Pavoncella

"Two of the most recurring symbols in Sardinian weaving are the pavoncella (top) and people dancing ballu tundu (bottom). While the second has always been referenced as an apotropaic ritual, the first has uncertain origins, maybe bringer of luck or fertility"...

I want to thank @DrWatson_writer for posting this very interesting info 

This is very interesting indeed. The top symbol consists of two birds facing yellow flowers growing on a tree. This is a common tree of life symbol and usually the animals facing the tree of life are animal calendar markers for the fertile period of the year....

Soooo:

The birds look like peacocks, which are "birds of rebirth". But the word "pavoncella" doesn't mean peacock. It means Lapwing. One of these cute fellows...

And in Sardinia depictions of lapwings are everywhere...

And in Sardinia lapwings are regarded as the symbol of "fertility, abundant rains and health of the flocks"...Why?

On the page "Checklist of the birds of Sardinia" we find that Lapwing is a migratory bird which spends winters in Sardinia...

And it is the rain that falls in Sardinia, between the arrival and the departure of the Northern Lapwings (Autumn, Winter, Spring) that makes Sardinia green, creates and supports (the tree of) life in Sardinia...And supports the flocks...

And so pavoncella, the fertility symbol, the symbol of rebirth (of nature)...

The guys at the bottom dancing ballu tundu are probably just celebrating the arrival of rains...

I guess...🙂

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...

Snake eagles from Inner Mongolia

A gold plaque in a bird and snake pattern excavated from the Majiayuan cemetery in Zhangjiachuan, Gansu Province, China and dated to 5th-3rd century BC. Pic from: "Archaeometallurgical Studies in China: Some Recent Developments and Challenging Issues"

There is something very interesting about this image: how much it looks like this image:

Eagle-Snake struggle mosaic from the Emperor Justinian's palace, Istanbul...

This is actually a complex animal calendar marker for the thunderstorm season in Europe Apr/May -  Sep/Oct, when migratory snake eagles can be seen in Europe...I talked about this in my post "Eagle snake struggle"...

In the article about the mosaic from Istanbul, I postulate that this is the depiction of the fact that the hottest season in the Balkans (snake = sun's heat) is also the season of the thunderstorms (eagle = thunder)

This is depicted through the struggle between a Short-toed Snake Eagle (who is summer breeding visitor to Europe) and a snake (which is out during the summer)...

Is it possible that the above Plaque from Gansu also depicts he same thing: the hottest time of the year is also the time of the year with most thunderstorms, and, this is also the time of the year when Short-toed Snake Eagles can be seen fighting snakes?

Well...This is the climate in the Gansu region...

The climate (hottest time of the year is the rainiest, most thundery, time of the year) is the same in Inner Mongolia...Here is the climate chart for Xian...

I talked about it here in my article about the "Mythical Beast from Xian"...

And its the same climate (hottest time of the year is the rainiest, most thundery, time of the year) in Mongolia proper...

Now have a look at this picture. This is a distribution of thunderstorm frequency in China per month...From "Decreasing trend in severe weather occurrence over China during the past 50 years"...

You can see that the main thunderstorm season, with over 80% of all thunderstorms, starts in Apr/May...

I talked about this in my posts about Chinese thunder gods and thunder dragons: "Dragon gate", "The minister of thunder", "The son of thunder", "Lei Kung", "White thundercloud", "The gourd that saved humanity", "Blue boy"...

Guess what...This is annual distribution of thunderstorms in Mongolia...From "Lightning incidents in Mongolia"

Ok, so climate in the area where the eagle snake plaque was made fits: hottest time of the year (snake) is also the thunderiest 🙂 time of the year (eagle)...

What about snakes? And Short-toed Snake Eagles?

Well, snakes are cold blooded, so they are out only during the part of the year when the temperatures are above zero...So Mar/Apr/May - Sep/Oct/Nov...depending where you are, Northern China, Inner Mongolia, or Mongolia proper...

Which is exactly when migratory Short-toed Snake Eagles arrive to this part of Northern China, Inner Mongolia, Southern Mongolia to breed... 

Sources:

And so, just like in Southern Europe, the only time of the year when you can see the (mythical) battle between the rain (eagle) and sun (snake) is during the hottest (and rainiest) time of the year, Apr/May - Sep/Oct...

http://birdingmongolia.mn

https://birdingbeijing.com

I think this is kind of cool...

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...

Flower of life

"Limestone Stela depicting Canaanite goddess worshipping the Tree of Life. Tell Beit Mirim, 14th Century BCE, Hecht Museum, University of Haifa Israel"...

