Goats with tree of life from Alalakh

Here is 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)...

Pottery shard from the level VI (c. 1500BC) also from the Amorite Bronze Age settlement of Alalakh/Tell Atchana.

It also depicts two ibex goats flanking the tree (of life)...

Both Alalakh artefact images are from the excavation report by Leonard Woolley...

Why ibex goats flanking the tree (of life)? Cause in Eastern Mediterranean, Levant, Mesopotamia and Iran, where this symbol originated, the climatic year is divided into two seasons: hot/dry summer and cool/wet winter.

And the rains, which in this part of the world support (the tree of) life arrive when Ibex goats start their mating season...In Oct/Nov...Mating season which is marked by violent fights by male ibex goats...See, rampant goats facing each other...

I talked about this in many articles. For instance the article about this pottery vessel, a ewer, from the Fosse temple at Lachish, Israel, dated to the 13th century BC, the same period as the Alalakh artefacts.

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

Anyway, the ibexes flanking the tree (of life) are depicted between two wavy lines. 

These are usually interpreted as symbols for flowing water. I talked about this in this article about this amazing vessel from Tepe Hissar. 

This is a great example of related animal calendar markers used together. Mating Ibex (start of winter) followed by Mating Leopard (start of spring). Both winter and spring are rainy seasons...Semen turns to flowing water...Tepe Hissar, Iran, Neolithic 

And all this is depicted between two (checkered) squares. These are usually interpreted as depictions of (grain) fields...

I talked about this symbol in my post "Arjoune venus" about this Halaf culture figuring from the Arjoune site in Syria. 

Pic from: "Embodiment of the Halaf: Sixth Millennium Figurines from Northern Mesopotamia"

Also around the same time when the Alalakh pot with ibexes flanking the tree of life was made, in Knossos, Crete we find this Minoan fresco, depicting ibex goats flanking the tree (of life) while crocuses are blooming all around. 

I talked about it in my post "Goat riding thunder gods"...

By the way, the tree is olive. And olives are harvested from late October, early November...So this fresco depicts the beginning of the rain season, when ibexes fight, crocuses bloom and olives are ripe...

If you are interested, here are some articles about Ibex goat as an animal calendar marker imbedded in various Eurasian cultures where rains arrive in Oct/Nov...

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...