Sassanian goats with tree of life

Two Sassanian wall relief slabs dated to the 5th-6th c. AD, depicting rampant ibex goats flanking "the tree of life"...

This is an ancient symbol found throughout Iran, Mesopotamia, Central Asia, Levant, Crete. The reason for that is that in all these regions, year is divided into two halves: 

hot, dry half, roughly Apr/May - Oct/Nov

wet, cool half, roughly Oct/Nov - Apr/May

And the wet, cool (rainy, snowy) half, which makes life possible in these arid areas, begins when ibex goats start their mating fights...see, "flanking"...

I talked about this and gave examples of goats flanking tree of life from all these regions in my post "Bactrian bronze age menorah"...

Example: Goats flanking the tree of life. Ritual vessels from Gonur-depe, the administrative and ritual center of Ancient Margina, the Northern regions of the Oxus civilization, dated to 2300˗1600 BC. 

What is interesting about these two Sassanian slabs is the fruit depicted growing on these two trees of life:

L: grapes

R: pomegranates

In the traditional Iranian fruit growing regions, like Shiraz, both the grape and  pomegranate harvest seasons start in Sep/Oct. This is also when grape and pomegranate festivals are held...

Right after that in Oct/Nov, the ibex goats start mating and the rains, which support the (tree of) life in this region arrive...

For those interested in Sassanian art with animal and plant calendar markers (which hint at Indian influence) check this post, "Rainbows and peacocks", out about this Sassanian dish, 400-600AD, Iran, Currently in Al Thani collection...What is exactly depicted here? Some would say just an exotic dancer. I think that this is a depiction of the goddess Anahita, Zoroastrian goddess of water and fertility...

And this post, "Ram with royal ribbon", about this 400–699 AD Sassanian silver plate originally from Iran, currently in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA...

What is actually depicted on this plate? Definitely not just a lost lamb...

And this post, "King killing bull", about this very strange 5th c. AD Sassanian silver dish, depicting a warrior with a spear sitting on a bull, about to stab another bull...

If you are interested in reading 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...