Camel and buffalo

Plaque with Bactrian Camel, North China, 2nd–1st century B.C., North China, Gilt bronze...

E what about the buffalo head? Anyone? Let's try animal calendar markers...

Both wild bactrian camel and wild buffalo are animal calendar markers pointing to the same time of the year, Oct/Nov, because both species start mating in Oct/Nov...

This is an article about Bactrian camel, and how it became a calendar marker for Oct/Nov and winter in general in Bactria... 

This is an article about animal calendar markers (including Bactrian camel) depicted on this Bronze mirror found in the Volga River region, Russia, and dated to the 8th-7th century BC...

In this article I explain (using animal calendar markers) why on this Roman mosaic from Tunisia, dated to 2nd century AD we see Dionysus riding a lion, followed by Silenus riding a camel, followed by a leopard on a leash...

I first talked about buffalo as an animal calendar marker for Oct/Nov, in this article about Asura (demon) Mahisha whose name means buffalo. Oct/Nov marks the start of the dry season. He is killed by Durga, riding on a lion (Leo, Jul/Aug, peak monsoon season)...

This animal calendar could have already been mythologised in Indus Valley civilisation...I talked about this in this article about this 3rd mill BC Harappan tablet...  

I then talked about buffalo as an animal calendar marker for Oct/Nov with positive connotation (Mesopotamia has the opposite climate to India, so Oct/Nov marks start of wet season) in this article about this cool Akkadian seal...

And in this article about this Akkadian cylinder seal from the 3rd millennium BC, where buffalos are depicted drinking from a jar overflowing with water... 

I also talked about buffalo as an animal calendar marker containing both Mesopotamian and Indian meanings associated with buffalo in this article about this 5th c. BC Achaemenid cylinder seal...

And in this article about this 3rd millennium BC seal from Hurian city of Urkesh, Syria with two opposite calendar markers, equid and buffalo...

Finally I talked about buffalo and tiger animal calendar markers in this article about this 13-11 c. BC bronze figurine of wild water buffalo with a tiger on its back from Hunan...

As I said, "All our mythologies are the result of the fact that people are very good at noticing patterns in nature while simultaneously being very bad at distinguishing between correlation and causation 🙂"

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...

Mother of grain from Otok

In Otok near Senj, Croatia, a very interesting ritual was performed at the end of the harvest until mid 20th century 

The last sheaf of wheat harvested from a field was stood upright. All male harvesters would then stick their sickles into it. They would then  all kneel around the sheaf and pray to the "lady" thanking her for the harvest 

Then the oldest woman would put her hand all the way through the sheaf and would grab a handful of soil from under it. This soil was then tied into a handkerchief and later used as a cure for uterus problems. It was diluted in water given to the sick woman to drink 

Clearly a thanks giving ritual performed for Mother Earth, otherwise known as The Lady. In South Slavic folklore (mother) earth fertility and (mother) female fertility was always linked and was believed to influence each other 

This same Lady, was represented by the Corn dollies which were made from the last sheaf. They were preserved in homes during the winter, and the seads from the corn dollies were the first sawn next spring. 

It was believed that this last sheaf contained the "corn spirit" the fertile power of Mother Earth...Which farmers depended on for their survival.

Source: "Ivo T. Franić, JUGOSLOVJENSKA ŽETVA, Običaji i obredi s uporedbama"

You can read more about Slavic beliefs and rituals related to grain in my posts "Wheat cross", "Diduch", "Walking sheafs of wheat", "Cock bashing", "The old woman of the milldust", "Wheat wreath", "Sowing", "Can you see me", "Babji mlin", "Bogovo gumno"...

This is just a continuation of the ancient "Mother of grain" cult which originated in the Fertile Crescent in early Neolithic...

Articles about the Mother of grain in Neolithic Europe, Central Asia, Mesopotamia, Iran, Levant: "Mother of grain" "Altyn Tepe mother of grain", "A person in little boat", "Sabi Abyad venus", "Hathor grain pendant"...

Zawi Chemi Shanidar

AI prompt: A prehistoric Iranian man, wearing griffin vulture wings on his back and a headdress with ibex horns, standing in a mountain landscape, under dark clouds, holding a long wooden staff.

You are probably all going WTF? 

Ever heard of Zawi Chemi Shanidar?

Zawi Chemi Shanidar was a small settlement located in the Northern Mesopotamia, dating to the late 10th or early 9th mill BC...

It was built and used by the people of the so called Karim Shahir Culture, named after the Karim Shahir archaeological site...

The people of this culture shared many cultural traits with the people of the Natufian culture...

