Anavlochos mountain

This is The Anavlochos mountain range, located in the Lasithi, Crete. This naturally defensible ridge controls the major communication axis linking Central and Eastern Crete...

Between 1200-1100 BC, small settlement sites were scattered all along the ridge. At around 1100 BC most of them have been abandoned and a large settlement that remained continuously occupied until around 650 BC started developing in the highest part of the central valley...

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Archaeologists from the University of Cincinnati, are currently involved in the excavation of the site known as Deposit 1, a bedrock outcrop with deep crevices. 3D animated model of Deposit 1 showing some of the teracottas...

There, they have discovered huge number of figurines and moulded plaques embedded deep in the crevices of the bedrock.

All were depictions of women or female sphinxes...

What is interesting, is that Anavlochos was settled between 1200 and 650 BC. The figurines date between 900 BC and 350 BC, which means that many of them were deposited after people left the settlement..

Which means that people considered the actual ridge bedrock sacred...And sacrificed to it. Or should I say to her...Mother Earth...Cause:

Great pic by @another_barbara Bedrock is in the Balkans known as "živi kamen, živa stena" (living stone, living rock) because it is believed to be still part of the living body of the Mother Earth which gives birth to all life...I talk about this in my post "Living stone"...

Again this ritual deposit site from Crete proves that people saw symbolic link between earth and female fertility. 

Among Slavs, the last sheaf of wheat was commonly called Baba. 

This word means grandmother, mother, midwife, birth giver...In some places the woman binding the last sheaf the last sheaf of wheat is also called Baba...

I talked about this link in my posts "Baba - the last sheaf of wheat" and "Baubo"...

I talked about the link between the veneration mountain peaks and female and earth fertility in Minoan Crete in my post "Sanctuary rhyton", about this amazing rhyton, discovered in the palace of Zakros, the most isolated of all the Minoan Palaces and was dated to 1550-1500 BC. The decoration on the rhyton depicts a "mountain sanctuary". Were these mountain sanctuaries centres of Ibex "goat of rain" cult? 

As we can see, it seems that this veneration continued after the collapse of the Minoan civilisation...

As we can see from the type of figurines deposited in the bedrock, people saw symbolic link between female lactation and earth producing spring water...

How do I know this? Rain, Water magic was among Slavs always female magic. I talked about this in my post "The last megalithic ritual in Europe", about a ritual which was until recently performed during severe draughts in Belarus to appease the Slavic Sun God Dabog (Giving god) who was also known as Daždbog (Rain giving god). 

And in my post about the "Weather stones", stones used in weather magic...

I talked about women being in charge of weather magic in Europe in my post "De Lamiis et Pythonicis Mulieribus" about this depiction of the two witches conjuring a hailstorm from a medieval manuscript on witchcraft. 

BTW, did you know that the sudden climate change which resulted in the medieval mini ice age was blamed on the weather controlling witches and was the excuse for the subsequent witch-hunt? 

I also talk about this in my post "Pozoj" about male and female dragons from Slavic folklore. In South Slavic folklore, it is a female dragon, ala, that brings hailstorms and unseasonably cold, wet weather during summer months, which destroys crops...In South Slavic folklore, cold, wet weather is "feminine"...

So Mother's milk = symbolically = Mother Earth's spring water...

More about Anavlochos excavation project can be found here.

PS: Just remembered I wrote about this a year ago in my post "Goddess of Myrtos" in which I analysed this 3rd millennium Minoan rhyton in the form of a female deity with pitcher.

Goddess of Myrtos

This is the so called "Goddess of Myrtos". Rhyton, in the form of a female deity with pitcher. Found on Crete, near Ierapetra, Fournou Korifi, in the earliest house shrine found on Crete, dated to EM III, 2300-2200 BC. Currently in the Archaeological Museum of Agios Nikolaos, Crete.

The jug the figure is holding is actually a miniature version of actual jugs found during the excavations...

Now I wonder why checkered square design all around the "belly" of the goddess and why checkered pubic triangle? Are these supposed to symbolise fields? Is this another "Mother of grain"?

I talked about this in my post "The oldest Demeter depiction" about Cycladic mother of grain, proto Demeter, dated to the 3rd millennium BC...And in my post "Mother of grain from Mari" about the (most likely) symbolic depiction of Inanna, also dated to the same period in the 3rd millennium BC. 

