Gisgis relief

The other day @Anatolian2023 alerted me to this amazing artefact: The Gisgis relief, a 2900 years old relief located on a hard-to-reach south facing cliff within the borders of the village of Gisgis in Diyarbakır's Ergani district in Turkey. You can read more about this relief in this article...

The relief depicts a king facing a procession of gods. From left to right: 

Ishtar on a lion.

Moon god Sin, symbolically depicted with the crescent moon standard, on "a complex creature".

Sun god Shamash, symbolically depicted with the winged sun standard, on a bull.

So why is this relief so "amazing"? Cause this is another complex animal calendar, which divides the year into three parts, and confirms what I have stated in my article "Moon god Nana/Sin" about why the god Sin was so important to Mesopotamians. 

In short, for the lazy ones, I postulated that the god Sin was the god of the "Wet moon", the moon of the wet, cool, half of the year in Mesopotamia, Oct/Nov-Apr/May...

And this relief actually confirms this. But to see how, we need to look at the animal mounts of the gods in the procession as animal calendar markers...

Let's start with Lion: Lion marks the period Jul/Aug, which is when the main mating season of Eurasian lions, which once lived in Levant, Mesopotamia and Persia, starts...

This is why Ishtar stands on a lion:

For those who will say "Ishtar was the morning star", yes she was, in Leo (Jul/Aug), when Sirius rose in the morning with the sun...Which is why Ishtar stands on a lion (with sun above the lion) and why Ishtar is known as "The Lioness of heaven"...

For those who say Inanna/Ishtar is Venus and not Sirius. This article, "Sirius the mother of Venus" and linked articles might be of interest...

Apart from being the symbol for Jul/Aug, lion is also the symbol for Autumn, Jul/Aug-Oct/Nov, the main mating season of the Eurasian lions...

One of many Lion (autumn, starts in Leo) killing Bull (summer, starts in Taurus) scenes found all over Eurasia, this one depicted on the wall of the Great Mosque of Diyarbakir the oldest mosque in Anatolia.

Some articles that analyse artefacts which contain this animal calendar marker and related symbols: "Mystery seal", "Angra mainyu", "Bull leaping in Syria", "Lion killing bull under date palm", "Butt chewing"...

Then we have the "complex creature", which has scorpion tail, hind legs with claws like those of birds of prey, wings and [my suggestion, not clear] feline [leopard] head and front legs. This "complex creature" is of course a complex animal calendar marker...They all are...

Scorpion is an animal calendar marker for Oct/Nov, the beginning of the wet, cool half of the year, because this is when scorpions disappear from the fields and appear in people's homes...

I talked about this in my post "Angra Mainyu". 

The old Sumerian summer, the 7 headed dragon, can be depicted using animal calendar markers like this too: starts in Apr/May, Bull head, Taurus, peaks in Jul/Aug, Lion body, Leo and ends in Oct/Nov, Scorpion tail/Eagle wings and talons, Scorpio/Eagle...

Eagle/Vulture, is the animal calendar marker for the beginning of the vulture mating season, Oct/Nov...

Which is also the beginning of the wet season in Mesopotamia...

I talked about this first in my article "Double headed eagle" about this amazing silver gilt cast shaft-hole axe head, made between 2500-1500 BC in the area along the Oxus and Murghab rivers in modern Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan...

And I talked about this in my post "Eagle dance" about the "Eagle dance", Syria, 1800BC...

Eagle (vulture) couples dance above the mountains at the beginning of their mating season, which coincides with the beginning of the rain season in Fertile Crescent...

And in my post "Kassite seal with Apkallu", aout this mad Kassite seal, where we see two headed eagle spewing water from the sky.  Originally people believed that rains were brought by the rain god, who was in Bronze Age Mesopotamia imagined as huge black eagle...

And in many other articles. So together the eagle and scorpion mark the beginning of winter, Oct/Nov, and winter as a whole, Oct/Nov-Jan/Feb. Hence Eagle-Scorpion dude...

"On this seal, a bird-man with a scorpion tail aims a bow and arrow at a winged lion-griffin standing on a hillock". 

I have to say I love this description. It says that officially they have no idea what this all means...

But "we" actually do. I it winter killing autumn...I talked about this in my article "Scorpion man". BTW, I talked about the origin of Griffin as an animal calendar marker for autumn, in my article "Origin of griffins"...

Now why do I think the front of the "complex creature" is leopard? Because winter is followed by spring, and spring starts in Jan/Feb, when Eurasian leopards mate. I talked about this in my article "Mosaic floor from Sulcis, Sardinia", about this mosaic which depicts leopards drinking from a krater for mixing wine and water with a grapevine growing from the krater...

And in my article "The oldest narrative scene" about this 11,000 years old relief from Anatolian Neolithic that no one can interpret...

And in my article "A vessel from Tepe Hissar", about this neolithic vessel which 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... 

And in many other articles. So leopard marks the beginning of spring, Jan/Feb, and spring as a whole, Jan/Feb-Apr/May.

Together Scorpion/Eagle/Leopard, mark the cool, wet season, Winter/Spring, Oct/Nov-Apr/May, the time of the "Wet moon" god Sin...

The Scorpion/Eagle/Leopard is followed by a bull. Bull which is an animal calendar marker for Apr/May.

Silver stater from Korkyra. Circa 510-480 BC. A sun above a cow suckling her calf. Summer sun. Summer starts in Apr/May, in Taurus, when wild Eurasian cows started calving...

I talked about this in many of my posts, like "Cow and calf ivory", "Foundation peg of the goddess Nanshe", "Elamite water bull"...

Apr/May, Taurus, marks the beginning of summer, Apr/May-Jul/Aug. Hence, A Sumerian song exclaims: "Hero emerging from the holy interior of heaven...the great wild bull, youthful Utu [Shamash, the sun god], who like a torch illuminates the Land from the holy heavens..."

And another one says:

In "Enki and the world order" we can reed that: "Enki placed in charge of the whole of heaven and earth the hero, the youth Utu (Shamash), the bull standing triumphantly, audaciously, majestically..."

Triumph, Taurus, Peak of the Flood, Leo, End of the flood. I talked about this in my post "Butt chewing"...

There is also this

Maran (Lord) Shamash (Sun) with bull horns, the main god of Hatra, an ancient city in Mesopotamia, whose full name was Hatra (Temple) Shamash (Sun)...

Maran...Like Maran-Atha (Our Lord - has come) from the bible? Which lord? Golden calf. Sun in Taurus. 

I talked about this in my post "Maran"...

And this

This is one of the most interesting seals I have ever seen. It was found in the 3rd mil. BC layers of the scribal quarters of Nippur. And it depicts Shamash, The Sun God (the central light of the Menorah) between two bulls (means in Taurus, Apr/May). 

I talked about this in my post "Menorah from Nipur"...

And I talked about this in many other articles...

So bull marks the beginning of summer, Apr/May, and the summer as a whole, Apr/May-Jul/Aug...

And so...It seems that the symbols representing Ishtar (left), Sin (centre) and Shamash (right), as depicted on the upper half of a kudurru of Meli-Shipak II and many other artefacts, are not ordered randomly after all...

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...