Cypriot stamp seal with cow and calf

Conoid stamp seal, Late Cypriot III. Cyprus (?), ca. 13th–12th c. BC. Currently in the Met Museum. Official description: lions (?) attacking a cow suckling a calf...Actually, this is a complex animal calendar marker, marking the beginning of August...

First, cow suckling its calf...It is a symbol for Apr/May, the time when wild Eurasian cattle start to calve...

I talked about this in my posts "Cow and calf ivory", "Foundation peg of the goddess Nanshe" and many others...

Apr/May is also the time when the wild cows began to lactate...I talked about this in my post "Dairy farming seal", about this 3200-3000 BC. Late Uruk-Jemdet Nasr period seal

This is also the time when the grain harvest starts in Middle East, Levant...And Cyprus...I talked about this in my posts "Bulls and grain bowls", "Hesiod on grain"...and many others...

So an important calendar marker indeed...Which we today know as Taurus, Bull, but which I always thought should have been a cow and a calf...I talked about Taurus and why this part of the year is marked by a bull in my post "Ram and bull"

Now summer (May, Jun, Jul) starts with calving of wild Eurasian cattle, and ends with mating of wild Eurasian cattle...Which is why bull has been the symbol of summer all over Eurasia and North Africa since at least Neolithic. I talked about this in my post "Symbols of the seasons"...

Autumn (Aug, Sep, Oct), starts in Leo, animal calendar marker which marks Jul/Aug, the time when the main mating season of Eurasian lions begins...

Lion mating season spans the whole of autumn, which is why lion has been the symbol of autumn all over Eurasia and North Africa since at least Neolithic...

Summer ends at the end of Jul, and autumn begins at the beginning of Aug. Symbolically, lion (autumn) kills bull (summer)...Usually depicted as a lion chewing on the butt of a bull...

Or in the case of this Cypriot seal, lion jumping on  the back of the cow suckling its calf...

I talked about lion killing bull symbol in my post "Under blazing Sun - Sirus"...

And in my post "Winged superhuman hero (Nergal)"

And in my post "Lion killing bull under date palm"

Do you see how there is a dog standing under the palm tree? Why? For the same reason the animal "attacking" the cow from the front on the Cypriot seal definitely isn't a lion...I think that it could be a dog...Viewed from the top...Why? 

Because mating season of the oldest domesticated dog breeds, begins during dog days, end of Jul beginning of Aug...

When our mythologies were made out of animal calendar markers, Sirius, the Dog Star rose with the sun during dog days...

This has been preserved in mythologies from Egypt, I talked about this in my post "Dog days", Mesopotamia, I talked about this in my post "Tishtrya", India, I talked about this in my post "The bitch of the gods", Levant, I talked about this in my post "Anat"...

So both lion and dog (both animal calendar markers for the beginning of autumn) attack  bull (animal calendar marker for summer) at the same time, now, beginning of August...

What about the fish? If this is Cypriot seal, then I would propose that the fish is Tuna...Whose mating season in Mediterranean sea peaks in Jul/Aug which is also the beginning of the main Tuna fishing season in the Mediterranean sea... I talked about this in my post "Tuna coin from Akanthos"...

But maybe I am wrong...You never know with these ancient artifacts...Maybe I am just reading too much into it all...

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...