Little horses

The žirgeliai (little horses), are common motifs on Lithuanian rooftops, placed there for protection of the house...

They are a symbolic depiction of the Ašvieniai, Baltic counterparts of Vedic Ashvins, who are said to pull the chariot of Saulė (the Sun Goddess) through the sky. As depicted on this rooftop of a house in Nida...

Both names, Lithuanian ašva and Sanskrit ashva, mean "horse" and are derive from the same Proto-Indo-European root for the horse – *ek'w-...

And in India, we also find (horse headed) twins...

Surya's wife Saranyu transforms into a mare and runs away from her husband. Surya eventually finds her, turns himself into a white stallion and...

After which Saranyu delivers horse head twins called Ashvins...

I talked about this in my post "Hayagriva" about the Indian solar horse mythology...

BTW, these guys were hidden in our zodiac as Dioskuri, divine twin horsemen... 

The guys who wanted to marry "the daughters of the white horse". They mark Summer Solstice, the peak of the horse mating season, characterised by wild stallion fights for mares...

I talked about solar horse (more precisely equid) in many of my posts...

We find the same horse twins in Etruria. I talked about this in my post "Ponte Sodo fibula" about this Etruscan gold disc fibula, from the Necropolis of Ponte Sodo, Vulci, Etruria, Italy. 650 BC, from the "Orientalizing period". Currently in the Antikensammlungen, Munich, Bavaria, Germany. 

We find them in Sasanian Iran, on this plate with youths and winged horses drinking water from a jar ca. 5th–6th century AD. I talked about this in my post "Dioskuri plate from Iran"...

And in Gotland. Together with horses. And pile of soar symbols...I talked about this in my post "Gotland sun stone with Dioscuri"...

But this link between (horse) twins and Summer Solstice is not just an Indo-European thing. 

In Mesopotamia, we find them "guarding the gates of hell". In my post "White raven" about Apollo-Nergal, I talk about the Sumerian twin gods, identified as Gemini constellation, and associated with Nergal, which "guard the gates of hell"...Are they holding torches? Or keys?

And in Egypt, we find god Hapi, the god of the annual flooding of the Nile, who was "often depicted as twins, tying papyrus and lotus flowers together". Papyrus flowers in Apr/May, and lotus in Jul/Aug...I talked about him/them 🙂 in my post "Lotus and papyrus"...

Twins marking summer solstice, Nubia. I talked about this in my post "Meroitic language"...

In Central America the Hero Twins pour the water of heaven (rains there arrive in Jun/Jul). I talked about this in my post "Resurrection of the maize god"...

To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, which are at the root of all our mythologies, start here…Then check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am way way behind...