And the jug...Is this a jug of water? Is this symbolic linking between water and field fertility? I talked about this link in my posts "Minoan bull sacrifice" and "Agia Triada Sarcophagus"...

And in my post "Woman and pitcher" about this interesting vase with ivy and olive wreaths, in white and white flowers on neck. Cyprus, 400–323 B.C Currently in the Met museum...And symbolism linked to start of the rain season...

Or is the pitcher the pitcher of vine? Did Minoans make and drink vine? Most archaeologists concur that this Minoan artefact is one of the earliest depiction of people dancing. 

But is it? Is it people crushing grapes? 

I talk about it in my post "Shield of Achilles"...

I personally think that this is a depiction of a Mother Earth, the provider of both drinking water and grain, and that the jug was a water jug...Why? Because of all this stuff I discovered after I wrote this originally, and which I published in my post "Anavlochos mountain"...

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...

Stork bowl from Kurdistan

A ceramic bowl, covered with flying birds, found in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. Currently in the local Duhok museum. The Pic is from this Facebook post. I don't know who the photographer is...

Now I don't know exactly when the bowl was made. But it is displayed in this display cabinet...

Together with this statuette, which was dated to 4000 BC, so I assume the bowl is from the same period. Stylistically it fits...

I am of course interested in the birds depicted on this vessel. 

After a lot of checking through the lists of birds of Iraq, and a lot of comparing of depicted birds with real birds, I believe that the depicted birds are white storks...

Depicted during their spring migration back to their nesting grounds in North Eastern Iraq...

Storks usually arrive back to their nesting grounds in Mar/Apr and begin their nesting season in Apr/May and the first eggs hatch in May...

Nesting storks are a spectacle, and a very hard thing to miss, so it is possible that storks here are animal calendar markers for Apr/May...A very important part of the year in Mesopotamia...

Apr/May, is the time when the grain harvest  begins in Mesopotamia...

Apr/May is also the time when Tigris, which flows through the area where this stork bowl was found, reaches its peak annual water levels...and floods...

That the depicted birds could in some way be linked to grain agriculture, can be deduced from the fact that they are depicted flying over checkered rectangular surfaces, usually interpreted as fields...

But, who knows...

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...

Peacock and cobra

Chaturbhuj Nala's rock art in Bhanpura, Madhya Pradesh. 

What we see is two peacocks attacking a snake. Peacocks are known to hunt and eat snakes and were kept in palaces for exactly that reason...I think that the dots depicted next to the snake are drops of snake's blood. But does this image have another, non obvious meaning. I think so. And I think that animal calendar markers can help us understand it...

Animal calendar markers are made by people who observed that certain annual animal behaviour, like mating, birthing, migrating, coincides with some climatic event like summer monsoon season...

In India, climatic year is divided into two halves, the wet half of the year, summer monsoon (Apr - Sep) and dry half of the year, winter monsoon (Oct - Mar)...

I talked about deification of the monsoon winds in India in my post "Surya's wives" in which I explained what this commonly depicted scene means. 

This very happy looking dude, with two gorgeous babes sitting on his laps, is no other than the Vedic Sun God Surya. He is positively "beaming" with pride...And I guess pretty glad to have few extra hands...But what is really the narrative here? Well sun and monsoon, dry and wet, of course...

And in my post "Vayu", about the "God of wind" whose name literally means air/wind. But not just any wind. Summer monsoon wind...

The peak monsoon rain season in India is Jun-Sep...

Interestingly, this is also the peak mating season of the peafowls. During this time peacocks engage in mad displays and fights and their mating call even sounds like Hindu for "Come rain!!!"...

Not something local people would easily miss...

Which is why peacock became deified animal calendar marker for summer monsoon rain season. I talked about this in my post "Come rain"...

Inevitable deification of peacock animal calendar marker, process we see everywhere with all animal calendar markers, produced in India these kind of legends: Peacocks originally had dull tail feathers...

But once Indra, the god of monsoon rain, battled the demon Ravana. Indra was losing the fight, and was running away from Ravana when he came across a peacock who spread its tail and hid Indra behind it...

In return from being saved by the peacock, Indra gave a boon to the peacock saying that just as he, Lord Indra is  Sahasraksha, or thousand-eyed, the peacock too shall get a plumage of a thousand iridescent eyes...

Oh, and since then Indra loves peacock so much, that it is believed that when Indra transforms himself into an animal, he becomes a peacock...

