Mamaragan

Adad, Mesopotamian storm god, holding an axe and lightning bolt...How old is this association between storm (thunder) gods an (stone) axes? How about at least 40,000 years?

I tried to explain the association between thunder gods and (stone) axes in my post "Jack and the magic beans"..

In which I proposed that some of our myths about sky gods are in fact very very old scientific theories which tried to explain the available observed phenomena in the best possible way with the knowledge of the universe people possessed at that time...Like if giant stones are falling from the sky, there must be a giant (sky god) throwing them from up there on our heads...

These stones that fall from the sky then became "thunder bolts" and "thunder stones" and "petrified lightnings". 

At the end of my post "Kataibates", about stone thunder axes from European folklore tradition, I asked how old this tradition could be...

I suggested that this link between a stone, more specifically flint axes, and thunder gods, already existed in the 4th millennium BC Europe...I explained why I thought so in my post "Sun stones" in which I talked about exploding flint axes...

But then I saw this picture of Namarrkon/Mamaragan, the storm "god" from Aboriginal mythology from Western Arnhem Land in northern territories. He lives high in the sky, rides storm clouds and makes thunders by striking the clouds with stone axes fixed to his head, elbows, and knees...

He also "soaks up the sun's rays and turns them into lightning"...In monsoon regions of the world, the end of the dry season is marked by spectacular electric storms which announce the arrival of the rains...

Also in Northern Australia, the hottest time of the year is also the rainiest time of the year...

So sun's heat is obviously and literally turned into lightning...

BTW, remember this?

"Because it is a great secret how come Svarog (hevenly and earthly fire) is at the same time Perun (thunder and lightning) and Svetovid (Sun)." Modern science explains the link between solar energy, lightning and fire...I talked about this in my post "Sun thunder fire"...

Now, Aboriginals arrived to Australia about 40,000 years ago...Which could mean that the link between thunder gods and stone axes, is more than 40,000 years old??? If we assume common root of the myth...

I already wrote about the age of (some) Aboriginal myths in my post "Dream time" and "Yeti revisited". Some Australian Aboriginal "dreamtime" stories, passed orally from generation to generation, could, according to latest scientific data, actually be over 40,000 years old...

Or, maybe, again, everyone ended up with the same explanation for the same observed phenomena...