This Roman mosaic floor from Sulcis, Sardinia depicts leopards drinking from a krater for mixing wine and water with a grapevine growing from the krater...
What is this all about? Animal and plant calendar markers...Of course 🙂
Leopard was closely associated with the god Dionysus (Bacchus), god of rebirth (of nature).
Why? Cause leopards, which mate in Jan/Feb, are animal calendar markers for the end of Winter, start of Spring. The time of rebirth of nature...
You can read more about this in my posts "Leopard and tiger"...
Few more Dionysus posts explaining animal and plant calendar markers embedded into his mythology: "Patera of Rennes", "Maenades with hare", "Furious maenad", "Thyrsus"...
Here is another really cool depiction of the same scene with wine mixing krater flanked by two leopards and grape vine growing from it, from a sarcophagus found in Serbia...
The moment of discovery of a Roman stone sarcophagus found inside the crypt decorated with frescoes and mosaics at Beljnjača archaeological site in Šid, Srem region, northern Serbia...
The sarcophagus was dated to 4th c. AD. It was made of white marble from Austrian Alps, probably carved in nearby Roman city of Sirmium, one of the biggest Roman cities of its time with over 100k inhabitants...
The sarcophagus, which was robbed soon after the burial, originally contained remains of a couple, an officer and his wife, who were depicted on the side of the sarcophagus...
The front and back of the sarcophagus were decorated with mythological motifs: panthers around crater with grapevine as elements of Dionysus cult, personifications of the seasons of the year, and Medusa heads...
More about this artefact can be found in these two articles: 1, 2...
So? What does it all mean?
The rain and snow that fall during winter, the time of the year ruled by Dionysus, is what ensures rebirth of nature in Eastern Mediterranean...Where the cult of Dionysus most likely originated...
Levant
Crete
As you can see, the rain falls between the the grape picking (I talked about this in my post "Crocus fairy") which ends before (Oct/Nov)
and the grape flowering (I talked about this in my post "When grapes flower") which starts after (Apr/May)...
And guess what happens in Feb/Mar? Anthesteria, an ancient Greek three-day festival in honour of Dionysus...When the new wine was first drank...
Oh, and guess what else happens in Feb/Mar, when during Anthesteria the new wine was mixed with water in kraters?
Grape vine rebirth.
After it died, after all the leaves fell off at the start of winter, it gets reborn, with new leaves starting to grow at the start of spring...
And so new grape vines growing out of a krater for mixing wine with water, flanked by two (couple of mating) leopards (panthers)...
Neat, I think...
Mixing wine and water in a chalice during a resurrection ritual ... 🤔 Why does that sound so familiar ... 🤔🤔😃.
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