Come rain

Male peafowls defend their territory from rival males during the mating season. 

Peafowl mating season peaks between Jun and Aug, the monsoon season. Hence peacock as an animal calendar marker for the monsoon season...

It is during the mating season that peacocks (male peafowl) dance (parade around with their tails spread) showing off in front of the females...

Peacock pics are from the article "All About The Indian Peafowl".

Which is why in Ritusamhara we read that:

"For this bird, the rainy season serves as a period of jubilant activity, when it extends its tail (feathers) and indulges in the dance. The rains serve as an inducement to this bird for indulging in its exalted dance..."

"The beauty of mountains streaked everywhere with waterfalls, while their high rocks were kissed by the stooping clouds, and their sides presented a gorgeous chaos of peacocks."

oldeuropeanculture

The author of the Mayoora Doota exclaims:

"When the showers rain, you dance with delight. Even the gods take pleasure in observing your dance without twinkling their eyelids..."

Even the peacock mating call sounds like Hindu for "Come rain!!!"...

Because this overlap between peafowl mating season and the monsoons season, Makara, the mount of the old monsoon god Varuna, but really a complex animal calendar marker for the monsoon season, sometimes has peacock tail...Talked about it in my post "Makara"...

Peacocks as animal calendar marker are also present in Iran. A Sassanian dish, 400-600AD, Iran, Currently in Al Thani collection...I talk about it in my post "Rainbows and peacocks" about rain, rainbows and peacocks and the goddess Anahita, Zoroastrian goddess of water and fertility...

Peafowl mating season is Mar-Sep with peak Jun-Aug...Look at the snowmelt diagram for Iranian rivers...Hence the link between Anahita and peacocks...

Just like in India the monsoon rain and floods bring rebirth of nature, in Iran spring rain and floods bring rebirth of nature.

Both are linked to mating (dancing and fighting) peacocks...

Ever wondered why two peacocks drinking water surrounded with greenery are Christian symbol of resurrection, rebirth? 🙂

PS: Peacock, symbol of the resurrection of Christ makes a lot more sense if...

If Christ is life, living nature, then his immaculate conception and virgin birth become easy to understand...From my post "Living nature" about the nature of Christ...

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...

The damned

 A strange medieval stone panel in the National Museum of Ireland. 

It is thought to date to around the 15/16th century. It depicts the Devil (in the form of a dragon) driving the Damned (in the form of goats) into Hell.

It is funny that when it comes to animal calendar markers, goat is the symbol of winter (Nov-Apr)...And a fire breathing dragon/snake is the symbol of summer (May-Oct)...

Have you ever thought why in the Book of Revelation, Satan appears as a Great Red Dragon? And why hell is burning hot? Did you know that in Levant, Mot, the god of death, the enemy of "The God", Baal, The Devil, was equated with sun? I talked about this in my posts "The oldest Arabic poem", "Anat"...

The burning late summer sun, which causes droughts and creates hell on earth...

This guy, the "monster" which is hot dry Mesopotamian summer. 

Depicted using animal calendar markers: starts in Apr/May, Bull head, Taurus, peaks in Jul/Aug, Lion body, Leo and ends in Oct/Nov, Scorpion tail/Eagle wings and talons, Scorpio/Eagle. I talked about this in my post "Angra Mainyu"...

Deified animal calendar marker at its best. Nergal, the god of death, personification of the destructive sun, as a man-lion.

Leo marks the beginning of the Eurasian lion mating season. 

It also marks the hottest and driest part of the year in Mesopotamia...I talked about this in my post "Winged superhuman hero"...

You know the dragon...

The dude depicted on this very interesting metal plaque from the so called "Let­nit­sa Treas­ure", a 4th c. BC Thracian hoard discovered near Let­nit­sa, Bulgaria...Depicted as part of one of the most common themes from Balkan fairytales: a princess being kidnapped by a dragon...I talked about this in my post "Letnitsa treasure"...

On the other hand goat is symbol of rain, (water of) life...Because in Mesopotamia, Iran, Levant, Eastern Mediterranean, rains arrive when Ibex goats start mating, in Oct/Nov...

I talked about ibex goat as "Goat of Rain", an animal calendar marker linked to rain, and cool wet half of the year, old Mesopotamian winter, in many posts, such as, "Problems with Abzu", "Relief from Dur Sharrukin", "Goatfish", "Flamingos from Susa", "Goat carrier", "Iranian goat of rain", "Strider", "A vessel from Tepe Hissar"... 

BTW, Baal, The God...was the rain god...

So what we have depicted on this Irish relief is "Triumph of (summer, sun) evil over good (winter, rain)"???

Interesting, right?

BTW, this has nothing to do with Mathew 25. I talked about Mathew 25 in my post "Goats and sheep"...

