Pillar of the Boatmen

Strap in. This is going to be fun. In this article I am going to talk about the first raw of panel from the 1st c. AD Roman monument known as the "Pillar of the Boatmen" found in Paris, France...

I was prompted to look into it by the posts by this great account @Michssspp82096 about this panel which depicts a bull standing under a willow tree, with 3 cranes perched on his back. The inscription reads "TARVOS TRIGARANOS" or  "Bull and Three Cranes" in Gaulish...

This is a coloured version of this image. 

It looks cool, but the colours are wrong...The only cranes native to France are Common Cranes and their feathers are grey not white and their legs are black not orange...

Common Cranes are highly migratory and follow extremely precise migratory routines, always mating/nesting and wintering in the same locations...

In Northern Europe (Including France, Britain and Ireland), cranes arrive from their wintering sites to their mating/nesting sites in the spring in Mar/Apr/May and they leave their mating/nesting sites for their wintering sites in Oct/Nov...

Which means that their arrival and departure was definitely used as animal calendar marker for the beginning of spring (arrival) and end of autumn (departure)...

Now look at this: In (Celtic) Europe, willow flowers in Feb/Mar/Apr, basically announcing the arrival of spring...

Spring which starts in Jan/Feb, and is marked by Celtic Imbolc festival...

So, spring starts (Jan/Feb), willow starts flowering (Feb/Mar)...Then the cranes arrived (Mar/Apr)...

And started their mating dances followed by mating and nesting...

And then in Apr/May the wild Eurasian cattle (now extinct) calving and lactating season started...This is what the original, Old Taurus marked...I talk about the old Taurus which we find all over Eurasia in many of my posts...

Spring starts (Jan/Feb), Willow (Feb/Mar), Cranes (Mar/Apr), Bull/Calf (Apr/May) Spring ends...

Cool, right? It gets a lot cooler...

Cranes are linked to cattle as animal calendar markers all over Eurasia. I talk about it in several of my posts...

What I found only today is that cranes love hanging around large ruminators, domesticated and wild. They love open spaces created by these animals...

You can read more about this in

"Interactions and impacts of domesticated animals on cranes in agriculture"

"Eurasian crane (Grus grus) as ecosystem engineer in grasslands ‒ conservation values, ecosystem services and disservices related to a large iconic bird species"

Which is why cattle and cranes together are a very common sight...

And why why we see things like these

Crane animal calendar marker:

A Terracotta Bowl, Mehrgarh, Balochistan, Indus Valley, 3500–3000 BC...

Decorated with zebu bulls, each with a water bird perched on its back and a leaf motif between the horns...

I talk about this artefact in my post "Mehrgarh crane bowl"...

Cool, right? It gets A LOT cooler...

Interestingly, next to the panel depicting "Tarvos Trigaranos" (arrival of spring) is the panel depicting a young man cutting willow branches. The inscription reads "ESVS"...

There are several prominent spring rituals in Europe involving the cutting and usage of willow branches, particularly in Central and Eastern European Slavic (ex Celtic) lands...

These traditions, now linked to Easter (Mar/Apr), are generally rooted in pre-Christian fertility rites, marking the arrival of spring and symbolising health, growth, renewal...

And there is a very good reason for it: Spring willow is full of growth hormones...Which is why I put the spring branch cuttings into water for watering my flowers...I talked about this in my post "Willow in Slavic folklore": 

I also talked about the use of willow trumpets in May day/Beltain/St George's day rituals in

In the past in the Balkans, during the night before St George's day, processions of men and boys roamed the villages blowing willow bark trumpets "to scare the witch (winter) away"...The same ritual was performed in Cornwall too on May Day. I talk about this in my post "May horns"...

May day/Beltain/St George's day is the day which in South Slavic and Celtic calendar marks the end of cold, dark half of the year, and the beginning of the hot, light half of the year...

