Mystery seal

The other day, I came across this image, while searching for something on the net. The image is an illustration from "Yahweh and the Origins of Ancient Israel, Insights from the Archaeological Record" by Nissim Amzallag...

I don't have 85£ to buy the book (hopefully I will get to read it one day), so I can't tell you where and when this seal was made, or what Nissim Amzallag thinks it means...

My guess is it was made during the Late Bronze Age, most likely in Levant (or upper Mesopotamia)...

13/8/2024 I managed to get the copy of this book. This is a cylinder seal from Ugarit. And here is what Nissim has to say about it: "It represents the struggle between someone with a conical hat and a threatening pose (Baal), and a lion/caprid associated with a serpent (Reshef/Athtar). The posture of the animals (and especially the serpent) is not submissive, a feature challenging the hegemony of Baal (and the Amorites) on the local pantheon".

So...As I expected. No idea what this seal actually depicts. No worries, I can tell you exactly what is depicted on it: The end of the sunny, hot, dry half of the year. Let me explain why I think so:

These are (representative) climate charts for Syria, Israel, Iraq, Iran...

You can see that the climatic year is divided into two halves:

Hot, dry half of the year, Apr/May - Oct/Nov

Cool, wet half of the year, Oct/nov - Apr/May

Sooo??? What does this have to do with what is depicted on the seal we are talking about? 

Grain

On the seal we see a plant symbol for grain. I talked about it in many of my posts, for instance "Sabi Abyad venus"

The symbol for wheat is placed under the bull's head. This is because the grain harvest season in Levant and Mesopotamia starts with the barley harvest in Taurus, Apr/May.

I talked about it in my post "Bull carrying granary"...

Now bull and lion. 

These are most common symbols of the seasons:

Ram (marks lambing of Eurasian wild sheep) - spring

Bull (marks calving of Eurasian wild cattle) - summer

Lion (marks mating of Eurasian lions) - autumn

Goat (marks mating of Eurasian wild goats) - winter

And on the seal, we see lion following (and attacking) bull from behind...

Summer, which starts in Taurus (Apr/May) is followed by autumn, which starts in Leo (Jul/Aug)...

Together, they form the hot, dry half of the year, Apr/May - Oct/Nov

By the way, this is a version of a very common "lion killing bull" scene, which funnily no one before me had any explanation for...

Coin depicting Lion killing Bull sceene. Cilicia, Tarsos Mazaios Satrap 361-334BC...  

Remember, Ram - spring, followed by Bull - summer, followed by Lion - Autumn, followed by Goat - winter...  

So autumn (starts in Leo) ends (kills) summer (starts in Taurus)...

Jul/Aug, the moment when Lion kills Bull is the hottest and driest time of the year in Levant and Syria. The seat of the destructive sun god, the god of death. 

In the deserts of Levant, Middle East and Arabia, it was The Sun who was "The God of Death". It is in climate and nature it produces, that we find the root of all our religions... Pic: Over 2000 years old poem about the god of death Mot. I talked about this in my post "The oldest Arabic poem"...

In Mesopotamia they even depicted this god of death as a lion man...Cause Leo is the time when the sun is most destructive...

Nergal, the deified destructive "burning" sun, was depicted as a lion man, because Jul/Aug, Leo, is the hottest and driest part of the year in Mesopotamia...Talked abut him in my post "Winged superhuman hero"...

Hence on the seal we see the sun disc hovering right above the lion's head, in Leo, Jul/Aug...

So what about the snake? Snake is an animal calendar marker of the beginning of summer, Apr/May, because this is when the most common Eurasian snakes, vipers, begin their mating season...

Which is why

Snake: Apr/May, beginning of the main snake mating season, beginning of summer. 

Lion: Jul/Aug, beginning of the main lion mating season, end of summer.

And in the middle...

I talked about this in my post "You will trample the great lion and serpent"...

And which is why on the seal, snake slithers from right above the grain (start of grain harvest Apr/May) and head of the bull (start of summer, Taurus, Apr/May)...

On the seal, the snake then delineates the space taken by the bull, the lion and the sun, ending at the lion's butt (end of autumn, Oct/Nov). Why? Cause snake is The Solar Symbol...

Snake is a pure solar animal. It is in our world when sun is here (day, hot half of the year) and it is in the underworld when sun is there (night, cold half of the year)...I talked about it in my posts "The chthonic animal" and "Enemy of the sun"...

Hence sun god holding snakes...