The excavations of the site took place in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Sickles, grinding stones, and querns were found during the excavation testify to the wide use of wild cereals and possible early cereal domestication, basically agriculture...

There is also evidence that by the end of the Zawi Chemi Shanidar's occupation, the residents had domesticated sheep...Basically we are talking about the evidence of Hunter Gatherers evolving into Farmers...You can read more about Zawi Chemi Shanidar in "The Proto-Neolithic People of Zawi Chemi Village and Shanidar Cave in the Western Zagros Highlands"...

This is the area from where "Gods brought grain to Sumer". I talked about this in my post about the Sumerian legend "How grain came to Sumer", which turns out to describe exactly how grain came to Sumer from the north, and which have been over 6000 years old when it was first written down...

Anyway, this is not the most interesting thing about Zawi Chemi Shanidar. There is one discovery that makes this site stand out among other Fertile Crescent sites. During the excavations, a structure was found that appears to have been for religious purposes...

And we believe that this is indeed some kind of a temple, because next to it, archaeologists found a ritual deposit composed of at least 15 skulls of goats and the articulated wing bones of at least 17 huge predator birds, vultures, eagles and a bustard. You can read more about it in "Birds of prey in prehistory and early history"...

Knife marks on the bird bones indicate that they had been carefully cut from the birds. The archaeologists interpreted these wings as part of ritual costumes. The goat skulls were thought to be part of the paraphernalia of the ritual...

But what kind of ritual, no one knows...And so "A prehistoric Iranian man..." This is not just me dreaming up shit. 6000 years later, in the same part of the world, we find this: Proto-Elamite dude with Ibex goat horns cap, Vulture wings cape, and very schmancy shoes...

As I said in my article "Strider", to understand the real meaning of this Proto Elamite figurine, we need to look at the climate in Iran, and at the lifecycles of Ibex goats and Vultures...

The same thing will help us understand the strange find from Zawi Chemi Shanidar. So let's start with climate, which is pretty much the same in Iraq and Iran.

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

Hot, dry half, Apr/May - Oct/Nov

Cold, wet half, Oct/Nov - Apr/May

Now if you are a farmer in the part of Iraq and Iran which don't lie in the flood plains, then you are totally dependant on rain to water your fields, and the arrival of the rain in Oct/Nov is probably the most important event in your agricultural year.

This is because it is after the first rains that you can start sowing your grain...

And right at that time, in Oct/Nov, Ibex goats start mating...The mating is marked by vicious male goat fights for females...

Coincidence that a good hunter gatherer could't miss...

And as I said before: Mythology is a result of people being very good at noticing patterns in nature and very bad at distinguishing between correlation and causation.

How long do you think it took the first farmers to start believing that it was mating ibex that brought rain?

I first talked about this in my post "A vessel from Tepe Hissar", about this amazing Neolithic vessel from Tepe Hisar. 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...

The rain (brought by the goat of rain) is what supports (the tree of) life in Iran, Iraq, Levant, Eastern Mediterranean, Central Asia...All the areas with the same climate...And the same ibex goat behaviour...

Which is why in all these places we find ibexes flanking the tree of life. I talked about this in my post "Bactrian Bronze Age menorah"...

Hence, I believe, all the goat heads found next to the Zawi Chemi Shanidar temple. And the goat horns headdress I proposed...

BTW the goat dude seems to have been a thing in the border area between Iraq and Iran for thousands of years.

2000 years before the Proto Elamite goat dude

"Master of Animals" stamp seals, Tepe Giyan, Iran, 5000-4000 BC...From my post "Master of Animals from Tepe Giyan"

Which depicts the eternal struggle between the rain goat (mating of goats marks the beginning of the rain season) and the sun serpent/dragon (mating of snakes marks the beginning of the drought season)...

2000 years after the Proto Elamite goat dude

Dancing goat men, 8th–7th century BC. Luristan, Iran...From my post "Dancing goat men from Luristan"...

Just for completeness, the Zawi Chemi Shanidar goat dudes could have held the goat head mounted on a staff, instead of wearing ibex horns on their headdress...

Or they could have both worn the ibex horns headdress and held ibex goat head mounted on a staff...

If you are interested, you can find pile of articles about ibex, the goat of rain, goat of winter, animal calendar marker for Oct/Nov-Jan/Feb in these articles from my blog...

Now what about the raptors?

All the raptors whose wings were found next to the Zawi Chemi Shanidar temple, are either resident species which mate during the winter/spring rain season or are migratory species which spend winter/spring rain season in the Zawi Chemi Shanidar area...

