Eagle killing hare

Silver Coin from Ancient Elis, Peloponnese. ca. 421-365 BC.

Obverse: An eagle killing a wild hare

Reverse: FA. Vertically standing stylized winged lightning bolt in an olive wreath.

Why eagle killing hare? Well here's something I learned today:

Apparently of all the eagles that live in Greece https://birdwatchinghq.com/eagles-of-greece/ the biggest hare killers are golden eagles, whose favourite food are hares...

Interestingly, the breeding season of both golden eagles and hares overlap, meaning they are identical animal calendar markers. 

Golden eagle mating season is Mar/Apr. It is marked by  mad mating ritual flights, known as the sky dance...After which, they do the...you know...

The female lays 1-3 eggs. The incubation period is 41-45 days. This means that the hungry golden eagle chicks are born in Apr/May. They stay in the nest and are fed by their parents (baby hares, their favourite) for about 65 days...

Wild hare mating season is Mar/Apr. It is marked by mad mating (not ritual, real 🙂) fights between an unwilling female and a very very very much willing male... After which, if the male is lucky (or good enough fighter), they do the...you know...

The female gets pregnant with 3 or more babies. The gestation period is 41 to 42 days. Baby hares leave their hole within a week...Which means that from Apr/May the fields are full of baby hares, the favourite food of baby golden eagles... 

So if you were from Ancient Elis, the best time to see golden eagle killing hare scene was during the summer, starting from Apr/May until Jul/Aug...Which is the peak thunderstorm season in Peloponnese... 

Here is another coin from Elis, Peloponnese,  ca. 450-440 BC. 

Obverse: Eagle flying, grasping snake with its talons and its beak. 

Reverse: F–A. Thunderbolt with volutes above and wings below

Interesting. Why eagle killing snake?

Believe or not 🙂 this is another animal calendar marker for the thunderstorm season, Apr/May -  Sep/Oct, which is the only time when migratory snake eagles can be seen in Greece hunting snakes... 

I explained it all in this article "Eagle snake struggle".

It is interesting that both of these coins were issued by the same Ancient Greek city state. Deliberate use of animal calendar markers for thunderstorm season?

BTW, I was just reminded of this: Hittite imperial eagle...

The meaning of which we have just discovered, I think...

Two headed eagle normally means eagle mating/nesting season. 

Two hares (two of any animal) means hare mating/birthing season.

Look at the Hittite land in Anatolia in Apr/May...

PS: I talked about the meaning of two headed birds in these articles:

Archaeologists, anthropologists, art historians...studying ancient artefacts depicting animals, are still not sure what these animal symbols mean. And non of them thought to look at the depicted animal's lifecycle for clues...Bactria, 2500-1500BC. I talked about this in my post "Double headed eagle"...

Once I realised that the double headed eagle (vulture) marks Old World Vultures mating season, I checked if the double headed eagles (vultures) symbols from Central America had the same meaning (Vulture mating season). They do...I talked about this in my post "Golden eagles from Costa Rica"...

If double headed eagle (vulture) had the same meaning in different, completely unrelated cultures on different continents and different ages, I wondered if any double headed bird symbol would have the same meaning. Like this one from Easter Island. It does...I talked about this in my post "Birdman from Easter Island"...

To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, which were the key to deciphering all this, 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...