Bull leaping in Syria

Yesterday, I came across the paper entitled "Bull leaping in Syria" by Dominique Collon. Which talks about early 2nd millennium BC depictions of bull leaping found in Syria. In it, I saw this amazing hematite seal, which was most likely made in Aleppo, around 1700BC...

Showing, well, bull leaping 🙂Among animal calendar markers...Which could help us to determine when the bull leaping festival took place...

First, the bull leaping scene is positioned under the depiction of a charging bull...

And bull is the most common animal symbol for summer (May/Jun/Jul)...I talked about animal symbols for seasons in my post "Symbols of the seasons"...

Summer starts in Taurus (Apr/May), the ancient animal calendar marker which marks the time of the year when Wild Eurasian cattle used to start calving...I talked about this in my post "Cow and calf ivory" and many others...

The summer, which started with the calving of Wild Eurasian cattle, ended with mating of Wild Eurasian cattle...Mating which was marked by vicious bull fights...Where bulls charged at each other...Like this...Like the charging bull...

Anyway, what finally ends summer is the beginning of autumn. Autumn begins in Jul/Aug. In Leo...See the lion sitting down and looking at the charging bull of summer with the "where do you think you're going" expression on its face? That's Leo, ending summer...

Most commonly, this moment in the solar year is depicted with "lion killing bull" scene...

Leo is an ancient animal calendar marker which marks the beginning of the main mating seasons of the the Eurasian lions...

Lion is also the most common animal symbol for autumn (Aug/Sep/Oct)...Because the mating season of the Eurasian lions spans the whole of autumn...I talked about this in my post "The king killing Angra Mainiu" and many others...

Moving further to the left, we see a priest (?) holding the ankh symbol, symbol of life...He is standing facing a god, Ishkur, Hadad, Adad, Baal...basically the thunder and rain god, whatever name you want to give him...

How do I know that this is a thunder and rain god? 

The climatic year in Syria is divided into hot, dry half (Apr/May - Oct/Nov) and cool, wet half (Oct/Nov - Apr/May)

The rains (rain god 🙂) arrive in Oct/Nov...When ibex goats start their mating season, marked by vicious goat buck fights...

This turned ibex goat into The Goat of Rain in Crete, Cyprus, Levant, Mesopotamia, Iran, Central Asia...All the places with the same climatic year, in which life bringing rains arrive in Oct/Nov, when ibex goats start mating...You can find links to related articles in my post "Goats and tree of life from Çatalhöyük"...

See on our seal, the Ibex "Goat of Rain" looking at the "God of Rain"? With his front leg up? Like a pet? This goat marks the moment of the arrival of the God of rain, in Oct/Nov, the beginning of winter and mating season of ibex goats...

The mating season which spans the whole of winter (Nov/Dec/Jan)...Which makes goat the most common animal symbol for winter...

Now do you see these two symbols? The "rosette" above the goat is not a decoration. This is Sirius, which is the most prominent winter star...And the other symbol is the winter moon. Crescent moon points up during winter...I talked about this in my post "Lions vs buffalos" and many others... 

Soooo...From right to left, we have summer, autumn, winter...Bull leaping is placed under summer...The season symbolised by a bull...I think that the bull leaping ceremony was performed during the summer, and more precisely, at the end of summer...

BTW, did you know that the bull leaping scene was found depicted on Bronze Age artifacts found from Indus Valley, though Central Asia, Levant to Crete? Pic from "Myths of ancient Bactria and Margiana on its seals and amulets" by Sarianidi Victor

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...

PS: I know I am getting probably boring by now, but HOW EFFING AMAZING IS THIS SEAL? And how the hell did no one else see what's really depicted on it?