Last Judgement, Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna, Emilia-Romagna. Italy, 5th-6th century

In it I explained that this Christian scene is inverted, a mirror image of the celestial scene. The blue cold angel is St Mitar (Martin), Samhain, the beginning of the winter. The red angel is St George, Beltane, the beginning of the summer. Between them is Imbolc, the beginning of Spring...

But now, that I know a lot more about animal calendar markers, and the link between Old Mesopotamian religions and Christianity (check my post Alexamenos graffito), I think that I was wrong, and that this Christian icon actually depicts this:

The blue cold angel is St Mitar, Oct/Nov the beginning of the winter, cool wet half of the year, marked by a goat. The red angel is St George, Apr/May, the beginning of the summer. Between them is Sun, Shamash, "who came back" (sun reborn at winter solstice) pointing at ram (Mar/Apr)...

I talked about goat and ram animal calendar markers in my post "Goatfish with ram head"...

Sacrificial lamb actually, as ram (Aries) has to be killed (has to end), so summer, the domain of Shamash, can begin in Taurus...I talked about this in my post "Aries must die" about the sacrificial lamb...

Or, if we remember this stuff from my post "You will trample great lion and serpent":

God most high...Happy summer solstice guys...

Snake: Apr/May, beginning of the main snake mating season, beginning of summer.

Lion: Jul/Aug, beginning of the main lion mating season, end of summer.

And the fact that Christ is sitting on a throne, then maybe, the Mathew 25 actually depicts this:

And the Christian scene is not inverted, mirror image of the celestial scene. But the actual  symbolic depiction of the Sun God on his throne...

I just wonder if this is sun on the summer solstice, or is this sun in Leo, The Dragon...Nergal...

Unfortunately, the more I learn about all this, the more I am convinced that the last is true...

To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…then check the rest of the blog posts related to animal calendar markers I still didn't add to this page, and finally check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am 9 months behind now...

Michael from Pavia

The Basilica of San Michele Maggiore is a church of Pavia, one of the most striking example of Lombard-Romanesque style. It dates from the 11th and 12th centuries.

Above the entrance is a bas-relief depicting St Michael standing on top of the defeated dragon. "And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought..., and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven"...

This Michael is very interesting indeed. Look at what he is holding in his right hand. He is holding a plant. And look at his wings. His wings are turning into tree branches...

What about the dragon? Dragon is just an old snake...At least this is what Slavs believed...And not just Slavs...

Snakes are cold blooded, so they are out only during the hot part of the day and hot part of the year...

As I explained in many of my posts, this makes snakes pure solar animals. They are in our world when sun is here (day, hot half of the year) and are in the underworld when sun is there (night, cold half of the year)...

This also makes Snakes perfect symbol of the sun and the sun's heat. They are also symbols of the beginning of summer, as vipers, the most common Eurasian snakes, start mating in Apr/May, beginning of summer...

So no wonder we find snake linked to the sun over and over again...All over the world...

Interestingly, the key for understanding the link between snakes and the sun was best preserved in Slavic folklore (remnants of Slavic mythology). I talked about this in my post "Letnitsa treasure" and  posts linked from this post...

Dragon or a Great Serpent is the representation of the destructive Summer sun's heat which burns the earth. 

Dragon "steals the waters of heaven", clouds or "heavenly cows'...In Indo-European mythology this Dragon is killed by the Thunder god, who "releases the waters of heaven", clouds or "heavenly cows"...But this is not just Indo-European myth...It is found all over Eurasia...

Anyway, killing of the dragon (drought) saves the world and saves the vegetation...Saves the tree of life...

In Slavic mythology the Thunder god who kills the dragon is Perun. He fights it all summer, and he finally manages to kill the dragon at the end of summer and beginning of autumn. 

BTW this is the distribution of the rain/thunder storms in Europe per month...You can see that in the Balkans the thunderstorms (Perun fighting Veles, the Dragon) start at the beginning of summer and end at the end of summer... 

With the arrival of Christianity, one of the saints that replaced Perun was St Michael, whose name means "Who is like God". Now have a look at this: Left is the wheel of Svetovid, Sun god. Right is the wheel of Perun, Thunder god. Perun's wheel is Svetovid's wheel on fire...

Interestingly the oldest church dedicated to St Michael, St Michael at Sosthenion, was built on the site of a temple dedicated to "Winged Zeus"... Constantine interpreted the winged statue of the temple as a Christian angel... I talked about this in my post "Archangel Michael"...

BTW, check this article, "Pero" in which I proposed that the root of the name of the Slavic thunder god Perun is "pero" = feather, which would make Perun = Feathered one, and not from PIE perkwus, meaning "oak" or "mountain". Zeus, Jupiter, Perun were all linked to eagles. And the oldest descriptions of Mesopotamian thunder gods described them as thunder birds...

