Malatya relief

A while back @PIELexicon posted this image:

With this description: A Luwian Storm-God conquers a sea-dragon, called Illuyanka in Hittite in this Malatya relief. The Luwian designation, unless the same, remains unknown. If the name was included in the relief, it was contained in the section broken off, now unfortunately permanently gone and lost...

He then said that the first deity spearing the dragon is Hitt.-Luw. Tarhunza = Hurr. Teshub and the second one is Sarma = Sarruma, the mountain God...

At which point someone joined the conversation and said that Illuyanka is not a dragon but a snake. He argued that Illuianga has the determinative MUSH "snake", which is why Friedrich call it "ungeheure Schlange" (monstrous Snake). 

Snake is a solar animal, pretty much a universal symbol of the sun's heat. Snakes follow sun everywhere. They are in our world when sun is in our world (day, summer) and in the underworld when the sun is in the underworld (night, winter)...I talked about this in many of my posts. 

Which is why the terms "snake" and "dragon" are fluid in the vocabularies and mythologies. For instance, according to Slavic folklore, (Fire Breathing) Dragon (the symbol of the destructive summer sun's heat which burns everything and brings drought) is just "an old snake" (symbol of sun's heat)...

I talked about the link between snake and sun in many of my posts...

Also Slavic "zmaj" (dragon) is masculine form of "zmija" (snake). 

I talked about this in my post "Letnitsa treasure", about the 4th c. BC Thracian treasure found in Bulgaria, which among other artefacts contained this metal plaque which depicts a common theme from Balkan fairytales: a princess being kidnapped by a dragon...And she seems to like it...Please note that the dragon was depicted with a snake body...

@PIELexicon replied that drawing distinction between "snake, snake-demon, and dragon" is "splitting hairs": Tischler gives all alternatives as the translation of Hitt. illuyanka- (c.) "Schlange, Schlangenungeheuer, Drache" (Snake, Snake demon, Dragon), (HHand2: 67), as people interpret a snake-demon as a dragon.

@PIELexicon also pointed at the article "The Serpent-Fighting Imagery of Anatolia in the 2nd Millennium BC and Malatya Serpentine Monster in the Light of Newly Published Old Assyrian Seal Impression from Kültepe" which actually states that the current understanding is that the closer examination of the Malatya "monster" shows that it has paws and multiple heads...

And that the existence of paws and multiple heads is confirmed by the recently seal impression from the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts...

And that "Paws are also mentioned in other Hittite texts for creatures designated by the Sumerogram MUŠ ‘snake’, for example, MUŠ[-aš] GÌR.MEŠ ‘snake paws’ in the Pittei ritual, because this Sumerogram could cover the entire range of reptiles"...

And "The Serpent-Fighting Imagery..." article also states that some of the Hittite legends about Illuyanka mention the monster being tied with a rope before being killed, tying which is usually done to tie paws, legs...

Mesopotamians depicted dragon with lion body and snake heads...Cause dragon is a snake is a dragon...

The oldest depiction of a Hero (actually two Heroes) killing a Dragon...Mesopotamia, 2200BC...Seven headed dragon to be more precise...With seven snake heads...One for each hot month of Mesopotamian summer...Analysis of the meaning of this image can be found in my post "Seven headed dragon"...

Bactrians depicted dragons as winged snakes. No legs...Cause dragon is a snake is a dragon...I talk about this in my post "Bactrian snakes and dragons"...

So it is definitely a dragon, not a snake...

But what kind of dragon? 

I asked @PIELexicon what he thought the dots above the dragon represent. 

@PIELexicon then said that he thought that what was depicted above the dragon were thunderclouds, rain and raindrops. He then again pointed to the article "The Serpent-Fighting Imagery..." which contains the analysis of this relief in which rain/hail was mentioned as one interpretation. 

The article he also stated that "It can be that lines and circles shown above the serpent’s figure represent rain and hail caused by the Storm-God and directed by his assistants from heaven just onto the monster as an additional weapon against it".

The dots are definitely rain drops. I have found this interpretation in many places. For instance, in my post "Lapis lazuli water seal" I analyse the scene depicted on this amazing Lapis lazuli seal from the point of view of the local climate and animal calendar markers. The seal was made between 2400BC and 2000BC in Eastern Iran. British Museum.

But I don't think that the rain is "a weapon used against the monster". As I already said, (Fire Breathing) Dragon (the symbol of the destructive summer sun's heat which burns everything and brings drought) is just "an old snake" (symbol of sun's heat)...So Dragon "steals the rain" and the Thunder God kills the dragon and "releases the stolen rain" with the help of his assistants. 

I talked about this in my post "Scaring off the dragon" in which I analyse this interesting Bulgarian ritual: 

In Bulgaria, at the start of summer, all the strong and healthy village men would gather at midnight, strip naked and walk the village land in ritual silence brandishing axes or cudgels, weapons of thunder gods "to scare the dragon who steals the waters"... 

The reenactment of Teshub killing Illuyanka, or another version of this pretty universal Eurasian (And not only IndoEuropean) myth?

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...