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...