Hmmm...Tree of life...Not really...Plant of life...Certainly...Why? Here is why:

The Goddess is most likely some Levantine version of the Egyptian Goddess of Fertility, Hathor (pose, horned disk)...

The Goddess is not "worshiping the Tree of Life". She is standing surrounded by Nilotic lotuses...Well, first these are not lotuses. They are Blue Water Lilies, wrongly called Blue Lotus, even though they don't belong to the lotus family...

These beautiful blue flowers, native to the Nile marshlands, were believed to be "magic flowers", and were worshiped by the Egyptians...

For those who believe that these flowers were worshiped because they contained hallucinogenic chemicals: "Blue lotus flower (Nymphaea caerulea) is a psychoactive (not hallucinogenic!!!) plant, also known as blue Egyptian lotus, blue water lily, and sacred blue lily. It's been used in traditional medicine for thousands of years as a natural aphrodisiac (!!! the important bit), sleep aid, and anxiety reliever"

Now here is the reason why Blue lotus (Blue water lily) was such and important symbol: its flowering season is Jul-Sep. When the Nile water level reaches its peak. During the annual Nile flood...When Hathor, who was also called Mehet-Weret (The great flood) finally arrives...

Which is why on the Canaanite stela, Hathor, the Goddess of fertility, who is also called Mehet-Weret (The great flood), is depicted standing in the deep waters of the flooding river Nile, surrounded by long flower stems of the Blue lotuses. How do we know she is standing in the water? These long flower stems grow from the bottom of the river all the way to the surface...Vertically...And the goddess stands among the stems...So...

And the Goddess is pointing at at one of these flowers...As if to say: This is the flower of life, because it flowers during the flood, which is the source of life...And I am this flood...

I talked about lotus and papyrus flowers and why they were worshiped in Ancient Egypt in these posts: "Goddess on a horse", "Lotus and Papyrus", "Cow and calf ivory"...

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...

Descending to Hades

One of my favourite frescoes: Christ's descent into Hades, fresco from the 12th c. Church of St. George, Kurbinovo, Macedonia... 

Stunningly beautiful, it is also super unusual and interesting. Here is why:

Christ is depicted in a globe of light, pulling Adam by his wrist out of Hades...Literally...As Hades is depicted as a mountain with human face...

Here is a Hades's head detail enlarged. Hades is depicted as an old man with a long beard with his mouth opened and an expression of pure terror. He is facing away from Christ, but he seems to be trying to get a glimpse of what's happening behind his back...

You can read analysis of this fresco in the paper by Dejan Gorgievski entitled "The mysterious mountain of Kurbinovo"...

Very good analysis. But there are few bits that he missed...

This depiction of Hades as an anthropomorphised mountain is very strange...Because Hebrew Sheol, Greek Hades and Christian Hell were all believed to be located "under the surface of the earth, below"...

Yet the dead were depicted on this fresco to be "inside of a mountain"...I know, I know...We could say that this is technically "under the surface of the earth, below", but...

Have you ever heard of Ekur? Ekur, "the mountain house of the dead" from Sumerian mythology?

Ekur is one of the names for the earth, but is applied more particularly to "that part of the mountain"...where the gods were born...And from where they came to Sumer...

These mountains are actual, real mountains, north east of Sumer, where the first civilisations arose, where grain agriculture was invented. I talked about this in my post about "How grain came to Sumer"... 

And in the earliest Sumerian mythology, it was on this mountain that the gods were supposed to dwell. 

Hence Ekur became also one of the names for "temple", as the seat of a god, temple which was shaped to look like a mountain...

And it is inside this holy mountain that we find the land of the dead...And guess who is the God of the Dead in the Sumerian mythology? The Sun...

The Sumerian poem "Enki and the World Order" exclaims: Young Utu (the sun), father of the Great City (the realm of the dead, underworld)...I talked about it in my post "Soul bird"...

And until today it never occurred to me why it was "Young Utu/Shamash" who was the "God of Ekur"...

The Holy Mountain, Ekur, The mountain of gods and mountain of the dead, is also the source of Tigris and Euphrates...

It is the snowmelt runoff from these mountains that is the main source of the Holy Rivers...

Snowmelt which is the result of the spring sun getting higher and higher in the sky, and heating higher and higher ranges of the mountains, melting more and more snow...Which creates bigger and bigger snowmelt runoff...Which causes water level in Tigris and Euphrates to rise...

And so, symbolically 🙂, it is Young Utu/Shamash, Spring Sun, who every  spring climbs up the Holy Mountain to release Enki/Ea, (god of) fresh water, from (his) it's icy prison...

I talked about this in my post "Shamash young and old":

And poetically 🙂, in "Enki and Ninhursanga" we read that "When Utu [the sun god] steps up into Heaven (Holy mountain), fresh waters shall run out of the ground for you"...

I talked about this in my post "When Utu steps up to heaven"...

Sun, brings water which in Sumer literally resurrects life...At the moment when sun (solar year) is about to enter "the land of the dead", hot dry season...

The domain of the Old Utu/Shamash...Old Sun, Sun at the end of Summer, Sun in Leo...Nergal, God of Death...Who was because of that depicted as a lion-man...I talked about this in my posts "Winged superhuman hero", "Angra Mainyu", "The king killing Angra Mainyu", "Achaemenid lion boar seal"...

Oh, BTW, Leo (Jul/Aug) marks the beginning of the main mating season of Eurasian lions...Hence Leo...

Anyway, this is why it is "Young Utu", Spring Sun, who is the god of "the mountain house" of the dead...

Compare that to Christ, Son of God, going into the mountain of the dead as an orb of light, in Spring...

Interesting...

BTW, Slavs believed this: "...the souls of our ancestors shine every morning from Iriy (Slavic Paradise)..."

There are two worlds, the world of the living and the world of the dead. The sun spends the day in the world of the living and the night in the world of the dead...

And there are two gates that stand on the border between these two worlds: the eastern gate and the western gate...

Every morning the eastern gate is opened by Danica, the day star, which is in the morning called Zornjača, the morning star, and the sun comes from the world of the dead into the world of the living...

And every evening the sun goes from the world of the living into the world of the dead through the western gate, which is then closed behind him by Danica, the day star, which is in the evening called Večernjača, the evening star...

The souls of the dead follow sun to the western gate, which is where the entrance into the land of the dead is...

And there they enter Iriy, the ever green land of eternal spring, full of cattle...Raj..Paradise. And every morning, when the eastern gate of the world of the dead is opened, they smile on us...

Also: In Ireland there was a belief that the souls of the dead departed westwards over the sea with the setting sun...

And Serbs believed that their Supreme god Dabog, Giving God, was both Sun God, Rain (water) God and God of the Dead...

Where does the sun come from in the morning and where does it go back in the evening?

The same observation resulted in Dabog, Serbian Sun god, Serbian ancestral deity, having all the characteristics of the god of the dead, and having the cult which is in its essence a cult of the dead...According to Serbian ethnographers...

People are logical...

This is also the reason why the dead play such a huge role in Slavic agricultural cult...Not only that the life literally grows out of the dead...But Dabog, The Sun, the father of the living, and the dead, resides among the dead...

And if the dead are not happy with the living, and if they complain to "Their Father", Dabog, about the living...Then the living are basically fucked...I talked about this in my posts "Diduch", "Julenek", "White feast"

Hittites forgot about their dead, and look what happened to them: 

"...humiliation of the Hittite kingdom is the result of the fact that the living Hittite kings and their subjects have forgotten to respect the sacred bond with their dead..." - From the letter of the last Hittite king, Suppiluliuma II...

I talked about this in my post "House of bones"...

So, Dejan Gorgievski thought this was a very interesting fresco...I think it's even more interesting than he was aware of...

PS: Kurbinovo monastery is located on the southwest slopes of Baba Mountain...This is the highest peak on the Baba mountain, Pelister...

Now the word Baba means Mother, Grandmother, Midwife...Birth Giver...Among South Slavs, Baba was also the name used for Mother Earth...There are many mountains, peaks, crags, bedrock outcrops all over Balkans with the names whose root is Baba. And there is a whole belief system linked to Baba/Mother Earth, preserved in the local folklore...I talked about this in my post "Living stone"...

So I don't think it was a coincidence that we find the fresco depicting living mountains, in the church located on the Baba mountain...

There is another interesting monastery in Macedonia, built on the summit of Babuna (Evil old woman) mountain...I talked about it in my post "Treskavec"...

Hope you enjoyed this...

Bird

Fairytales tell us that if a knight wants to kill an evil dragon which is plundering the land, he needs to first find and destroy the source of dragon's evil power, which is hidden outside of the the dragon's body, most often in an animal, like an innocent looking bird...

Green stone cylinder seal

Green stone cylinder seal; A walking bull, below which is a smaller horned animal (Ibex goat btw) and above the bull is a branch. Jemdet Nasr or Old Elamite period (3100 to 2900 BC). Currently in the British Museum.

Meaning? Apparently, according to the museum experts: "we have no idea"...

Let me try:

Remember this post, "Problems of Abzu"? I completely forgot about it 🙂 This post tries to answer the question: Why was Enki, Sumerian god of fresh water and annual flood, called both "Goat of Abzu" and "Bull of Abzu"? Abzu being source of fresh water in Mesopotamia...In short: Because the rains season in Mesopotamia starts when wild goats start to mate and ends when wild cattle start to calve 🙂

Rain that falls during the rain season is what makes Mesopotamia and Iran green and fertile...So maybe this is what is depicted on this green cylinder seal with goat, bull and branch???

But maybe the "branch" isn't just a branch. Maybe it is the symbol for grain...

Grain harvest in Mesopotamia and Elam started in Apr/May, Taurus...Hence the "bull and grain" symbolism found all over the place...I talked about it in my post "Bull carrying granary"...

Oh, and guess when the grain was sown? At the end of autumn, Oct/Nov, is when the first rains arrive, brought by the goat of rain. Here is rain god Ninurta/Ningirsu, who was, in the earliest records, also agriculture god, giving plough to the people...I talked about this in my post "Black basalt stone of Esarhaddon"...

So is this what this seal depicts? Small goat (grain seeds are sown). Big bull (grain ears are harvested)...

I don't know if either of these two "potential interpretations" are correct, but to me they are definitely better than "" we get from British Museum...

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...

Bull carrying granary

One of many seals, from "Die Entwicklung der Glyptik während der Akkad-Zeit" by Boehmer, R. M. published in 1965, depicting a bull carrying a building with plants growing (protruding) out of the building walls...

What does this mean?

I would first suggest that the bull depicted on this seal is an animal calendar marker, Taurus, which has been used as a marker for Apr/May all over Eurasia and North Africa since at least Early Neolithic in the Fertile Crescent...

Now this "Old Taurus" has nothing to do with stars. It is the marker that marks the be part of the year when Wild Eurasian Cattle begin to calve...

Check my post "Cow and calf ivory" to see what I mean:

Taurus also marks the beginning of summer (May,Jun,Jul), which is why bull is the most common symbol for summer. I talked about this in my post "Symbols of the seasons"

Which is why in Mesopotamia Utu/Shamash, the sun god, the ruler of summer, is depicted as a bull...I talked about it in my post "Butt chewing"...

Apr/May, Taurus, is also the time when the grain harvest  begins in Mesopotamia...Grain harvest which lasts throughout the summer, the season of the bull...

Hence all these depictions of bulls and grain...I talked about this in my posts "Bulls and grain bowls" and "How grain came to Sumer"...

And bull gods with grain tails...I talked about grain tail symbol in my post "Lions with grain tails"...

Which leads me to believe that the plants growing out of the building being carried by the bull are symbolic depictions of grain ears...

BTW, here is another amazing seal from "Die Entwicklung der Glyptik während der Akkad-Zeit" by Boehmer, R. M. published in 1965...

It depicts sun god Utu/Shamash, recognisable by sun rays emanating from his shoulders. Here Shamash is depicted in his role as the god of justice...I talked about this in my post "Bribing Shamash"...

This is a common depiction of the sun god in Mesopotamia but also in Central Asia. 

A great example of the use of related animal calendar markers. Bactrian two side seal. Sun god with sun rays emanating from his shoulders (like Shamash/Utu), with snakes, symbols of sun's heat and winged lion, Nergal, symbol of hottest part of the year...I talked about this in my post "Summer and winter BMAC seals"...

Back to the second seal from "Die Entwicklung der Glyptik während der Akkad-Zeit". Now that we know what all these symbols mean, the meaning of the whole scene becomes clear: The sun god stands "between two bulls", which means "in Taurus" (Apr/May). Out of the bulls grows grain, which means beginning of grain harvest in Apr/May...

All that leads me to believe that the building full of grain carried by the bull, symbol of summer (May,Jun,Jul), which is also the harvest season, could be a granary full of grain harvested during the season of the bull...

PS: I want to thank @another_barbara for this comment: Can't stop staring at ... the divining rod?

The snowmelt on the north eastern mountains, that feeds Tigris and Euphrates, peaks at the beginning of summer, Apr/May, in Taurus. 

Which is when Tigris and Euphrates flood reaches its peak. 

Which is why Utu/Shamash was depicted as a golden bull (Sun in Taurus) with flowing lapis lazuli beard (flowing water)...

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...