Master of Animals from Tepe Giyan

"Master of Animals" stamp seals, Tepe Giyan, Iran, 5000-4000 BC...

Master of animals? I don't know what that is...What I think is that this is a depiction of an early incarnation of a rain god killing an early incarnation of a dragon...

Let me explain why I think so:

This is the climatic chart of the Kerman province of Iran where Tepe Giyan is located. 

You can see that the climatic year is divided into two halves: 

Hot and dry half (Apr/May-Oct/Nov)

Cool and wet half (Oct/Nov-Apr/May)

It just so happens that in this area, 

Snakes start mating in Apr/May, at the beginning of the dry season. 

Ibex goats start mating in Oct/Nov, at the beginning of the rain season.

As I said many times, snake is a pure solar animal. It is in our world when sun is here (day, hot half of the year) and it is in the underworld when sun is there (night, cold half of the year)...Which is why snake eventually became symbol of sun's heat...I talked about this symbolic link in many of my posts, like:

"The chthonic animal", "Enemy of the sun", "Beotian solar pyxis", "Mystery seal", "Snake god from Hatra", "Goat and snake from Kortik tepe", "Pegasus and Chimera"...

This is this 3rd millennium BC, Bactrian seal depicts the sun god (see heat rays emanating from his shoulders) holding snakes, symbols of sun's heat...See snakes, Solar animals number one, the symbols of sun's heat...I talked about it in my post "Nude winged hero dominating snakes"...

Sun's heat which during the hot, dry half of the year burns the earth and cause drought and death...And that then turns snake into a dragon...

Which is why dragon was depicted on this Tell Asmar seal, dated to 2200 BC, with lion body and 7 snake heads. 

Snake is the symbol of sun's heat. The dragon has 7 snake heads because there were 7 summer months in Mesopotamian calendar. And the dragon has the lion body, because the hottest part of summer is Jul/Aug, Leo. You can read about this in my post "Seven headed dragon"...

The drought which starts in Apr/May (marked by snake animal calendar marker) and which peaks in Jul/Aug (marked by lion/dragon animal calendar marker) finally ends when rains arrive in Oct/Nov (marked by ibex goat animal calendar marker)...

I talked about symbolism of ibex goats in many of my posts, like 

Europe:

"Pitys", "Goat in European culture", "Patera of Rennes"... 

Levant:

"The tree of life/light", "Lachish animal calendar"...

Mesopotamia:

"Feast plaque from Louvre", "Green pastures", "Problems with Abzu", "Relief from Dur Sharrukin", "Goatfish"...

Iran: 

"Flamingos from Susa", "Goat carrier", "Iranian goat of rain", "Strider", "A vessel from Tepe Hissar"...

Eventually, ibex goat animal calendar marker gets deified, anthropomorphised...It gets turned into a human looking god with goat horns...And eventually into a human looking god with goat as his sacred animal (or goat wet nurse 🙂)...

So what we see on this seal from Tepe Giyan is the first phase of deification of the Ibex goat, the transformation of the goat of rain into the god of rain...The drought (snake/dragon) killer...

More goat dudes can be found in my post "Goat petroglyphs from Iran"...

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...