Bactrian bronze age menorah

Today I stumbled across this super cool Bactrian bronze stamp, dated to 2400BC-1600BC...

It depicts a motif, found in Eastern Mediterranean, Levant, Mesopotamia, Iran, Central Asia, of two rampant male ibex goats flanking the tree (of life)...

Why are ibex goats flanking the tree of life?

Climate charts for BMAC (Bactria-Margiana) Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan.

In this part of the world, the climatic year is divided into hot/dry summer (Apr/May - Oct/Nov) and cool/wet winter (Oct/Nov - Apr/May)...

Interestingly, Oct/Nov is also the time when male ibex goats start their ferocious mating fights...

And because the wet season in these parts of the world starts when ibex goats start mating, ibex goat became an animal calendar marker for the beginning of the rain season...

And because it is the rain and snow (as spring snowmelt runoff) that are the source of life in these otherwise dry areas, Ibex goat became deified as a bringer/source of rain/snow/life...

Now the shape of this particular Bactrian tree of life is very interesting...It reminds me very much of the tree of life from this 3,000 BC Sumerian Stamp Seal with Impression Tree of Life with Rampant Goats. Mesopotamia. Chicago. Oriental Institute Museum...I talked about it in my post "The tree of life/light".

BTW in Mesopotamia rain/snow also arrives when goats start dancing, in Oct/Nov.

And these depictions of the tree of life flanked by rampant goats also reminds me very much of this depiction of the same scene from a pottery vessel, a ewer, from the Fosse temple at Lachish dated to the 13th century BC, bears an inscription on the shoulder which reads from left to right "Mattan (the donor), an offering to my lady ’Elat". 

I wrote full analysis of this amazing object in my post "Lachish animal calendar"...

Interesting right?

More examples of ibexes flanking the tree of life from

Mesopotamia

This is a shell plaque found in Queen Pu-abi's tomb dated to c. 2600 BC. It shows ibexes rearing up on their hind legs on both sides of the tree of life topped by the eight-pointed rosette...I talked about this in my post "Shell plaque with ibexes"...

Turkey

A seal impression found in Alalakh/Tell Atchana, located 20 km from Antakya (Antioch) in what is now Turkey's Hatay Province. It was found in one of the rooms of the Level VII (c. 1800BC) palace...It depicts two ibex goats flanking the tree (of life)...I talked about this in my post "Goats with tree of life from Alalakh"...

Also Turkey

Hittite, half oval plaque, two goats and palmetto tree, Tell-Halaf, 900 BC, Museum of Oriental Antiquities, Istanbul...

Minoan Crete

Two ibex goats flanking an olive tree (of life). I talked about this in my post "Goat riding thunder god"

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...