Bearded vulture, resident, mating during the winter

Griffon vulture, resident, mating during the winter

White tailed sea eagle, winter visitor

Great bustard, winter visitor

Unidentified small eagles??? Could be winter visitors as well...Like steppe eagle

How long do you think it took people from this part of the world to arrive to this: Sumerian god Ningirsu, the oldest thunder god we know by name (?), was in the earliest times imagined as a huge black bird, with outstretched wings...

I talked about this in my post "Eagle dance"...

Eagle dance:

Montenegro 1963AD

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...

Did they already have this religious idea formed at the time when all those raptor wings were deposited with the goat heads next to the Zawi Chemi Shanidar temple?

I believe so...

Again, for completeness, maybe the the Zawi Chemi Shanidar goat dudes weren't actually goat dudes. Maybe they were eagle dudes, who held the ibex goats (heads or maybe whole goats) in their hands, like this?

Is this the same idea, 7000 years later?

A Kassite period (1595-1155 BC) seal depicting a "bird-demon" 🙂, holding two ibexes, by their hind legs. 

Found in Iraq, UChicago, A29439. The description reads: "Marduk, great lord, on the servant who reverences you show mercy."

What is really depicted here?

I talked about this seal in my post "Kassite bird demon"...

You can read more about vultures and eagles as animal calendar markers linked to rain and thunder in these posts from my blog...

Sooo....What do you think?

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...

Dewy head

"Greetings to the hair of your head, spun like silk,

and to your head with its curly locks,

O George, star brighter than (other) stars!

May the ointment of his dewy head refresh me every morning,

like the rain of grace a thirsty field!"

This is one stanza of the liturgical poem መልክአ፡ ጊዮርጊስ፡, "The Image of George". This genre of poems praises the body parts of a saint from the head and down to the feet...

Ethiopia, 18th c.

I want to thank @ArtEthiopic for all his hard work promoting amazing Ethiopian religious art...

And I want to add few comments that might explain the last two verses:

"May the ointment of his dewy head refresh me every morning, like the rain of grace a thirsty field..."

Rains arrive to Ethiopia in Mar/Apr...Right on time for St Georges day...Full blown monsoon starts in Jun...You can read about Ethiopian climate here...

Interestingly, in Serbian Orthodox calendar, the beginning and the end of the "Time of Dragons", the hot sunny half of the year, is marked (guarded) by Two Georges, Summer and Winter St George('s day)...In Ethiopia, the climate is the opposite to the one in Serbia...I wrote about this in my post "Two Georges"...

Speaking of dew, this also might be of interest:

Irish riddle

Q: I wash my face in water that has never rained nor run, and dry it in a towel that was never wove on spun   

A: A face washed in Mayday dew and dried in the open air.  

The same tradition is in the Balkans linked to St George's day, Jurjevo. 

On the morning of St George's day, girls would go to fields to wash their faces in dew, so that they are beautiful all year round. Recorded in Skopska Crna Gora region of Macedonia.

This ritual was widespread among Serbs too, where dew bathing was done on the so called "herb Friday", the last Friday before St George's day, when medicinal herbs were also collected because people believed that they were the most potent on that day. This would explain why washing your face with the morning dew collected from these the plants on that morning was also the most beneficial...I talked about this in my posts "Morning dew" and "Jani", "Parilia"...

Many other traditions which are in Celtic parts of Europe linked to Beltane, 1st of May, are in the Balkans linked to St George's day, indicating that these two calendar markers are one and the same...

Hummingbird war god

Today I would like to talk about Huitzilopochtli, the scary war god of the scary warriors of the Aztec/Mexica tribe. And an astonishing fact that he is basically a deified hummingbird...

Yup, you heard it right. The scary hummingbird war god...

Huitzilopochtli was the patron god of the Aztec/Mexica tribe and their capital city Tenochtitlan. He was also the sun god. The one that had to be constantly fed human blood and hearts (seat of fire), or he would lose his strength and the world would end. You can read more about the Aztec human sacrifices here...

He was the one because of whom Aztecs fought the eternal holy war whose only purpose was capturing sacrificial victims for Huitzilopochtli...

The scary blood thirsty hummingbird war god...

In art and iconography Huitzilopochtli is represented either as a hummingbird or as an anthropomorphic figure with blue-green hummingbird feathered helmet...

His name, Huitzilopochtli, consists of two elements, Huitzilin "hummingbird" and opochtli "left hand side", translats as "Hummingbird of the left hand side" or "Hummingbird of the south" on the basis that Aztec cosmology associated the south with the left hand side of the body...

Soooo...If you learned that the war god of the Aztec/Mexica was a deified hummingbird, wouldn't you go "WHY?!?"