Indra is usually depicted riding on a cloud elephant (another deified animal calendar marker)...

Why? Indian elephants mate during Indian monsoon season...

This is another proof that Rig Vedas had to have been written in India proper, cause this link between rain gods and elephants makes no sense anywhere else...

I talk about elephant calendar marker in India in my posts "Musth", "Samantabhadra", "Modesty", "Ganesha"...

But Indra's main general, Kartikeya, rides on a peacock...I will talk about Kartikeya in a separate post soon...

Also, because this overlap between peafowl mating season and the monsoons season, Makara, the mount of the old monsoon god Varuna, but really a complex animal calendar marker for the monsoon season, sometimes has peacock tail...Talked about it in my posts "Makara", "Yakshi", "Maruts"...

But what about the snake?

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)...

I talked about this in many of my posts listed here: 

I so far didn't write about snake animal calendar marker in Indian mythology, something which is way overdue. Will try to do this soo...I promise...

But what snake is depicted between the two peacocks on the Chaturghuj Nala's rocks? If I was a betting man, I would bet it is the Indian Cobra (Naja naja). 

Why? Because it has a mating season in India between April and July...During rain monsoon...

During this period, the female Indian Cobra lays eggs in holes in the ground and then guards them. The incubation period lasts for approximately 48 to 69 days, after which eggs hatch into young snakes that are independent from birth and capable of hunting and delivering venom...

Again, all the things not easily missed by the local population...

So, during the monsoon season, both peacock and cobra have their mating seasons and are because of that both animal calendar markers for the monsoon season...

In the Arthashastra, an Ancient Indian Sanskrit treatise on statecraft, politics, economic policy and military strategy, when the author wants to talk about two natural enemies forgetting their ancient hostility in the face of a common calamity, he says:

The peacock and the cobra are natural enemies. But during the heat of the summer, the cobra lives in the shade of the peacock’s wing...

I believe that this is both political and calendaric allegory...

And so back to the original depictions of peacocks attacking a cobra from the Chaturghuj Nala's rock art. What I think is depicted here is triumph of summer monsoon (peacock) over sun (snake), where the drops of snake's blood represent rain...

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...

Come rain

Male peafowls defend their territory from rival males during the mating season. 

Peafowl mating season peaks between Jun and Aug, the monsoon season. Hence peacock as an animal calendar marker for the monsoon season...

It is during the mating season that peacocks (male peafowl) dance (parade around with their tails spread) showing off in front of the females...

Peacock pics are from the article "All About The Indian Peafowl".

Which is why in Ritusamhara we read that:

"For this bird, the rainy season serves as a period of jubilant activity, when it extends its tail (feathers) and indulges in the dance. The rains serve as an inducement to this bird for indulging in its exalted dance..."

"The beauty of mountains streaked everywhere with waterfalls, while their high rocks were kissed by the stooping clouds, and their sides presented a gorgeous chaos of peacocks."

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The author of the Mayoora Doota exclaims:

"When the showers rain, you dance with delight. Even the gods take pleasure in observing your dance without twinkling their eyelids..."

Even the peacock mating call sounds like Hindu for "Come rain!!!"...

Because this overlap between peafowl mating season and the monsoons season, Makara, the mount of the old monsoon god Varuna, but really a complex animal calendar marker for the monsoon season, sometimes has peacock tail...Talked about it in my post "Makara"...

Peacocks as animal calendar marker are also present in Iran. A Sassanian dish, 400-600AD, Iran, Currently in Al Thani collection...I talk about it in my post "Rainbows and peacocks" about rain, rainbows and peacocks and the goddess Anahita, Zoroastrian goddess of water and fertility...

Peafowl mating season is Mar-Sep with peak Jun-Aug...Look at the snowmelt diagram for Iranian rivers...Hence the link between Anahita and peacocks...

Just like in India the monsoon rain and floods bring rebirth of nature, in Iran spring rain and floods bring rebirth of nature.

Both are linked to mating (dancing and fighting) peacocks...

Ever wondered why two peacocks drinking water surrounded with greenery are Christian symbol of resurrection, rebirth? 🙂

PS: Peacock, symbol of the resurrection of Christ makes a lot more sense if...

If Christ is life, living nature, then his immaculate conception and virgin birth become easy to understand...From my post "Living nature" about the nature of Christ...

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...