I also talked about the use of willow in spring fertility (sexual) rituals among the Etruscans in my post "Whipping fresco", where I give full symbolic analysis of this 5th c. BC Etruscan fresco, Tarquinia, Tomb of the whipping...Depicting...Well you can all see the obvious bit that it is depicting...Right? 🙂

BTW, the now tame Slavic spring willow rituals could once have been equally as explicit as the Etruscan ones...Considering the beliefs like this:

In Serbia people believed that women become very horny and very fertile in spring, when willows started putting out new green shoots ...So this was the best time to make babies...🙂 

And rituals like this:

Willow, the tree which grows next to water, is associated with rain, water and female fertility, female sexuality...Hence ritual whipping of teenage girls by teenage boys using willow whips, performed in the Czech Republic, Slovakia on Easter Sunday...

I talk about this in my post "Willow in Slavic folklore" about willow and fertility in Slavic folklore. 

Anyway...

Esus was Gallic god whose Romans equated with either Mercury or Mars...Which is it? It doesn't mater...

In Roman times, Mar/Apr-Oct/Nov was the "war season", which was opened and closed with the appropriate religious festivities presided by the Salii priests...

As I asked in the comments to this post, but didn't get any answer, I wonder if Celts also had "War Season"?

The Gallic chieftain Dumnorix, literally "king of the world" in Gaulish, of the Aedui tribe, is depicted holding a severed head on a silver coin (first half 1st century BCE)

I would say yes, they did. I think that the Celts, like many societies in antiquity, had their "war season" aligned with the agricultural and weather cycles...

Warfare was most common during the warmer months, roughly from after spring agricultural work, planting, ended until before autumn agricultural work, harvest, began...

So Esus could have been a war god, Mars, announcing (by cutting the willow branches with cranes in Mar/Apr) the start of the war season, starting (most likely) in Apr/May...

Here he is depicted on another panel from a four sided column dedicated to Mercury, dated to the early Roman imperial period, and found in Trier, France. He is depicts as a young man chopping a willow tree, which holds a bull and three birds...

Also, according to the Irish tradition, before the Tuatha De Danan went to war against Fomori, Lugh, the leader of the Tuatha De Danan danced the "Corrghuineacht" (crane dance) around his warriors on one leg, with one eye closed and one arm outstretched, while cursing their enemies...

So the arrival of cranes and their mating dance was also an announcement of the beginning of the war season...

But ESUS could have also been Mercury/Hermes...

Hermes himself was a deified calendar marker for Apr/May...Every single plant and animal that features prominently in his mythology is a calendar marker for Apr/May...I talk about this in these articles:

Happy birthday Hermes! According to the "Homeric hymn to Hermes", Hermes was born "on the fourth day of the month" but the name of the month was never mentioned...So a mystery...Solved using animal and plant calendar markers: it's 4th of May. I talk about this in my post "When grapes flower"...

What did Hermes do first after he was born? 

He stole Apollo's cows. 

He then invented fire drill, made fire, and sacrificed one of the cows to the gods...

I talked about this in my post "12 Olympians" about (apparently inexplicable 🙂) link between Hermes and Hestia (fire)

What did Hermes do after that? He invented a lyre which he gifted to Apollo...A very special lyre...In exchange, Apollo gave him Caduceus topped with two snakes...

I talk about this in my post "Lyre of Apollo", in which I present the analysis of the animal and plant calendar markers embedded into the story about the birth of Hermes, particularly the part related to him making the first lyre, which he later swapped with Apollo for the caduceus...Bull, Tortoise, Snake are all animal calendar markers for Apr/May, the time of Hermes...

Finally, are the wings on the hat worn by Hermes/Mercury actually cockerel wings? Cockerel is also an animal calendar marker for Apr/May, the time of Hermes...I talk about this in my post "Cock fight mosaic", where I talk about the link between Hermes/Mercury, cockerels and (god of rain) thunder storms...

Remember, Mercury/Hermes was Herald of the Thunder God Jupiter/Zeus...Guess when the thunderstorm season starts in Europe? In Apr/May, the months of Mercury/Hermes...And peaks in Jul/Aug...