I know I would. Obviously some other people also found this intriguing. And they thought about it. And...

The only proposed explanation that I could find is that "Aztecs believed the bravest warriors were reincarnated as hummingbirds. Because of this, a more appropriate translation of Huitzilopochtli would be "Reincarnated Warrior of the South"...

This, apparently, fits the Aztec belief that "Huitzilopochtli was conceived after his mother, Coatlicue, the Earth Mother goddess, a charming lady about whom I will write more soon, placed in her bosom a ball of hummingbird feathers (the soul of a warrior) that fell from the sky"...

Huitzilopochtli already had many [innumerable] older brothers [southern stars]  and an older sister [moon]. Because they were angry about the way Huitzilopochtli was conceived (?), they decided to kill both him and their mother...

But, hearing of the attack, the pregnant Coatlicue miraculously gave birth to a fully grown and armed Huitzilopochtli [sun, burning with anger and fury and armed with the fire serpent, his deadly main weapon]...

Huitzilopochtli fought ferociously, defended himself and his mother, killed dismembered and decapitated his sister and chased his brothers across the sky southwards...

According to Aztecs, this is why we get day and night because Huitzilopochtli, the sun, continues to chase his brothers, the stars, around and around the world...But there is more to this story as you will see soon. 

Soooo...Happy with this explanation? It all makes sense? This would all make a lot more sense if we knew why were "the bravest warriors reincarnated as hummingbirds" and why was Huitzilopochtli specifically the "hummingbird of the south"...

Well, let's have a look at the hummingbirds and their lifecycle to see if there is any overlap between significant annual lifecycle events of the hummingbirds and the Aztec/Mexica war season...

Cause Huitzilopochtli sure looks like deified animal calendar marker. And as you will see, he is indeed a deified animal calendar marker for the Aztec/Mexica war season...

I have already shown in this article, that all the animals and plants from the Aztec legend about the foundation of Tenochtitlan and Huitzilopochtli's role in it are indeed animal and plant calendar markers...

And I have also shown in this article, that the starfish found as offerings in the temple dedicated to the god of war, Huitzilopochtli, in the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan are also animal calendar markers...

So I can bet that hummingbird is no different.

The climatic year in Mexico is divided into dry and wet halves, and so Aztec year was divided into two "opposite" seasons: farming (wet) season, Apr/May-Oct/Nov, and war (dry) season, Oct/Nov-Apr/May...

Huitzilopochtli ruled the war (dry) season, Oct/Nov-Apr/May. I would even suggest that he was deified war season. This is why the Panquetzaliztli festival which was held every year during the Aztec month Panquetzaliztli (Nov 9 to Nov 28), celebrated the (miraculous) birth of Huitzilopochtli...

Guess what ends in Oct/Nov? Southern migration of hummingbirds, who in their millions arrive to Mexico from the north, from Canada and the USA, between Aug and Oct...

BTW, Aztecs believed that North was the location of the land of the dead. Hence the brave dead warrior souls arriving from the land of the dead (north) to the land of the living (south) in a form of a hummingbird...

The arrival of the hummingbirds (warrior souls) signals the change of season from wet season of agriculture and life, to dry season of war and death (impregnates Mother Earth with war god) which springs out of her womb fully grown and armed and ready for war every Oct/Nov...

This indicates that Huitzilopochtli, the hummingbird of the south, was the deified sunny/dry/war season, Oct/Nov-Apr/May, the time which all the hummingbirds spend down south, in the land of the living...

Which is why Aztecs celebrated Huitzilopochtli's birthday every year in Nov...

BTW, the birthday cake baked for Huitzilopochtli was a statue of the god made with sacred amaranth seeds dough. 

Amaranth seeds are harvested in Nov...

After a ritual battle in which warriors "captured" and dismembered the amaranth-dough figure of Huitzilopochtli, the warriors took the dough pieces home to their families to be ritually consumed.

Another, this time plant, calendar marker for the start of the war season...

One other thing. Right around amaranth harvest and the Huitzilopochtli's birthday, in Nov, the Southern Stars, including Southern Cross, become visible from the Aztec land just before dawn. As the sun rises, they move towards, and finally disappear in the southern sky...

They are then visible in the night sky until Jun, until it's time to plant amaranth. So again a calendar marker. The time during which Huitzilopochtli chases his brothers, the southern stars, is the same period ruled by (deified as) Huitzilopochtli: the sunny/dry/war season...

Anyway I will stop here. In my next post I will talk about Huitzilopochtli as the burning sun god...And why he is armed with a "fire serpent", as all burning sun gods should...

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...