Shaking the olive tree

Mosaic of Farming Activities from Julia Caesarea, Algeria. Agriculture was paramount to the Numido-Romans.

Numidia was successful in becoming a main provider of agricultural surpluses to other parts of the Empire, and this achievement was depicted in many very fine floor mosaics

This Roman mosaic is depicting two people ploughing the field and sowing grain. Behind is an olive tree full of dark coloured almost ripe olives. Cherchell, Algeria.   

In Algeria grain is sown starting in Oct/Nov and olives are harvested also starting in Oct/Nov...

Here is an interesting use of ripe olives as a plant calendar marker: 

Persephone "...cried out...calling upon her father... But no one...heard her voice...nor yet the olive-trees bearing rich fruit..." That's just before olive harvest, which starts in Oct/Nov...I talked about this in my post "Abduction of Persephone"...

Persephone, deified grain seed...Abducted and taken "under ground"...Sown...Grain sowing season in Greece starts in Oct/Nov...And so does the olive harvest season...

Here is a much much older example of the use of olive tree full of ripe fruit as plant calendar marker from Knossos, Crete: Minoan fresco, depicting ibex goats (Mating starts Oct/Nov) flanking the (olive) tree of life (harvest starts Oct/Nov) while crocuses are blooming all around (blooming and harvest starts Oct/Nov)...I talked about this in my post "Goat riding thunder god"... 

Now check this out: 

A while back I came across this X post by @Michssspp82096:

Numerous Minoan gold rings  depict individuals shaking trees. This could represent the main form of divination in Bronze age Crete...

So I replied: 

You shake trees to get fruit down...Like olives...Look at these beauties. Almost ready to be harvested...

In Crete, Olive harvest starts in Oct/Nov, which is also the beginning of the rain season...Super super important...

And now that I thought about it, these trees from Minoan seals, that always looked weird to me

do look like olive trees...

On Minoan Crete it was Goddess who was linked to rain, goats, crocuses and fertility...Talked about it in my posts "Mesa Mouliana vessel", "Anavlochos mountain", "Goat riding thunder god", "Male female Minoan bowl", "Minoan flying goddess with griffin", "Saffron", "Origin of saffron"...

I now think she was also linked to olives...And shaking of olive branches might have indeed been a ritual linked with rain and fertility...

Shaking of olive branches makes olives fall and they only start to fall when they are fully ripe and when they are fully ripe, in Oct/Nov...rain starts to fall...Fucking cool...

That's it. 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...