So Esus could have been Mercury, the herald of Jupiter...Which is interesting, cause the next panel in the same row on the Pillar of the Boatmen, next to the one with Esus, depicts Juptier, standing, holding a spear and a thunderbolt. The inscription reads "IOVIS"...

How cool is this? It get EVEN EVEN cooler...

Mercury/Hermes was the protector of trade and traders. During Celtic/Roman/Greek times, long distance trade in Europe started in Apr/May. After the snow melted, making roads passable, after ice melted, making rivers passable, after winter storms passed, making seas passable...

Which is quite interesting, considering that all of this is depicted on a Roman column erected in Lutetia (modern Paris) in honour of Jupiter by the guild of boatmen...

How cool is this? It gets EVEN EVEN EVEN cooler...

In Irish myths, Lugh, Thunder God, carried his most precious magical relics in a crane skin bag, the corr bolg, as did Manannan mac Lir, the Sea and Warrior God!

As I said, Trading, War and Thunderstorms all stared in Apr/May, right after the arrival of cranes...

How cool is this? Well, here is the coolest part...

The last panel in this same row depicts Vulcan/Hephaestus, standing, with hammer and tongs. The inscription reads "VOLCANVS"...

Why Vulcan/Hephaestus? 

Cause he was a Holy Craftsman...

So?

When were boats repaired during Roman times? Well of course, during the "non sailing season", Oct/Nov - Mar/Apr...

Which makes me wonder if the first row of panels on the Pillar of the Boatmen is actually a calendar:

TARVOS TRIGARANOS: Spring (Jan/Feb-Apr/May)

ESUS: Summer (Apr/May-Jul/Aug)

IOVIS: Autumn (Jul/Aug-Oct/Nov)

VOLCANVS: Winter (Oct/Nov-Jan/Feb)

I told you...I think we just managed to decipher the meaning of the first row of panels form Pillar of the Boatmen. What do you think? I will leave deciphering the rest of this pillar for some other time. I think this is quite enough for today...

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...

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...

PPN Snake calendar marker

About (one of two) earliest animal calendar markers for the grain harvest season: snake, depicted here on the pillar 22 from enclosure D, found in PPN site Göbekli Tepe, Turkey, and dated to 11th - 10th c. BC...

So where do I start? With a snake of course...

Snake is a pure solar animal. It is in our world when sun is here (day, hot half of the year) and it is in the underworld when sun is there (night, cold half of the year)...

I talked about snake as the solar symbol in many of my posts...

This is why on this 3rd - 2nd mill BC decorated standing stone we see Sun god and his favourite pet animals, snakes...

Early Bronze Age Okunev culture which flourished in the Minusinsk Basin on the middle and upper Yenisei, Siberia, Russia. More details can be found in this article...

And why on this 3rd mill BC, Bactrian seal, we see the sun god (see heat rays found on Utu/Shamash depictions emanating from his shoulders) holding snakes, symbols of sun's heat...I talked about this in my post "Nude winged hero dominating snakes"...

The fact that snakes need sun's heat to function and are only out when it's hot, made snakes ideal symbol of sun's heat...Which causes drought...

The Luwian Storm-God kills a Dragon. Or is it a Snake. Knowing that dragon (symbol of extreme sun's heat) is just an old snake (symbol of sun't heat), it really makes no difference. Analysis of the scene depicted on this image can be found in my post "Malatya relief"...

I also talk about snakes and dragons and sun's heat and drought in my post "Letnitsa treasure" about the metal plaques the famous Thracian Letnitsa treasure, dated to the first half of the 4th c. BC, which depict a lot of common motifs from Balkan (and not just Balkan) Slavic fairy tales...Like this one depicting a princess being abducted by a three headed dragon with snake heads...

This is also why 3rd mill BC Mesopotamian dragon has lion body (Jul/Aug, Leo is the hottest time of the year) and seven snake heads (one for each hot month of Mesopotamian summer)...Analysis of this seal dated to 2200 BC can be found in my post "Seven headed dragon"

BTW, the same scene depicted on this Mesopotamian seal is also depicted here: the Woman of the Apocalypse, described in Chapter 12 of the Book of Revelation. I give full symbolic analysis of this text in my post "Apocalypse"...

