This marble slab carved in raised relief was originally set into a base of an object with Aramaic inscription. It shows a winged and bearded male deity holding a dagger in his right hand and is about to slaughter a goat...A snake appears behind the deity...
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| Pic by Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin |
The slab was discovered in a temple in Hatra, Niniveh Governorate, Iraq, it dates to the 2nd to 3rd century AD, and is currently kept in the Iraq Museum in Baghdad, Iraq.
But what does this mean?
Well, to figure this out we need to look at the local climate in the area of Hatra and the meaning of the two animals depicted on the slab, goat and snake, as animal calendar markers...
The climatic year in the Niniveh Governorate of Iraq is divided into two halves: hot, dry half (Apr/May-Oct/Nov) and cool, wet half (Oct/Nov-Apr/May)...
Because the beginning of the cool, wet half of the year coincides with the beginning of the mating season of Ibex goats, Ibex became linked to rain and became "The Goat of Rain" and an animal calendar marker for Oct/Nov...
Because the beginning of the hot, dry half of the year coincides with the beginning of the mating season of Eurasian vipers, snake became linked with the sun and became "The Snake of Sun" and an animal calendar marker for Apr/May...
These animals have been used as animal calendar markers with this meaning probably since Early Neolithic in Fertile Crescent. I talked about it in my post "Goat and snake from Kortik tepe", about these two very interesting objects from the 10,000BC Pre-Pottery Neolithic B site Körtik Tepe, located in the Diyarbakır district of Turkey.
And because these two animals mark beginnings of two opposing seasons
Goat - rain season, season of life
Snake. - drought season, season of death
they became "enemies"...
Usually we se depictions of a "Goat man" subduing snakes...Representing rain, source of life triumphing over sun, source of death...For instance, here are two depictions of the Goat Man dominating snakes from Susa Iran, dated to 4000BC. I talked about them in my post "Goat petroglyphs from Iran"...
But this relief from Hatra is the first time that I have seen a snake man subduing a goat...Symbolic depiction of death triumphing over life...
But then Hatra was the place where people worshiped Nergal...
Who's Nergal?
The (sun) god of death...
The destructive sun of Jul/Aug, the hottest and driest part of the year in Mesopotamia...Leo...
Which is why he was depicted as a lion man...
Nergal the "Lion dragon", symbolic depiction of the hot, dry half of the year...
The reason why Nergal was depicted as a lion man, is because the sun's heat is strongest and most destructive in (Jul/Aug), the period of the year marked with Leo, because this is then the main mating season of Eurasian lions starts...
Nergal then during Achaemenid times became known as Angra Mainiu, the "Negative force" opposed to Spenta Mainiu, the "Positive force"...I talked about this in my post "Angra Mainyu", about this Middle Assyrian Cylinder Seal with a "Lion-Dragon", 1300-1200 BC.
Now think about what brings order and disorder to an agricultural society? Which is why I believe that originally Angra Mainyu and Spenta Mainyu were, just two opposing natural forces: sun (Nergal) and rain (Ninurta)...Which later became Ahriman (devil) and Ahura Mazda (god)...
Nergal eventually became known as Ahriman, the enemy of Ahura Mazda...Which had to be killed...I talked about this in my post "The king killing Angra Mainyu" so order can prevail...
Finally, Ahriman became known as Arimanius, the "obscure deity" depicted as a man with a lion's head and eagle's wings and a serpent coiled around his body (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arimanius)...
Or a complex animal calendar marker, symbol for dry season (Apr/May-Oct/Nov), season dominated by the sun, which starts when snakes start to mate (Apr/May), peaks when lions start to mate (Jul/Aug), and ends when vultures start to mate (Oct/Nov)...
The complex animal calendar marker with the meaning equivalent the meaning of Chimera. Vulture mating season starts at the same time as Ibex mating season, at the end of the hot, dry half of the year. Which makes them interchangeable as calendar markers
Ancient Greek coins.
Left: Silver stater, Sikyon, 431-400 BC, depicting Chimera.
Rigth: Silver stater, Corinth, 345-307 BC, depicting Pegasus.
Chimera and Pegasus, mythical beasts or complex animal calendar markers for "old summer" (Apr/May-Oct/Nov)? I talked about this in my post "Pegasus and Chimera"...
About vulture calendar marker and it's link with rain gods...