This is 3rd millennium BC, Bactrian seal depicting the sun god (see heat rays emanating from his shoulders) holding snakes, symbols of sun's heat...See snakes, Solar animals number one, the symbols of sun's heat... I talked about it in my post "Nude winged hero dominating snakes"...

To understand fully the meaning of the snake animal calendar marker, and its link with bull animal calendar marker, we need to understand snake's relationship with dragon...

The first clue about this relationship I found in Slavic folklore, where Dragon (the symbol of the destructive summer sun's heat which burns everything and brings drought) is just "an old snake" (symbol of sun's heat)...Also Slavic "zmaj" (dragon) is masculine form of "zmija" (snake). I talked about this in my post "Letnitsa treasure"...

This same link between snakes and dragons is found in Mesopotamia...

In Mesopotamia, summer lasted seven (hot) months...Which is why local dragon (dragon = symbol of summer), had seven snake heads (snake = symbols of sun's heat)...Oh, and look, we also have dragon killer(s) and the princess 🙂. I talked about this in my post "Seven headed dragon"...

And so, the dragon killer brings us to the end of autumn, and the end of the sunny, hot dry half of the year. On our seal, this time of the year, Oct/Nov, is symbolised by a lion's butt. Which is being speared by the rain storm god. 

We know it is a rain storm god, cause he is looks like Baal...

I talked Baal (Rain) - Mot (Sun) in my post "Anat"...

And on top of it he is also carrying a (double) axe, another one of the weapons associated with storm gods. Like Adad...I talked about this in my post "Kataibates"...

And this is it. Here is the meaning of the seal depicted on the circular climate year chart...

Interesting, right?

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...

Sabi Abyad venus

A figurine from the Late Neolithic and Early Halaf Village at Sabi Abyad, Northern Syria, part of Fertile Crescent. dated to 7th mill BC...Depicting Mother Earth turning into Mother of Grain...From "A Late Neolithic and Early Halaf Village at Sabi Abyad, Northern Syria". 

On the front you see what you would expect to see on any female fertility (Mother Earth) figurine: Large vulva and large breasts...

What is depicted on the sides and the back of the legs is what transforms this Mother Earth into Mother of Grain figurine: ears of grain...

How do we know this is grain?

Remember my post about the Mother of Grain?

Aliabad women standing beside a grain bin, Iranian Kurdistan...From "Home is where we keep our food: The origins of agriculture and Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic food storage". Very important image, as it confirms that this design pattern, found on pottery and figurines since the Earliest Neolithic all over Eurasia, means "grain"... 

I first talked about this in my post "Scarlet ware harvest vase"...

I then talked about this symbol in my post "Mother of grain"...

And in "Altyn tepe mother of grain"...

And in my post "Arjoune venus"...

And here they all are (so far):

We find the same symbolism on figurines found from the Balkans to Iran. They use similar combination of vulva + grain to depict the same thing: Mother Earth turning into Mother of 

BTW, have you ever heard of the Grain spirit? That "lives in the corn dolly made from the last sheaf of grain"?

I talked about it in my post about it in my post "The old woman of the mill dust" 

In Gaelic, the word Cailleach means both an old woman and the last sheaf of wheat and the corn dolly made from it. Corn dolly which represents Mother Earth, the life (grain) giving mother...

Who is this "Grain spirit"? Well the mother of grain of course. The mother earth...The mother of all of us (and grain)...The Proto Mother...The ancestor...

I also talked about this in my post "Diduch", the representation of an ancestor "who gives us wheat"...

And my post "Wheat cross"...About living corn dollies from Eastern Europe...

The wheat wreath was the most important part of the Romanian end of harvest ceremonies. It was made from the last sheaf of wheat...

It was normally then used to "crown" the "most beautiful unmarried girl" that participated in the harvest, who then carried it back to the village on her head...Love these pics of the reenactment of this ceremony by Vasile Sarb

Interesting, right?

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...

Holy water

@another_barbara:

I've read that our ancestors believed that on the evening of January 18th and January 19th until noon water is sacred and has healing and protective powers. People sprinkled this holy water in their homes. Bathing in this water was a cleansing ritual.

There are many legends about healing or holy springs in Slovenija. One of them is spring “Gospodična” (Maiden, Young woman) on Gorjanci hills. The story tells that an ill old countess became healthy and young again after drinking this water and washing her hands and face with it. 

Why this specific date?

The Christian explanation was this: John the Baptist baptised Christ on the 27th day after winter solstice. But this is most likely just s substitute tale for an older ritual.