Anyway, back to the PPN Anatolia and its obsession with snakes. I already talked about snake as an animal calendar marker in PPN Anatolia in my post "Goat and snake from Kortik Tepe" from 2022 about these two objects from the 10,000BC  Pre-Pottery Neolithic B site Körtik Tepe, Turkey... 

Interestingly, the mating season of Goats marks the start of the wet season and the mating season of Snakes marks the start of dry season in the Körtik Tepe area...

What I proposed was that these two plaques depict: 

The start of the mating season of ibex goats (Oct/Nov)

the start of the mating season of viper snakes (Apr/May) 

in Western Asia...

These two events divide the solar year in this part of the world into hot, dry season (Apr/May - Oct/Nov) and cool, wet season (Oct/Nov - Apr/May)...

Symbolically, this wet/dry division of the solar year is depicted as "Eternal struggle between goat and snake"...on this stamp seal from Tepe Giyan, Iran, dated to 5000-4000 BC...I talked about this in my post "Master of animals from Tepe Giyan"...

The wet season could have actually been depicted by this "Mythical animal" found depicted on many tablets found in Körtik Tepe. I talked about this in my post  "Mythical animal from Kortik Tepe"... 

Now, check the Enclosure D, pillar 22 again. See the snake heads triangular shape? That's the shape of viper head...

So we know that PPN people specifically depicted vipers and that these stylised depictions of snakes with "arrow heads" from Tell Qaramel are also vipers...

Also, see how vipers get entangled during their mating "dance"? 

Is this what all the "X crossed snakes" depictions, like this one from a Körtik Tepe stone vessel, mean? Viper mating season? I think so...

So...What does this have to do with grain?

The other day I came across this image: a plaquette "bearing iconographic symbolism from Göbekli Tepe"...With no explanation what this symbolism is...

But I knew straight away what I was looking at: ear of grain between two snakes (meaning during the mating of the snakes)...

Look at this: Left is the Göbekli Tepe symbol, middle is Sumerian symbol for grain and the symbol used with the meaning "grain" since neolithic in the Balkans, Levant, Mesopotamia, Central Asia, Iran...

I talked about this symbol in my post "The oldest Demeter depiction" about the oldest depiction of Demeter, the Greek Mother of Grain? Which I believe to be this symbol which is 4500-4200 years old.

And which is depicted on one the Early Cycladic "Frying Pans" found on Cycladic islands in Greece and dated to the second half of the 3rd mill BC...

I also talked about the symbol for grain in my post "Mother of grain from Mari" about this alabaster stele [my comment: depicting the Mother of Grain], which was presented in 2012 catalog of the Phoenix Ancient Art, as a cult plaque originating from the Near East and dating from the beginning of the third millennium BC...Which depicts the same vulva surrounded by grain symbol...

I then I came across this paper and in it I saw this: Tell Qaramel shaft-straightener with the depiction of two snakes between two grain symbols. 

Please note that snakes here have X shaped heads. Symbol for "when snakes mate"? I think so...

So my hunch was right. The chevrons symbol was indeed stylised grain symbol.

Ok, but what is the link between viper snakes mating season and the grain harvest season?

Well, In fertile crescent, they both start in Apr/May...

The PPN people were hunter gatherers who by pure fluke were living in the area where wild barley, emmer and einkorn wheat and rye grew in huge quantities, covering sides of hills around their settlements...You can find more info in this paper...

Wild barley

Wild emer

Wild einkorn

Wild rye

These wild grains were all annual winter grains, meaning they all sprouted in Oct/Nov after the first rains, grew over the winter and spring, and ripened during the summer after which they could be harvested...

Harvesting was done by pulling, breaking, cutting the ripe ears with stone blade sickles off the stalks. You can read about it in this paper.

Based on the experimental results, all the above techniques will cause the ears to shatter and a lot of seeds to fall on the ground...

