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...

Crane symbolism at Çatalhöyük

The other day I came across this beautiful mural from a Neolithic (7th millennium BC) site Tell Bouqras from Syria...

It is believed that this mural depicts a group of Common Cranes 

While looking for more info about this image I came across this very interesting paper entitled "Dance of the Cranes: Crane symbolism at Çatalhöyük and beyond". And in it I found this beautiful image of a wall painting from Çatalhöyük depicting a pair of dancing Common Cranes... 

Here is the real thing for comparison. A pair of beautiful Anatolian mountain cranes, a darker local subspecies of the Common Cranes found only in Anatolia.

The article talks about a possibility that a crane cult of some sort existed in Çatalhöyük and that it involved making crane wing costumes used for performing ceremonial crane dances...

The reason why the authors suspected this to be the case is because one of the things found in Çatalhöyük were bones of a complete crane wing, with cut marks corresponding to the cuts that have to be made to remove muscles during fixing of a wing in a spread position...

Which you would have to do if you wanted to make crane costume, to perform a crane dance...Which article authors imagined like this:

The authors then ask: "When would people from Çatalhöyük perform crane dance"? And they propose that the crane dance was most likely performed at weddings, "because cranes, dance during their mating season"...

And "because, cranes, which are monogamous and are dedicated parents, can be associated with successful marriage"...

The article authors say that although "...cranes are associated with changing seasons...it is unclear that the inhabitants of Çatalhöyük would have made that association..."

"...because Common Crane winter as well as live and breed in the area of Çatalhöyük, and so their seasonal association wouldn't be as strong as in Europe, where they depart just before the onset of winter..."

Also, based on the vulture depictions with human legs from the temple VII.21, which were interpreted as "priests in vulture costumes dancing over dead bodies", the authors suggest that "it is tempting to imagine a vulture dance of death and a crane dance of life"...

Well...Vultures areal "dance" was actually used in wedding ceremonies in the Balkans...And, in Western Asia, vulture was not only a symbol of death, but also a symbol of rebirth of nature, through its link with the rain season and the rain god...

Left: Montenegro 1963AD

Right: Syria, 1800BC

Eagle (vulture) couples dance above the mountains at the beginning of their mating season, which coincides with the beginning of the rain season in Fertile Crescent...I talked about this in my post "Eagle dance"...

Sooo...What do I think about this? I think that the authors of this article were on the right track when they were discussing the mural with two facing cranes and said: "The male and female Common Cranes look alike, so we cannot tell whether this is meant to be a mating pair..."

"...However, the facing pair of animals is a repeated theme in Çatalhöyük art, and for example is seen in a pair on onagers immediately below the cranes, as well as the facing leopards reliefs..." 

I will talk about the leopards in Çatalhöyük art soon. Very interesting subject.

"...The cranes may thus be linked into a larger symbolic system of pairs or twins..." Hmmm "symbolic system of animal pairs" sounds very much like "animal calendar markers derived from annual mating (or birthing) seasons of animals"

And so being "obsessed with animal calendar markers", I was intrigued by the fact that the crane wing was found on top of a horn of a female wild cow...Next to two wild goat horns...

I think that this is very important...Cause this links crane with two most important animal calendar markers related to agricultural cycle in Eastern Mediterranean, Western and Central Asia: wild goats and wild cattle...

The animal calendar markers which also mark sowing and harvesting seasons of the most important crops grown by the people of Çatalhöyük (and other Neolithic farmers in Western Asia): grains like wheat and barley and pulses like lentils, peas...I am basing this on what I read in "Food, Meals, and Daily Activities: Food Habitus at Neolithic Çatalhöyük" in the chapter "Food items and their seasonal cycle" where it says that the winter grains were ready for harvest in Apr/May/Jun...

While I was digging around to find info about the agriculture practiced by the people of Çatalhöyük, I came across this amazing article "Diversity and Complexity in Early Farming Communities of Southwest Asia: New Insights into the Economic and Environmental Basis of Neolithic Çatalhöyük" which talks about the influence of the local climate and hydrology on the way people of Çatalhöyük grew their crops...

Here is the gist:

There were two types of Neolithic agriculture: 

Rain fed agriculture, where crops were planted after the first autumn rains, on the hills...

Flood fed agriculture, where crops were planted after the first spring floods, on the alluvial plains...

It was previously assumed, that because Çatalhöyük is located on a two mounds in the middle of the alluvial Konya plain, that the agriculture practiced by the people of Çatalhöyük was flood fed one...

Just like in early Neolithic sites in the Balkans. I talked about the alluvial plain agriculture in my post about 7th mill BC early grain farming Starčevo culture Blagotin settlement in Serbia. I talked about this archaeological site in my post "Blagotin"...

