Foundation peg of the goddess Nanshe

Foundation peg from the temple of goddess Nanshe at Sirara, Iraq. Bull calf in reed marsh. Circa 2130 BC. Currently in the British Museum, London...

Pic by Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin

I talked about goddess Nanshe in my post "Nanshe". Nanshe who was associated with migratory gees, which arrive to Mesopotamia when rains arrive, and leave Mesopotamia when flood arrives...She was goddess of fertility and the daughter of the god Enki, who was the god and the source of sweet water which flowed down Tigris and Euphrates, and which brought fertility to the land of Mesopotamia...

Pic by Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin

I talked about Enki as the source of Tigris and Euphrates in many of my posts. Like this one, "The great imposter", where I answer the question: 

Why did so many Mesopotamian "Supreme" gods have an attribute "The Great Mountain"? 

Cause they all wanted to be Enki...But there is only one Enki, who is (in) Abzu, "place that is a big mountain"...All the others are just imposters...

And in this one, "Goat-Fish", in which I answer the question: 

Why was Goat-Fish the symbol of Enki/Ea, the god of fresh water and the annual flood? And why was Enki/Ea depicted with two streams pouring out of him, or out of jars he is holding, with fish swimming up  these streams towards him?

Cause the giant Mesopotamian carp swim upstream, towards the source of Tigris and Euphrates, for spawning, during the flood season...

Now why would a calf in a reed marsh be on the foundation peg for the temple of the goddess of fertility, the daughter of the god of sweet water Enki?

Well, cause the annual Tigris and Euphrates flood, Enki's semen which he empties "like a rampant bull" peaks in Apr/May, in Taurus. 

Enki, "The flood of heaven and earth"...

I talked about this link between Enki and The Flood, and him being effectively the god of the flood, in my posts "Rain and flood" and "Enki's little boat"...

And guess why Taurus is where it is on the solar year circle? Cause Apr/May is the time when wild Eurasian cattle, Aurochs, used to begin their calving season...So Taurus really shouldn't be a bull, but rather a calf. I talked about it in many of my posts. Like "Cow and calf ivory" in which I talked about Neo-Assyrian decorative carved ivories with a cow suckling her calf and licking its tail among (very stylised) papyrus flowers, dated to 9th-7th c. BC...

Pic by Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin

So, I believe it is now obvious why a calf in a reed marsh is on the foundation peg for the temple of the goddess Nanshe, goddess of fertility, the daughter of the the god Enki, god of sweet water and the flood which bring fertility to Mesopotamia...

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...