A drawing of an archaic seal impression from Ur depicting a copulating couple and a scorpion, from "Ur Excavations (Volume 3) Archaic seal impressions".
Today I came across this article entitled "Medicine in Ancient Assur..." by Troels Pank Arbøll. And in it, starting from the pate 74, I stumbled across very interesting note about the link between scorpions and snakes and human fertility:
Snakes and scorpions were and still are very common in Mesopotamia. Both animal are normally seen in nature, in fields, gardens, forests, marshes, desert, surrounding the human settlements...
But, the ancient texts and seals also tell us that scorpions could be found under the bed or in store rooms.
A number of seals with bed scenes display a scorpion underneath the bed.
Snakes were also said to venture into human habitations, usually through drainage pipes and sewers and are said to be sometimes giving birth in people's houses...
According to Troels, scorpions were the symbol of motherhood and were related to fertility and the image of the married woman...And, apparently, one of the symptoms of the scorpion invenomation is priapism (enlarged forced erection)...
Troels then says, "one cannot help but associate the scorpion stings with potency, as well as the various metaphoric relationships inherent in scorpions, such as motherhood and the marriage bed...Scorpion underneath the bed, probably refferrs to the couple's married aspect."
And, "Snakes were used to to describe an infant child coiled up within the mother and coming out slithering like a snake...Snakes may have been related to fertility or youth on the basis of their "renewal" when shedding their skin"...
Interesting...But there is one other, I think, very interesting thing about scorpions and snakes and their link to (human) fertility. This is the climatic year in Mesopotamia. You can see that the cool, wet season starts in Oct/Nov and ends in Apr/May...
Oct/Nov is also when the climate in Mesopotamia gets cool and wet enough for scorpions to start looking either for a hole to hibernate in, or for a dry warm place to live in...Like people's houses...Say under people's beds...
What about snakes? They go to hibernation too, thankfully not inside people's houses...They emerge out of hibernation in the spring, change their skins, and the most common Eurasian snakes, vipers, start mating in Apr/May...
This is why scorpion is an animal calendar marker for Oct/Nov, end of the hot/dry season and the beginning of the cool/wet season.
This is why snake is an animal calendar marker for Apr/May, end of the cool/wet season and the beginning of the hot/dry season.
Oct/Nov, the time of the year marked by scorpion, was the time of the year when fields were ploughed and grain was sown in Mesopotamia, after the first rains fall (rain was also seen as the heavenly semen, seed of the rain god) that fertilises mother Earth...
Apr/May, the time of the year marked by snake, was the time of the year when the Tigris and Euphrates flood spilled out, and when fertile mother earth gave birth to grain, when grain was harvested in Mesopotamia...
So
Oct/Nov, scorpion, semen, corn seed, sowing, rain (heavenly seed), fertilisation...
Apr/May, snake, baby, corn ears, sheaves, harvesting, flood (earthly flood is the child of the heavenly seed, spilling of waters), delivery...
Again it seems that in Mesopotamia human and earth fertility was symbolically linked...This time through animal calendar markers: scorpion and snake...
You can find more about the use of scorpion as an animal calendar marker in these posts...
You can find more about the use of snake as an animal calendar marker in these posts...
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...
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