So...What could be that "older ritual"???

Check this out:

This is winter zodiac...I talked about it in my post "Trentar"...

In one of my favourite zodiac related legends, the Slovenian legend about Zlatorog, the Ibex goat with gold horns, it is the "hunter from Trenta valley" that hunts and fatally wounds the magic goat, from whose blood springs magic Triglav rose...Which dying magic goat eats and gets healed (magically)...

So hunter, pursues Ibex goat, shoots it, it bleeds, from it's blood grow flowers...What does this mean?

Well, what you are looking at is the winter zodiac: Sagittarius (end of autumn, start of winter), Capricorn (mid winter), Aquarius (end of winter, start of spring)...

Spring starts in Aquarius...Which represents the snowmelt...This is where frigid old hag, winter earth, turns into hot young maiden, spring earth...Who then gets her first "period"...Becomes fertile again...

BTW, the same transformation of winter into spring is contained in a Slovenia ritual calld "Bablji mlin", meaning "Granny's mill" scene. An old hag is being milled, and thus transformed, into a young maiden. Winter being transformed into Spring...I talked about this in my post "Babji mlin"...

The same story of rejuvenation, rebirth (of the mother earth) is preserved in the Scots Gaelic ritual song "The old woman of the mill-dust":

Will you give me your daughter old lady of the mill dust?

Will you give me your daughter old lady of the mill dust?

Will you give me your daughter 

I will be happy with her

I will dance with her

From Carmina Gadelica, 19th c. Gaelic Scotland

In Gaelic, the word Cailleach means both an old woman and the last sheaf of wheat and the corn dolly made from it. Corn dolly which represents Mother Earth, the life (grain) giving mother...

I talked about this in my post "The old woman of the mill-dust"...

Interestingly Cailleach, or Cailleach Beira, is the Scottish "Queen (Goddess) of Winter". She appears as a blue-skinned hag carrying a magical staff that freezes the ground and a hammer for shaping hills and valleys. At the end of her seasonal reign, she drinks from the Well of Youth to become young again...

Spring of youth being of course the snowmelt, which begins in February, in Aquarius (!!!) 🙂, which marks the beginning of spring...And the arrival of the "Bride" (Brigid), the spring earth maiden, snowmelt being her first "period"...

Effigy of St Brigid taken from house to house to collect money while saying these rhymes: 

"Here's St Bridget dressed in white,

Give us some money to honour her night,

She is deaf, and she is dumb,

And she can't talk without a tongue"

St Brigid, The Bride, Gaelic Mother Goddess turned Saint is associated with wells (running water)...

Slavic equivalent is the effigy of Marzana (winter) which is made and paraded around in Slavic countries at the same time. The effigy is then burned or drowned to symbolise the end of winter. This can give us the clue who Brigid originally was.

Also, The Witch of Winter, The Old Hag, has to be burned (and drowned) or spring will not come...Burning is heating up of the earth and drowning is the snowmelt...Burning and drowning of Marzana, Slavic name for Winter Earth...I talked about this in my posts "Gryla", "Living stone", "To kill a which", "Babele"

Oh and don't forget The Snow-White...From the article:

"What we have here is the story of Earth going through seasons: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring...

Beautiful young Spring Earth becomes bountiful Summer and Autumn Earth. Still beautiful, but in no way as beautiful as the Young Spring Earth...

Because of the cyclical nature of the solar year, Autumn Earth is the mother of Spring Earth of the next solar year. As Autumn ends, and the crab apples are the last fruit left on the trees, Autumn Earth turn into Old Hag Winter Earth, who "kills" her own younger self...

Dead Earth lies in her icy coffin until Young Spring Sun arrives. He sees beautiful Spring Earth under the ice, falls in love with her and revives her. Spring Earth, marries Spring Sun...

But seasons pass, Spring Earth turns into Summer Earth and then into Autumn Earth and then into Winter Earth...And the story repeats itself...Luckily, every spring, Young Sun arrives to save the day 🙂"

All these stories, beliefs and rituals basically describe the same thing: End of winter, beginning of spring...

Oh, including of course Christ's baptism ("in living", flowing water) and Mary's purification (first period after giving birth)...

@another_barbara:

After @serbiaireland explained to me what a tale (I teach to kids for 15 years) really means, I had to add that the old countess was barren and she and her husband were sad because of that. After drinking/washing with sacred water she knew she will be able to have children now.