Snake hiding behind a tree

Double-sided stamp seal: snake behind tree; winged dragon, ca. late 3rd–early 2nd millennium B.C. Bactria-Margiana. Currently in the Met Museum...

I just love this: "snake behind tree" 🙂 "winged dragon" 🙂 What is actually depicted on this seal?

First the "winged dragon"...It is actually winged lion, the symbol of the hot dry half of the year (Apr/May-Oct/Nov) in Central Asia. 

I talked about this in my post "Lion radiating heat", "Summer and winter BMAC seal", "Nude winged hero dominating snakes"...

And the extreme heat of the hottest part of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, in Jul/Aug, Leo...

Now "snake"...Snake is the symbol of sun's heat...Snakes are the only true solar animals. They are in our world when sun is in our world (day and hot part of the year) and they are in the underworld when sun is in the underworld (night and cold part of the year)...

I talked about this in my posts "Bactrian snakes and dragons", "Enemy of the sun", "Chthonic animal", "Letnitsa treasure",  "Wolf and snake"...

That snake as a symbol is directly linked to the sun, can be seen from this Bactrian seal: 

Sun god, with a cool hairdo and with sun heat rays coming out of his shoulders, just like Sumerian Utu and Akkadian Shamash. And snakes instead of hands...And a snake belt...Just so we all know that snake is a solar animal...

Snakes hibernate during the cold part of the year and come out only when the ground and air get sufficiently warm...Over 60 degrees° Fahrenheit (16° C)...Which in the area of the old Bactria is Apr/May...

And that is the exact same time when wild alliums start to bloom in Central Asia...Like these, Allium karataviense Regel...

Plant data from "Medicinal Plants of Central Asia: Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan"

There are many other wild alliums found in the area of old Bactria. 

Like 

Yellow Allium Obliquum

Purple Allium Przewalskianum. 

They all flower during the hot part of the year...You can find the list of (all?) of them here (search for Central Asia) https://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/AllAlliums

Alliums have always been used in Central Asia as food (Source Edible Alliums of Uzbekistan) and as medicines (Source Wild Allium species (Alliaceae) used in folk medicine of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan)

Why do I think this is a flower and not a tree? Cause wild flowers appear as calendar markers on other Bactrian artifacts...

I talked about this in my post "Tulip goddess" about this mobile perfume or cosmetic bottle depicting a winged goddess among flowering tulips. Bactrian, the end of the 3rd, beginning of the 2nd millennium BC, Louvre Museum...

The "allium" leaves on the seal don't match the true allium leaves. That made me wonder if I identified the flower correctly as allium. But you can see that the leaves on tulips depictions are also cerated and don't really match the actual leaves. So I am sticking with it 🙂

Unless one of you has a better match? Anyway, as a calendar marker, flowering of the first alliums and the emergence of the first snakes from hibernation marks the time of the winged dragons (lions)...Hot part of the year...

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...