Threshing floor of Apollo

Threshing floor, Naxos, Greece...

Today, while reading "Delphi and Cosmovision: Apollo's Absence At the Land of the Hyperboreans and the Time for Consulting the Oracle", I discovered that Delphic calendar started with the month of Apellaios, the month dedicated to Apollo. As you would expect it to be in Delphi, The Apollo Central...

But what I didn't expect to see is that in Delphi, Apellaios started with the first new moon after summer solstice, which means that this month of Apollo basically covered Jul/Aug, Leo...Why? Cause this is another confirmation that Apollo was indeed, like I suggested, Nergal...

Who's Nergal? This dude:

Nergal, the deified destructive "burning" sun, was depicted as a lion man, because Jul/Aug, Leo, is the hottest and driest part of the year in Mesopotamia...

Talked abut him in my post "Winged superhuman hero", "Palil", "Lord of flies", "Angra Mainyu"...and many other...

In Greece, the "terrible" sun, Shamash as Nergal,  became Apollo. The "terrible" sun god Apollo..."As he [Apollo] goes through the house of Zeus, the gods tremble before him and all spring up from their seats when he draws near, as he bends his bright bow". This is an excerpt from the Homeric "Hymn to Delian Apollo"... 

I explained why Apollo was so terrible, and why everyone was so scared shitless when he was around, in my post "Lions of Delos" about the lions from the 600 BC Temple of Apollo from Delos. 

No wonder then that this month of the terrible Apollo was also the main time to perform Hekatomb, the sacrifice of 100 bulls to Apollo, the (Lion/Dragon) god...

Lion killing bull...The scene we see depicted all over the Old World, with no explanation...Like on this coin from Cilicia, Tarsos Mazaios Satrap 361-334BC...Autumn (starts in Leo) ends (kills) summer (starts in Taurus)...

The animal calendar marker marking Jul/Aug, Nergal time.

Some posts that talk about the meaning of the "Lion killing bull" scene:  "Mystery seal", "Cypriot stamp seal with cow and calf", "Black basalt stone of Esarhaddon", "Angra Mainyu", "Bull leaping in Syria", "Adda seal", "Lion killing bull under date palm", "Butt chewing"...

Those wondering why Apollo, the Dragon god...Check my post "Marble throne of Apollo" out. 

Marble Throne of Apollo, Roman, late 1st c. AD. Currently in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art 

Whoever made this, knew who Apollo really was and wanted to show Apollo in his true shape (serpent, dragon), sitting on his throne. 

Anyway, why did I start this post with a picture of a threshing floor? Because the word Apellaios is derived from the Doric word apella (ἀπέλλα) which originally meant wall, enclosure of stones, and later assembly of people within the limits of this enclosure...

Threshing floors (circular walled enclosures) were used as communal gathering places until recently. So I wonder if the original "apellas" took place on threshing floors? I talked about it in my posts "Shield of Achilles", "Oro", "Bogovo gumno, God's threshing floor"...

Threshing floors were also used as solar observatories, and The First Temple in Jerusalem, which later, according to the Jewish sources, turned out to be a solar temple, most likely dedicated to Shamash, was built on a threshing floor.

If you wanted to make a (First) Temple on a Threshing Floor, and "orient" it (make it to face east), if you wanted to make a "House of God" to face the "House of (Sun) God", how would you do it?

I taled about this in my posts "Sun god from the first temple", "Boaz and Jachin", "The tree of life/light", "Menorah from Nipur"...

Threshing floors were also used as ceremonial platforms. I talked about this in my post "Sacred marriage on the threshing floor" and "Jerusalem of gold".

 And so it is not surprising that in Delphi we also find a sacred threshing floor.

This threshing floor (Halos), marks the spot where Apollo killed Python. Did Apollo (sun god) kill Python (solar snake) on a threshing floor (solar observatory)? Anyways, this threshing floor was the place where plays honouring Apollo were staged.

This threshing floor was also the place where Septerion, the ritual re-enactment of the murder of Python by Apollo, took place once every eight years.

"According to Plutarch’s testimony, the Septerion was celebrated not long before the Pythian Games, and if we take into account that the koros that performed Apollo had to travel from Delphi to Tempe, and then return with the laurel of the crowns that were awarded to the victors, it is most likely that it began on a date close to the summer solstice. At this time of the year, the solar alignment could have been used as part of the staging, something that is particularly noticeable in the ritual episodes that were celebrated in the Threshing Floor (ἅλως)...  

This place, which at the beginning of the Grande Fouille was erroneously associated with the circular space under the terrace of the Temple of Apollo («l’Aire»), has recently been located some five hundred meters further west..."

"...Its conditions seem to indicate that the Delphians actually used it for threshing and winnowing grain, which reinforces the festival’s connection with the rites of harvest propitiation and grain purification. 

Here, a young man or koros representing Apollo arrived at dawn from a road that probably came from the Castalian spring, escorted by a group of torchbearers, just at the moment when the sun was rising behind him from the top of the hills of the Phaedriades. The road crossed the Sanctuary, the altar and the Temple of Apollo, went through the SD 435 entrance, passed by the place where in the second half of the 4th century BCE the West Portico was built, and finally led to the great terrace of the Threshing Floor. 

Our sources do not clarify what was the origin of this road (called the Dolonia), but there are many reasons to believe that it came from the Castalian Spring, where the ritual would have begun with a staging of the combat of Apollo against the Serpent. Once on the Threshing Floor, the young man and his escort of torchbearers burned a hut, overturned a ritual table, and fled from the Sanctuary towards the Valley of Tempe. It was here that the young man, following in the footsteps of Apollo, celebrated the rites of purification, crowned himself with laurel, and began his triumphal return to Delphi, carrying with him the laurel of the crowns that were given to the victors of the Pythian Games... "

From: The Theophania of Apollo: a New Approach to the Proem of Parmenides and the Topography of the Sanctuary of Delphi

Hmmm...According to Hesiod threshing in Greece took place around the time of the summer solstice. I talked about this in my post "Hesiod on grain". Which is why the new year started right after that, during the month of Apollo...

Apellaios, Jul/Aug, Leo, when, according to "Pindar's Paeans: A Reading of the Fragments with a Survey of the Genre", Septerion ritual took place, right before the start of the Pythian games, which took place in August...

BTW, what did that hut, that was supposed to represent Python's lair, look like? No one knows...Like this I presume? 

Like a bonfire...

Like bonfires still lit all over Europe around Summer Solstice...

Sometimes with the solar wheel placed on top of it...Talked about it in my post "Burning rolling wheel" 

So, in Jul/Aug, the hottest time of the year in Greece, Greeks celebrated the victory of the (destructive) Sun God Apollo over a dragon (symbol of the destructive sun's heat) by lighting a bonfire 🙂, on a threshing floor (solar observatory) using torches...🙂 Funny that...

You might also like my post about the black and white ravens of Apollo, another strange Apollo legend which has its parallel in Nergal legends and which can only be explained through animal calendar markers. 

In this post you will find that "the gates of hell" in Mesopotamia were guarded by twins, linked to Gemini constellation, and "closely related to Nergal"...

Just like Dioskuri who guard Summer Solstice, the gates of Apellaios, Jul/Aug, Time of Apollo, the Scary God of art and music and healing...Apparently...

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...