A very strange 5th c. AD Sassanian silver dish, with even stranger provenience story.
The dish depicts a warrior with a spear sitting on a bull, about to stab another bull. His headdress indicates that he is the Persian ruler Yazdagird I (399–421)...
Does anyone have any idea if this is a depiction of some kind of mythological, religious scene?
The dish was not discovered by archaeologists, but by ethnographer Arkady Baulo, who was in 2001 working with Ob-Ugric peoples in Khanty-Mansiysk, Western Siberia, Russia...
It was kept in the antechamber of the living room, a cult area on the right side of the room where women were not allowed to enter.
According to the owner, the dish was found by his great-grandmother, near the Sinja River...
She saw something shiny in the grass. Scraping the ground, she discovered several bronze pots, containing this dish but also silver and bronze figurines depicting various animals...
Apparently pile of Sassanian artefacts were discovered in similar settings, being used as cult objects by the local people, in Western Siberia...
Info from this article...
I wonder if this "tree" with three leaves is actually the sacred fig from Indian mythology.
And which has been used as a plant calendar marker with bulls as animal calendar markers in Indian Subcontinent since Indus Valley Civilisation...
I talk about this in my post "Harappan wheel seal", in which I analyse this seal from the mature Harappan period, the time when the civilisation was at its peak (2600 BC to 1900 BC), which was discovered in Rajasthan few years ago...
And in my post "Sacred fig goddess" about these deified fig trees which we find in both Ancient Egypt and Ancient Indus Valley civilisations...
Anyway, I wonder what Sassanians turned all this into...If anyone knows, please post your comments here...
Now, I want to thank @iphone10fan for this info: "This appears to be Lord Shiva riding Nandi. The three leaf plant in the bottom left could be this. Often associated with Lord Shiva. The bull in the bottom right could be Mahishasura? I'm not sure..."
And you'll love this: "The Indian bael tree, also known as Aegle marmelos, flowers in Apr/May, at the start of the rainy season. The flowers are aromatic and greyish-white in colour".
Another plant calendar marker for monsoon season...
I talked about Shiva, bulls, and monsoon here:
Ardhanarishvara, the union of Shiva and Parvati, produces (the tree of) life and the river Ganges.
This is a complex calendar marker for the peak of the monsoon season, Jul/Aug, where bull=summer=May/Jun/Jul meets lion=autumn=Aug/Sep/Oct...
Which fills Ganga river with water...
I talk about this in my post "Ardhanarishvara"...
"Bael tree leaves and fruit play a main role in Shiva worship, because the leaf's trifoliate shape is seen to symbolise his trident. Another belief is that the trifoliate shape of Bael leaf is symbolic representation of three eyes of Lord Shiva"...
Now remember this?
What made Indian Devas (good guys, gods) turn into Iranian Daevas (bad guys, false gods)? The answer is (I think🙂): the opposite climate in India and Iran...
Which causes that the religious symbols (deified calendar markers) have opposite meanings in these two places...
I talk about this in my post "Daevas vs Devas"...
So bull rider killing the bull...In Jul/Aug...When bael tree flowers...Jul/Aug...Which marks the end of summer which starts in Taurus, Apr/May...
I don't think that the bull being killed is Mahishasura. Mahishasura was buffalo, not bull, demon. I talked about him in my post "Mahishasuramardini", about Durga, goddess created by Devas, and armed with all their weapons, and who rides on a lion, avenging their defeat by evil Asura Mahisha (Buffalo).
What's this all about? Climate in India. Oct/Nov is when wild buffalos start mating. This is also the start of the dry season, which eventually leads to drought...Drought which is killed (ends) in Jul/Aug, Leo, peak of the wet monsoon season...
The "eternal" (read annual) struggle between wet and dry seasons in India, probably mythologised even before the Indus Valley Civilisation. I talk about this in my post "Proto Durga" about this Is this 3rd mill BC Harappan tablet which could be depicting Proto Durga, the Warrior Goddess, the killer of the buffalo Asura who scared the Devas shitless?
But because of the opposite climates in India and Mesopotamia/Iran, buffalo as a (deified) animal calendar marker has opposite meaning in these two places...
In Mesopotamia/Iran, bulls were linked to the annual flood, which peaks in Apr/May, Taurus...I talked about it my post "Dedicated to Inshushinak" about this 3200 years old Elamite silver pouring vessel dedicated to the Elamite equivalent of Enki/Ea, god of fresh water and flood...
Remember this? The meaning of the lion killing bull?
Lion (autumn, starts in Leo) killing Bull (summer, starts in Taurus) depicted on the wall of the Great Mosque of Diyarbakir the oldest mosque in Anatolia.
I talk about the meaning of this complex animal calendar marker in my posts "Mystery seal", "Angra Mainyu" "Bull leaping in Syria", "Lion killing bull under date palm", "Butt chewing" and many others....
Guess who else killed bull every year in Leo?
I talk about the true nature of Mithras in my post "Mithras", in which I also ask: Was Mithraism so popular among soldiers in the Imperial Roman army because Mithras was the personification of "Inevitable Victory"? After all, Lion (Autumn) inevitably kills (ends) Bull (Summer)...
In this article I also talk about the "triformed Mithras", which appears on a relief panel from Dieburg, showing a tree with three branches, each ending in a head wearing a Phrygian cap...
Jul/Aug. When Shiva tree blooms and bull gets killed...
And guess what: In Iran and Central Asia, the 3rd-century Kushan coinage featured a syncretic god with attributes of both Shiva and Mithra...You can read about this here...
Could this mean that the King riding a bull and killing a bull could be king as Mithra/Shiva killing a bull?
Mad...
Wow...This turned out to be some ride...I honestly had no idea where this (originally an X thread) will end up when I started writing it...Big, HUGE, thanks again to @iphone10fan for his nudge in the right direction.
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