Phoenician drachm, 4th century BC, on exhibit in the British Museum. The coin shows a seated deity, labelled "YHW". This is EL to whom "MichaEL" is like...

The arrangement of the deity sitting on a winged wheel has been compared to Ezekiel's vision of Yahweh's throne as flying about the heavens on four wheels (chariot). I talked about this "vision" in this post about "Four living creatures"...

It is interesting that the main Christian "replacement" for Perun in Serbia, St Elijah the Thunderer, drives on top of the clouds in his chariots, causing thunder and lightning when the chariot wheels bump off the surface of the clouds...I talked about this in my post "Thundering sun god"...

When we look at the climatic effect of the end of summer and beginning of autumn, we see that Thunder god's function is to "defeat the Sun god", who is about to burn the earth to cinder...And he does that after a looong fight which lasts the whole summer...

So, St Michael is celebrated at the end of summer (Catholic church) / the end of autumn (Orthodox church) for a reason 🙂 ...

If we look at it more closely, we realise that there is actually no fight going on here. The sun's heat (Sun god's power) rises during summer, to it's maximum at the end of summer and it then it subsides...It is a naturally occurring oscillatory process...

This adds interesting twist to the question about the identity of Satan, who was defeated (replaced) by Michael...Until next spring of course, when snakes come out of the underground...

Especially when we know that it looks like Hebrews worshipped sun in their first temple. I talked about this in my post "Sun god from the first temple"...Sun was their EL...BTW, Sun still is the EL of Hebrews...I talked about this in my post "The tree of life"...To whom MichaEL was like...So if Michael replaced Thunder god, whose duty is to "kill dragon", Sun, Sun's heat, and Sun was the god of Hebrews/Christians...

This doesn't mean that Hebrew and Christian god is Satan 🙂 It means that Christian god is Sun...Life giving in the spring. Life destroying in the summer...And so He is finally cast from heaven into the underworld at the end of summer/autumn (depending on the local climate) where He stays until next spring...You know the story...

Adam's apple

There are two main theories as to the origin of the term "Adam's apple". The "Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable" and the 1913 edition of Webster's Dictionary point at an "ancient belief that a piece of forbidden fruit was embedded in Adam's throat"...

However, neither the Bible nor other Judeo-Christian writings mention such a story. In fact, the biblical story does not even specify the type of fruit that Adam ate...

Linguist Alexander Gode claimed that the Latin phrase to designate the laryngeal prominence was very probably translated incorrectly from the beginning...

The phrase in Latin was "pomum Adami" (literally: 'Adam's apple'). This, in turn, came from the Hebrew "tappuach ha adam" meaning "apple of man"...

According to the proponents of this theory, the confusion lies in the fact that in Hebrew language the proper name "Adam" (אדם) literally means "man". At the same time the late Hebrew word for "bump" is very similar to the word for "apple"...So we get "Adam's apple"...

Also, Adam's apple, the area of the thyroid cartilage that appears more prominent on the front of the neck, is indeed mostly seen in men following puberty, but it can occur in women, too...So this apple is not exclusively "Apple of man"...

But, there is one "apple" which only men have 🙂 

The true "apple of man"? Or just me being bored...Any equally bored biblical scholars around? I bet this completely changes the meaning of "the apple Eve gave to Adam" 🙂 And why apple is the symbol of love and marriage...

Seven seals

In the Book of Revelation, the Seven Seals are the seven symbolic seals that secure the book or scroll that John of Patmos saw in an apocalyptic vision. The opening of the seals of the document occurs in Revelation Chapters 5–8 and marks the Second Coming of the Christ.

At the time when Revelation was written, important documents were sent written on a papyrus scroll sealed with several wax seals. Wax seals were typically placed across the opening of a scroll, so that only the proper person, in the presence of witnesses, could open the document.

But there is another possible meaning of the "Breaking of seven seals which announces the second coming of Christ". 

It has to do with Christ being "the bread of life"...

Since Neolithic times, in Fertile Crescent, farmers stored their grain in storage vessels which were they sealed using stone seals imprinted on clay.

The earliest evidence for this practice was found in Syria and dates to the seventh millennium B.C. You can read about this in "Deciphering Later Neolithic stamp seal imagery of Northern Mesopotamia" and "More Seals and Sealings from Neolithic Tell Sabi Abyad, Syria"...

At Arslantepe, a store room was found in the palace containing sealed containers...You can find the details in "THE ORIGINS OF ADMINISTRATIVE PRACTICES AND THEIR DEVELOPMENTS IN GREATER MESOPOTAMIA. THE EVIDENCE FROM ARSLANTEPE, ARCHÉO-NIL Revue de la société pour l'étude des cultures prépharaoniques de la vallée du Nil, 26, 2016"

And we know that palaces and temples were used as grain stores...

