th century BC...Sold by Christies for 28,000$...

Rainbows are only visible during rain season...And this same symbol for the "moist fertile earth" was used in Iran from Jiroft culture until Sassanian culture...I talked about this in my post "Anahita" and "Jiroft flood vase"...

This link between Mother Earth's fertility and rain, depicted through the image of birth giver surrounded by plant and animal calendar markers for rain season, is what I was talking about in my previous post "Modesty", about the Indian version of this goddess, Lajjā Gaurī...

What is very interesting is that because the climate in Iran and India is different, the animal and plant calendar markers used to link the birth giver with the rain are different...Appropriate for the local climate...

If you are interested in animal (and plant) calendar markers, start here, then check the rest of the blog posts I still didn't add to this jump page (I got lazy after a while), and finally check my twitter threads @serbiaireland I still didn't convert to blog post...I am 11 months behind now...