Dog coin

Coin minted in the 3rd century BC on the Greek Island of Kea depicting Dog Star Sirius...

Apparently, the people from Kea "offered sacrifices to the Dog Star, Sirius to bring cooling breezes while awaiting the reappearance of Sirius in summer"...

First, lets answer the question: why was Sirius known as the Dog Star...

When our mythologies were made out of animal calendar markers, Sirius, the Dog Star rose with the sun in Jul/Aug, when mating season of the old primitive dog breeds began...

We find this embedded into myths in:

Egypt: Article about "Dog days"...

Mesopotamia: Article about "Tishtrya"...

India: Article about "The bitch of the gods"...

Second, why were people of Kea praying to the Dog Star for the "cool breeze"...

To understand this we first have to look at the location and climate on Kea. 

You can see that Jul/Aug, the Dog Days, is the hottest and driest time of the year...

Luckily, the cool Meltemi (Etesian winds), seasonal trade winds which blow from the Balkans towards Egypt, peak in their strength during Jul/Aug...Right during the Dog (Star) days...

I talked about these winds in my post "Three sacrifices" about sacrifices performed by the Greeks before sailing to and from Troy. 7th c. BC Mykonos pithos. It contains the oldest depiction of the Trojan Horse, the way Homer described it in Iliad...

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...

PS: I need to read this article thoroughly...when I get time...Very interesting article about winds and currents in the Aegean and how they affected seafaring during 3rd millennium BC...Pic by Zde. Clay boat model, 2300–1900 BC, found on Mochlos, Crete...Greece...