Storage vessels from the store room

Seals imprints. 

This is the table showing articultyral year in Levant. 

You can see that grain (barley and wheat) was sown by December and was harvested by July. 

When grain was harvested, it was stored in storage jars and was used for food until next harvest. Now if I was a grain farmer from Levant, I would have divided my grain into 13 jars. The grain in 12 jars would be used for food. Why 12 jars? Well this way you will know exactly how much you can eat each month so that you can ration the grain and not run out of it half way through the year. The 13th jar would contain seeds for the next sowing. 

Each storage jar would then be closed and sealed probably with a family seal...

Now if the grain was indeed kept like this, then a family would open a new storage jar every new month, and would use the grain contained inside during that month. To to that they would have to break the seal...

Now what is the second coming of Christ? The Second Coming is a Christian belief regarding the future (or past) return of Jesus after his ascension to heaven...Basically, Christ dies, he gets buried, he ascends (Empty grave)...Now we wait...For Christ's resurrection basically...

You know how Grain is used as a symbol of resurrection? It gets killed (harvesting), buried (planting) and resurrected (sprouting and growing)...Year after year after year. 

Now what if "the bread of life" should be taken literally? How long should we wait for the "second coming", "resurrection" of grain? Well, 7 months, from the end of sowing (beginning of December) to the end of the Harvesting (beginning of July). The longest 7 months in the life of any grain farmer whose life depends on the good harvest...

And every one of these long 7 months begins with opening one of the last 7 jars of grain...By breaking the seal which protected it...When the 7th seal is broken, the harvest is finished and the storage jars are refilled...

Was this the root of the 7 seals "vision" about the Second coming of the "Bread of life"???

Three finger salute

This is Roman grave monument of Servius Ennius Fuscus, soldier of the VIII Cohort Voluntariorum, originally from Cemenelum (modern Cimiez, Nice), who died aged 38 after 19 years' service; he is shown in military gear with his wife Fulvia Vitalis at his side. 1st century AD, Split

It looks pretty normal and ordinary at the first glance, but...

During the first century AD, Split was part of the Roman province of Illyricum, which comprised of Dalmatia and Pannonia, as is the mention by Velleius Pareculus of Gaius Vibius Postumus as the military commander of Dalmatia under Germanicus in 9 AD

Now what is interesting about this roman funerary stela from Split is the hand gesture performed by Servius and possibly his wife too (not clear from the image).

Here is the detail

Does it look familiar?

Here it is on the painting "The Takovo Uprising", painted in 1888 by renowned Serbian painter Paja Jovanović. Three finger salute by Serbs starting the uprising against the Turks...

Here is the detail

The reason Serbs on this painting are using this salute is because it symbolised trinity. Here is the same salute on old christian images. Pic from "The Evil Eye", by Frederick Thomas Elworthy, [1895]

Officially the three finger gesture was first used by Saint Meletius, Archbishop of Antioch, in 381 during the Second Ecumenical Council...

But what if this hand gesture was used even earlier, but was just first time documented in the 4th century AD? 

We know that the same gesture called Mano Pantea was used by Pagans in the Balkans at the same time...

This was in fact the main symbol of Sabazios (Ancient Greek: Σαβάζιος, romanized: Sabázios, modern pronunciation Savázios) the sky father god of the Phrygians and Thracians...

Back to the Roman funerary monument from Split. It is possible that Servius and his wife are pagan worshipers of Sabazios and are using the three finger sign to show their devotion to this god...

But here is something interesting. Servius is also holding a scroll. This is a fourth century painting of St. Paul. Paul's dress, the scroll in his hands, and the container with more scrolls at his feet, all identify Paul as a philosopher, a teacher. 

Was Servius a teacher too?

And if he was a teacher, what was he teaching in Illyricum in the first century AD? Maybe Christianity. There are Slavic legends which say that St Paul converted Slavs in Illyricum in the 1st century AD...Was Servius one of the converts? 

More about these legends in my post "St Paul among the Slavs"

That indeed there could have been Christian converts in the 1st century AD Illyricum is indicated by the finds from Židovar archaeological site in Northern Serbia. A beautifully silver box decorated with a cross, was found in the layers dated to the period 2nd century BC - 1st century AD. 

That this was indeed the find from the 1st century AD, is the fact that the box contained two bronze rings with fish, Good Shepard and palm branch, all early Christian symbols. 

You can read more about this in my post "Church on the Threshing floor" 

And so, back to our Servius from Split. 

The only thing that would definitely rule out that Servius was a possible Christian convert would be if his monument dated to very early first century AD. But it seems that it dates to the period between 70AD and 130AD which means that he could have well been a Christian convert and that this is why his gravestone looks the way it does...

It could just be nothing...But it could be an early Christian monument...Who knows...