But it turns out, that the climate and the way it influenced water regime in the area made that impossible...

On the Konya climate chart you can see that after a hot dry summer, rains and snow arrive in Oct/Nov, and that the precipitation remans constant over the next 6 months...

The combination of rain and snowmelt in the spring results in annual spring flood which basically turned the whole area around Çatalhöyük into a giant swampy lake, with Çatalhöyük settlement mound becoming an island...Which had huge influence on the life in the settlement...

The flood during the most important growing period for the agricultural crops would make it impossible to plant crops in the alluvial plain near the settlement, making the flood fed agriculture impossible...

This means that the only type of agriculture that the people of Çatalhöyük could have practiced is rain fed agriculture in the hills. With crops planted in the late autumn and harvested in the early summer...

BTW, the nearest suitable land for agriculture was located 13 km away...This means that the people of Çatalhöyük had to have been spending half of the year outside of the settlement, near their fields in temporary seasonal villages...

The same thing was found in Serbia with regards to the Bronze Age alluvial tin mining, also a seasonal activity during spring floods...I talked about this in my post "Bronze Age tin sources in Serbia"...

Sooo...As I said, people of Çatalhöyük planted grains and pulses at the end of autumn (Oct/Nov) and harvested them at the beginning of summer (Apr/May)...You can read more about it in "Food, Meals, and Daily Activities: Food Habitus at Neolithic Çatalhöyük" in the chapter "Food items and their seasonal cycle"... 

Oct/Nov is when wild Ibex goats start mating...Which is why wild goats are animal calendar marker marking grain planting season...

Apr/May is when wild Auroch cattle start calving...Which is why wild cattle are animal calendar marker marking grain harvest season...

OK....But what does all this have to do with cranes? Have a look at this...This is one of my favourite maps...It shows migratory routes of all migratory birds that cross over Turkey...Do you see how congested the skies are over Çatalhöyük?

Basically during Sep/Oct/Nov and Mar/Apr/May the skies over Çatalhöyük must have been filled with millions of migrating birds of all kinds...A spectacle eagerly awaited by the people of Çatalhöyük, because it signalled that the time to plant/harvest crops was nearing...

One of those migratory bird species were Common Cranes, which breed in Northern Eurasia and winters in Iberia, Northern and Eastern Africa, Levant, Mesopotamia, Northern India and Eastern China...You can read more about this in "Cranes of the W anes of the World: E orld: Eurasian Cr asian Crane (Grus grus)"...

You can see that Central Anatolia (where Çatalhöyük is located), is both breeding and wintering ground for Common Crane...The area contains a small permanent breeding populations which swells during the winter when the wintering birds arrive from the north...

I am talking about thousands and thousands of birds all arriving and landing together in Oct...And all getting up and leave together in Feb/Mar/Apr...

You can read about Common Crane migrations over Anatolia in "Soaring bird migration in 2015 spring at Belen Pass, Hatay, Turkey"...

Now this is not something that can be missed, if you live in Çatalhöyük, in a middle of a marshy plain, ideal crane habitat...

This is a recent image from one of the crane wintering grounds in Israel showing birds getting ready to leave...Totally amazing...Imagine how many more cranes must have been arriving together to and leaving together from Çatalhöyük in the 7th mill BC, before we killed them all...

Interestingly, just before leaving, the cranes would gather in huge groups...to dance...Until I read the above paper about the common cranes, I thought that cranes dance only as part of their mating ritual which takes place in Apr/May...

It turns out that "crane dancing can be seen frequently in winter quarters before the northward migration"...So basically, Feb/Mar/Apr/May was the period when cranes danced all around Çatalhöyük...First the migratory common cranes danced before they migrated back north. Then the local mountain cranes danced during their mating season...So if you were a Çatalhöyük crane worshiper, when would you have danced your crane dance?

So I would argue that if the people of Çatalhöyük were indeed into dressing up as cranes, they would have performed their crane dances at the same time when cranes danced all around them, in Feb/Mar/Apr/May?...

In Serbia people believed that if cranes land on a field during their arrival in the spring, that field will have an especially good harvest...Lots of guano...Wanna bet that the Çatalhöyük people also linked their field fertility with cranes?

Did people of Çatalhöyük dance as cranes to celebrate the affect dancing cranes had on their fields?

By the way, you know how the two facing (mating) cranes were depicted on the Çatalhöyük mural above the two facing onagers (wild asses)...Were they depicted there by accident? Well, cranes start mating in Apr...And onagers start mating in...April...I talked about this in my post "Onager"...

So that's it...

PS: An article about cranes and bulls calendar markers Indus Valley: "Mehrgarh crane bowl" 

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...