Another amazing object I discovered during the 5 hour long stroll I took with my son through the Mesopotamian section of the Louvre museum last weekend.
Perforated votive limestone plaque, Mesopotamia (where?), ca. 2700-2650BC...Currently kept in Louvre...
The official description:
"...decoration is arranged in three registers.
A banquet scene occupies the first register...
In the second register, a stag and ox are placed on either side of the central perforation.
A banquet scene in a boat occupies the third register..."
So what's so amazing about this?
First amazing thing is that the museum curators didn't identify the two animals depicted between the two banquet scenes correctly.
The animal on the left is not a stag. It's an ibex goat. And the animal on the right is not an ox. It's a calf...
VERY VERY IMPORTANT...How can you expect to correctly interpret what is depicted on this object, if you don't identify the correctly what is actually depicted on it.
Oh wait, they never attempted to interpret what was depicted on this object...
So let me try to do it...
But really, this object is amazing because it connects three other objects I talked about earlier, and basically links all the symbols depicted on these objects together...
First object is this perforated votive limestone plaque, from the same period (and most likely the same area) as our original votive limestone plaque. I talked about it in my post "Green pastures"...
It too depicts a banquet scene in its top register. The other two registers depict two ibex goats and two calves, two very important animal calendar markers used extensively in Mesopotamia...
According to the paper "God or worshiper", the first "banquet" scene actually depicts worshipers in front of Abu the god of green pastures, and his consort, goddess of fertility...But this paper says nothing about goats and calves...
What goat and bull calf depict are beginning and end of the fertile, bountiful, time of the year in Mesopotamia, the cool, wet half, winter, which starts in Oct/Nov (ibex goats mating) and ends in Apr/May (auroch cattle calving). The time of plenty, the party time...
I talked about ibex goat as an animal calendar marker in many posts, such as, "Problems with Abzu", "Relief from Dur Sharrukin", "Goatfish", "Flamingos from Susa", "Goat carrier", "Iranian goat of rain", "Strider", "A vessel from Tepe Hissar"...
Anyway, the second object is this seal, dated to 2300–2150BC, depicting Enki, god of fresh water and the annual flood, in a boat.
In my article "Enki's little boat", I explained why Enki's boat is actually the symbol for the annual flood.
The third object is this seal, from the same period as he previous one, also depicting Enki's flood boat, but this time, above the boat we have an ibex goat and an auroch bull...
In my article "Rain and flood" I explained the relationship between these two animal calendar markers and the annual flood.
"By hand Winter guided the spring floods, the abundance and life of the Land..."
This is climate chart for Southern Mesopotamia...
Winter, cool, wet, fertile half of the year in Mesopotamia starts in Oct/Nov (ibex goats mating) and ends in Apr/May (auroch cattle calving)
And as I said, this last votive plaque links all these objects and the symbols depicted on them together.
Top: God of green pasture and goddess of fertility?
Middle: animal calendar markers marking the beginning and end of winter
Bottom: Enki, God of annual flood in his procession boat. Enki who was also known as Goat of Abzu and Bull of Abzu...And of course before me, no one knew why...Sad...I know I am not that smart...I talked about this procession boat in my post "Problems of the Abzu"...
All having a splendid party, party, party time...Between goat and bull calf...
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...
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