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...
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...
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