So the authors of this paper suggest that much more efficient way of harvesting wild cereals, and the one most likely used by the PPN people was to wait for the ripe seeds to fall on ground, and then to collect them from the ground...

Both sets of authors say that the wild cereal harvest in the fertile crescent started in Apr/May.

The first to ripen was barley (starting Apr/May) and then wheat and rye (starting Jul/Aug).

So basically grain harvest started "from the time when viper snakes start mating"...

Here is one more interesting thing. In Turkish part of fertile crescent snakes come out of brumation and into our world in Mar/Apr, just before the start of grain harvest and go back to brumation and out of our world in Oct/Nov, just after the end of grain harvest...

So grain seeds were continuously collected "from the time when snakes started mating and all the while snakes were in the grain grass"...Symbolically, you could depict this like this...

This is another Tell Qaramel shaft-straightener depicting on the left two pair of snakes meeting (usual symbolic depiction of mating), while on the right we see ear of grain growing out of the snake mouth...

Remember what I said "Mythology is a result of people being very good at noticing patterns in nature and very bad at distinguishing between correlation and causation"...

Did the PPN people somehow start believing that snakes, which they came across in the wild grain fields during the harvest time, somehow influenced ripening of the wild grains? I could bet they did...

This image is from this paper and depicts grain growing out of snakes. This article also fails to put forward any explanation for this, and fails to even identify the symbol for grain...

This probably lead to some kind of deification of a snake into a snake god of sort, to whom they prayed for good harvest...And for not being bitten and killed by the "guardians of the grain"...

Something like this:

You've got something crawling on the back of your head...Nevalı Çori, south-eastern Turkey, head with snake; limestone. Şanlıurfa Müzesi. Early to Middle PPNB. Photo courtesy of Euphrat-Archiv, Berlin-Heidelberg...

BTW, remember the stacked chevrons symbol meaning grain. The chevron could just be stylised depiction of V shaped einkorn wheat spikes which is what they look like when the ears shatter and the seed spikes fall to the ground...Einkorn was the first grain to be domesticated...

Oh, and remember that the wild grain seeds which fell to the ground after Apr/May after the last rains, or as the PPN dudes would say "after viper snakes start to mate" sprouted in Oct/Nov after the first rains, or as the PPN dudes would say "after ibex goats start to mate"...

So if you were a PPN hunter gatherer who has just figured this out and is starting to plant some of the seeds that he has gathered, the best time for planting these seeds was "when ibex goats start to mate"...

Suddenly you have this...Agricultural animal calendar...

So the PPN first farmers were planting their grain and hoping that "The Goat of Rain" would bring rain and make it germinate...You can read about "The goat of rain" in these posts...

Soooo...Almost done...Remember that Mesopotamian seven headed dragon that represented 7 hot/dry months of summer (Apr/May-Oct/Nov)...

On this depiction, God with grain growing out of his head, had just cut the first of the 7 dragon heads with a sickle. That's Apr/May, the month when grain harvest starts in Fertile Crescent...

Demeter, Greek Goddess of Grain Harvest was also, inexplicably 🙂 linked with snakes. 

Plaque Campana - Initiation to Eleusinian Mysteries. 1st half of the 1st century BC. Terracotta. Campana collection purchase 1861. Louvre museum (Paris, France). 

Well, Orphic dudes knew why. According to them: 

Rhea give birth to Zeus (thunderstorm season in Greece starts in Apr/May).

Rhea then turns to Demeter (grain harvest season in Ancient Greece started in Apr/May).

Zeus and Demeter mate as snakes and make Persephone (Snake mating season starts in Apr/May).

I talked about this in my post "Why are Persephone's parents"...

So Orphic dudes knew, and now we also know why, right?

This is also why Demeter/Ceres, arrives in chariots pulled by two snakes or two dragons...And brings ripe grain and a sickle...Like on this drawing by Pietro de Angelis...

I talked about this in my post "Demeter riding panther"...

PS: If these snakes remind you of something else, where do human seeds come from?

PPS: I would really like the people working on PPN sites who follow me to let me know what they think, apart from "we will never know for sure" 🙂

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...