For all the people who forgot who they are

For all the people who forgot who they are when they moved away from home:

"A mountain drove a deer away from its body. The deer went over to another mountain. It grew fat and insolent. It began to curse «back at» the mountain: 'Would that a fire burn up the mountain on which I am grazing! Would that the Storm-god strike it! Would that a fire burn it up!' 

When the mountain heard (thus), it became sick in its heart, and the mountain cursed back at the deer: 'Is the deer that I made fat now cursing back at me? Let the hunters fell the deer, but let the fowlers take it! Let the hunters take its flesh, but let the fowlers take its hide!'

It is not a deer, it is a person. It is that man who ran away from his city and arrived in another land. He would be (sought to be) insolent, and he began to do evil to the city in return, and the gods of the city hold him accursed.'

Leave aside that story! I will tell you another story. Listen to my message. I will tell you a (piece of) wisdom."

One of the parables from the "Song of Release", Middle Hittite text dated to the early 14th century BC. 

The shards with deer were found in a sacrificial pit in the Uşaklı Höyük, 2nd millennium BC Hittite city, which is now believed to be Zippalanda, one of the Early Hittite holy cities...

The pics are from the excavation report published by the University of Pisa which lead the excavation.

Now what are these weird "cupmark" like circles surrounding the deer with full grown antlers?

Symbolic depictions of rain? Remember my article "Lapis manalis"?

Article about the Roman agricultural rituals which link the (thirsty) dead living under (holy) stones, rain and agricultural fertility...And lots of other interesting things...

And this article, "Lapis lazuli water seal", about this Lapis lazuli seal, made between 2400BC and 2000BC in Eastern Iran, which talks about circles being used a symbol for raindrops...

This is the climate chart for the area of Uşaklı Höyük/Zippalanda. You can see that the rains arrive in Oct...

Reed deer antlers become fully grown right in time for the beginning of their mating season, rut, which lasts between late Sep and early Nov, and peaks in Oct. Red deer rut is marked by loud stag mating roars and wild stag fights for females...

This is not something you would easily miss...And just as the red deer mating season gets into the full swing, the rains arrive to Zippalanda...Life giving rains...I talked about deer (antlers) as the symbol for rain/snow/winter in my article "Winter deer"...

Deer figurines, Iran, 14th - 10th century BC...

That's it. To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…Then check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am way way behind...