The oldest Demeter depiction

So...How old is the oldest depiction of Demeter, Greek Mother of Grain? How about 4500-4200 years old? Do you want to see it? Here she is in all her glory...

Mother (vulva) surrounded with grain...This symbol is hidden in plain sight on this strange object. This is one of many mysterious Early Cycladic "Frying Pans" found on Cycladic islands in Greece and dated to the second half of the 3rd mill BC

I talk about this particular frying pan, in my post "Tuna boats" about Bronze Age Cycladic tuna fishermen, in which I was discussing the ancient fishing/sailing calendar for the Cyclades. A lot of these "Frying Pans" depict boats, tuna fish and swirling waves...

And of course I completely missed the most important bit: vulva surrounded with grain, symbolic depiction of the Mother of Grain...

We know that this has been a grain symbol in Eastern Mediterranean, Mesopotamia, Central Asia, Iran, since at least Sumerian times...

I talk about this symbol being used in combination with vulva to depict the mother of grain in many of my posts. Like this post, "Arjoune Venus", about the 6th mill BC Halaf culture figurines from Syria. This one has vulva on front and ears of grain on the back...

We even have this symbol described in "The Courtship of Inanna and Dumuzi" where Inanna, Sumerian Mother of Grain, says:

Before my lord, Dumuzi...

I poured out grain before my womb...

I talked about this in many of my posts...

BTW, we find the same symbolism (grain before womb) described in the Greek legends about Baubo and Demeter...I talked about this in this recent post "Baubo", in which I explain why she is one of the most misunderstood figures from Ancient Greek mythology. 

This is one of many "Baubo" figurines which were found in the Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore at Priene and dated to the 2nd c. BC. 

The fact that we find the earliest use of this symbolism in the Fertile Crescent is important. You'll see why soon.

Anyway, I suddenly remembered the vulva with grain "detail" from our Cycladic "Frying Pan" while I was writing my post "Poseidon pursuing demeter", in which I gave symbolic analysis of this Tetradrachm minted in Byzantium, Thrace, ca 240–220 BC, which depicts veiled head of Demeter, wreathed with corn and Poseidon seated right on rock, holding aphlaston in extended right hand and trident over shoulder. 

In it, I tried to answer the question: why were Demeter, Goddess of grain harvest (season) and Poseidon, God of sailing (season) paired together? As horses?

Basically, horse mating season, Apr/May-Sep/Oct overlaps with both grain harvest and sailing season in Ancient Greece...

Hence the link between Demeter (Mother of grain), Persephone (Grain) and horses. Here is Demeter in her horse-drawn chariot with her daughter Persephone, driving between two prancing stallions. 🙂 Selinunte, Sicily 6th c. BC

And the link between Poseidon and horses. I talked about this link in my posts "Trojan horse", "Three sacrifices", "Tetradrachm from Byblos", "Seahorse ring"...

Anyway, I expanded on it in my post "To sail - To harvest", about the heliacal rising of Pleiades being a calendar marker for the start of both harvest and sailing season in Ancient Greece...Greek name "Πλειαδες" comes from πλεω, which means "to sail"...

I think we find proof for this link between the goddess of grain (harvest) and god of the sea (sailing) in Minoan Crete in the 2nd mill BC.

Actually goddesses of grain, Persephone (grain seed) and Demeter (grain harvest)...

Here they are, in a horse drawn chariot, depicted on a late Minoan limestone sarcophagus, dated to around 1400 BC, excavated from a chamber tomb at Hagia Triada, Crete, Greece...

I just remembered I wrote a whole post, "Agia Triada Sarcophagus", about this a while back where I actually talk about this link between Poseidon, Demeter, Persephone and horses in detail. I am getting old and forgetful...

This link between grain harvest season (Demeter) and sailing season (Poseidon) is I think what is depicted on our Cycladic "Frying Pan":

Tuna fishing boat (Poseidon)

Vulva surrounded with grain (Demeter)

What do you think?

But 🙂 there is something that makes me wonder...

This stele, most likely from the ancient city of Mari in Syria, depicts the Mother of Grain in exactly the same symbolic way...And dates from...🥁🥁🥁...the beginning of the third mill BC...Pretty much the same time as our Cycladic "Frying Pan"...

I talk about this amazing object in my post "Mother of grain from Mari"...

So what I am wondering is, does the vulva surrounded with grain depicted on our Cycladic "Frying Pan" depict Demeter...Or maybe her Levantine double, Inanna/Ishtar/Asherah/Astarte...

I already talked about the possibility that the 2nd mill BC Mycenaean Greeks worshipped Asherah who eventually turned into Demeter in my post "Cup of Nestor"...

Cup from Mycenae with doves. 

And the lions flanking a pole depicted above the main gate of the Mycenae fortress.

Interestingly, