Gold plaque depicting a naked goddess on a horse. According to the Israel Museum page probably Astarte or Anat. Late Canaan period, 13th c. BC, Found in Levant, but made under strong Egyptian influence.
Have you ever heard of the "Mother-of-Horses"? A goddess found in texts from Bronze Age Ugarit?
Well, apparently, we still don't know if she was a goddess or "a symbolic entity representing a human’s concern for their horses"...
Cause the mentions of the "Mother-of-Horses" were apparently found "primarily in incantations against snakebites"...What does horse goddess have to do with snakes?
Well, interestingly both Snakes and Horses are solar animals, Solar symbols...
And so I would here like to propose that the "Mother-of-Horses" was just an epithet...Epithet of whom? Of the alleged Mother of the "Mother-of-Horses": the sun goddess Shapash, female equivalent of the sun god Shamash...
As I explained in many of my posts, snake is a pure solar animal. It is in our world when sun is here (day, hot half of the year) and it is in the underworld when sun is there (night, cold half of the year)...
Snakes are symbol of the sun and the sun's heat. They are also symbols of the beginning of summer, as vipers, the most common Eurasian snakes, start mating in Apr/May, beginning of summer...
So no wonder we find snake linked to the sun over and over again...
Interestingly, the key for understanding the link between snakes and the sun was best preserved in Slavic folklore (remnants of Slavic mythology). I talked about this in my post "Letnitsa treasure"...
I talked about this in my post "Trojan horse", "Unicorn"...
Horses sexual drive is governed by the sun and it peaks on summer solstice...I heard summer solstice was a big thing for sun worshipers...Hence horse twins marking the midsummer...
This is also why we see things like these: Bronze Age "Sun Chariot" pulled by a horse, Denmark 1400 BC...
Or why horses are ridden by sun itself, depicted either as a rider with sun disc with rays instead of the head, or as the sun disc with rays...like on these Celtic coins...
I talked abut this in my post "Hayagriva"...
It is not just horses whose mating season is governed by the sun. It's all the equids...Asiatic wild asses have the same mating season as wild horses, which also starts in Apr/May...At the beginning of summer. I talked about this in my post "Onager"...
BTW Equine gestation period is 11-12 months...Which means that the equine mating season (Apr-Sep) is also the equine birthing season...
And that season corresponds to hot dry half of the year in Middle East and Levant...Apr/May - Oct/Nov...The season dominated by the sun...
And the season which, as I already said above, starts with the mating season of most common snakes in Eurasia, vipers...
Hence the link between equids and snakes...
Remember this article, "Sun god from Tell Brak" about how old the symbolic link between equids and snakes is?
3rd millennium BC cylinder seal imprint found in Tell Brak, Syria, depicting a quadriga pulled by four equids, with a snake flying above it...
So, I guess, if you knew that the sun god(dess), the one that controls the mating season of horses (hence The Mother of Horses) was the one that controls the appearance and disappearance of snakes, you would logically pray to her for protection from snakes...I guess...
But the guys from the Israel Museum, Jerusalem say it's "Astarte or Anat". Well, It is definitely not Anat...Anat is the one that kills Mot (the hot dry season, season of the horse), and helps Baal (the cool wet season) get the throne...I talked about her in my post "Anat"...
She could be Astarte, cause this lady is linked with the grain harvest and storage season, which overlaps with the horse mating season...Levant agricultural calendar...
I talked about her in my post "Sacred marriage on the threshing floor", "Jerusalem of gold" and "Tishtrya"...
Now how can I be certain that the horse on our plaque is an animal calendar marker for the horse mating season? Because of what the goddess standing on the horse is holding in each hand: a papyrus and a lotus flower...
And these are very important plant calendar markers...From Egypt...
The water level of the Nile starts to rise when the papyrus starts flowering (Apr/May/Jun...) and it peaks when lotus starts flowering (Jul/Aug/Sep), during the flood...
I talked about this in my post "Lotus and papyrus" in which I analysed the "decorations" from this bowl whose base is adorned with a lotus flower and the body with a procession of cows, possibly symbols of the goddess Hathor, through a setting of lotus flowers. Egypt, 775-653 BC.
The flowering seasons of papyrus and lotus demarcate the flood season in Egypt (Apr-Oct), the fertile season...Which is also the fertile season of the horses (Apr-Sep)...
Hence the goddess on the horse holding papyrus and lotus flowers represents period Apr-Sep...
BTW, I just noticed something...The Papyrus - Lotus bunch often depicted on Egyptian wall paintings resembles Ankh, the symbol for Life...
You might like this article, "An-Ki, Ankh", about the (possible) origin of the Ankh symbol and its name...
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...
I am very impressed and grateful for the information you have gathered in your research. I appreciate all the links and references and images as well. I have only recently begun this path of inquiry but you have definitely made it much easier. Bless you!!
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