Water carrier equid

"Spouted Anthropomorphic Vessel", Western Iran, circa 1000-650 BCE. Currently in Los Angeles County Museum of Art...

This is a seriously cool ritual vessel. I want to thank @dalaygiz (great twitter account worth following) for alerting me to it. It was most likely used in fertility libation ceremonies, during which water was poured out of this vessel...

Here is why:

The vessel was shaped as an anthropomorphised equid, either horse or onager (wild ass) or kunga (hybrid between horse and onager) with a giant penis...

A clear sign 🙂 that in order to figure out the meaning of this object, we need to look at the mating season of equids...

I talked about equids and their symbolic meaning (solar symbol) in Mesopotamian art in my post, "Shamash playing with the solar horse", about this interesting 3rd millennium BC seal from Hurian city of Urkesh, Syria...

In short, like everywhere else, equids are a solar symbol, cause their reproduction is governed by sunlight. Their mating season, marked by wild stallion fights over mares, starts in Apr/May and it peaks on Summer solstice...

So they are an animal calendar marker marking Apr/May, and an animal calendar marker for summer and summer solstice...

So why would a libation vessel be shaped as a horny equid? Cause in Tigris and Euphrates river system, the water level in all the rivers peaks in Apr/May, when equids start mating...

This water level peak happens as a result of the peak snowmelt runoff in the mountains that feed the Tigris and Euphrates system...

Snowmelt which is caused by "the sun (god) which climbs the mountain"...In the Sumerian text "Enki and Ninhursanga" Enki [the god of fresh water and the annual flood] says: "When Utu [the sun god] steps up into heaven [which Sumerians perceived as a mountain], fresh waters shall run out of the ground for you"...I talked about this in my post "When Utu/Shamash steps up into heaven"...

Basically as the year progresses, and the sun gets higher and higher in the sky, and the sun gets hotter and hotter, it heats and melts snow higher and higher on the mountains...Causing water (god) to be released from its icy prison...I talked about this in my post "Utu/Shamah young and old"...

Hence equid, a solar symbol number one, here linked with flowing water...

BTW, Apr/May is also the time when Wild Eurasian cattle start calving...

Which is why we find Taurus marking Apr/May, and why people from Iran made this statue (3000BC, Proto-Elamite). I talked about it in my post "Elamite water bull"...

Both our horny humanoid equid and our humanoid bull (cow?) hold libation vessel...For pouring water...The water poured from these libation vessels symbolically represents water flowing down Tigris and Euphrates (and their tributaries)...

And this water is the result of the rain (and snow) that falls in the Tigris and Euphrates basin, specifically the North Eastern mountains which surround Mesopotamia, during the wet season...

This is climate chart for Susa, in Western Iran...

The wet season starts in Oct/Nov, when Wild Ibex goats start mating...Hence the two ibexes depicted on the front of the horny equid vessel...Right above the penis...

BTW, rain was seen as heavenly semen which fertilises the land...I talked about it in my post "A vessel from Tepe Hissar"...

The mating season of ibex goats is marked by violent (and very loud) head bang fight between male goats, so it is not easy to not notice...

The fact that it coincides with the beginning of the rain season in Mesopotamia, gave us The Goat of Rain...The main fertility symbol in Mesopotamia and especially Iran...Depicted here on this shell plaque found in Queen Pu-abi's tomb  and dated to c. 2600 BC. It shows ibexes rearing up on their hind legs on both sides of the tree of life topped by the eight-pointed rosette...

BTW, the mating season of Ibex goats spans the whole of winter, Nov/Dec/Jan...The middle of winter being Winter Solstice...I wonder if this is what was depicted by the flower between two Ibex goats....

The wet season which starts in Oct/Nov (when ibex start mating) and ends in Apr/May (when equids start mating and cattle start calving), results in the annual flood...The most important annual event in the region...

The usual marker for this event is bull, which is in Mesopotamia a solar symbol number one. Which is why we have things like this, sun god as a golden bull with flowing water stone beard...I talked about this in my post "Solar bull"...

And why the wet season is marked by goat (beginning) and bull (end)...Like on this "Enki in the flood boat" seal. I talk about this in my post "Problems of Abzu"...

But here we have an equid replacing bull as the symbol for the sun in Apr/May, when the sacred rivers flood...Very interesting...

That's it. 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...