Eagle dance...
Left: Montenegro 1963AD
Right: Syria, 1800BC
Eagle (vulture) couples dance above the mountains at the beginning of their mating season, which coincides with the beginning of the rain season in Fertile Crescent...I talked about this in my post "Eagle dance"...
So Arimanius is not so obscure any more, right??? I don't think so...
And so finally we get back to the winged dude with a snake on his shoulders about to kill a goat...
Arimanius? Ahriman? Angra Mainiu? Nergal? Dragon? Sun?
PS: Someone who read my twitter thread about the Snake god from Hatra told me to have a look at the guy called Zahhak:
Zahhāk, also known as Zahhak the Snake Shoulder, is an evil figure in Persian mythology, evident in ancient Persian folklore as Azhi Dahāka, the name by which he also appears in the texts of the Avesta. In Middle Persian he is called Dahāg. In Zoroastrianism, Zahhak (going under the name Aži Dahāka) is considered the son of Ahriman, the foe of Ahura Mazda...
Very very interesting...Here is why:
Aži (nominative ažiš) is the Avestan word for "serpent" or "dragon". It is cognate to the Vedic Sanskrit word ahi, "snake"...
See...
The original meaning of dahāka is uncertain. Among the meanings suggested are "stinging" (source uncertain), "burning" (cf. Sanskrit dahana), "man" or "manlike" (cf. Khotanese daha), "huge" or "foreign" (cf. the Dahae people and the Vedic dasas)...
I would bet that the original meaning was "burning", as Dahaka is no other than the Sun...
The Avestan term Aži Dahāka and the Middle Persian azdahāg are the source of Old Armenian mythological figure Aždahak, Modern Persian 'aždehâ/aždahâ', Tajik Persian 'azhdahâ', Urdu 'azhdahā' (اژدها), as well as the Kurdish ejdîha (ئەژدیها) and Serbian Aždaja (Aždaya) or Aždaha, which all mean dragon...
Remember Slavic beliefs about snakes, dragons and sun? Serbs and other Slavs believed that snakes suck sun's heat and that dragon was just an old snake that sucked too much sun's heat...
I talked about Slavic snake, dragon, sun beliefs in my post "Letnitsa treasure"
That's all I have to say about that...For now...
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...
complex animal calendar marker simply resembles the four evangelists and their symbols, but Christianity mixed them, of course. 'Ahriman known as Arimanius, the "obscure deity" depicted as a man with a lion's head and eagle's wings and a serpent coiled around his body' resembles the symbol of Aesculapius medicine where the serpent (or 2 serpents) winds around the stick, with wings still above them.
ReplyDeleteHello, thank you very much for this article. In relation to depiction of Nergal with snakes and dogs, I believe this is the vilified version. I have come across the book of Taufiq Wahby (The Remnants of Mithraism in Hatra and Iraqi Kurdistan and Its Traces In Yazidism) and he mentions that the current version of the Peacock Angel myth and the symbol of Yazidis is the corrupted version of the Hatra symbol which you posted the vilified version. The version mentioned by Taufiq Wahby in page 39 is described as:
ReplyDelete“The Yazidis nowadays have seven Sanjaqs according with the number of Deities which they are now believed to represent; and all of them are one, believed to represent Tawûsê Melek. I see in the Sanjaq of the Yazidis a corrupted form of the Mithraic standard of Hatra. The standard of Hatra is composed of a number of symbols set up along a pole which ends with a crescent-shaped trident, on its centre an eagle like the eagle representing the Firmament which is seen beside the standard.
The Sanjaq of the Yazidis is accompanied by two things; the first is what Abd u-Razzaq al-Hasani, who discovered it, called “cushions” and the second is a goblet for drinking water”
I started researching about this because I wanted to learn about the symbols on my earring gifted by my grandmother. I am a Kurd from Urfa (our roots go back to Bohtan) and with Yazidi roots from my grandma's side. Kurdish men have a long history of having golden earrings although this tradition has died out in the last century. I believe the Yazidis completely forgotten about this tradition due to the persecutions. Somehow my grandmother kept this tradition alive.
As described in the book, my earring has 7 dots in total, one is distinctive with sun rays around it and three dots at the end is a crescent-shaped trident. The resemblances to “cushions” and “goblet” are there too. I can send you the picture of it if you can share your e-mail. Thanks again!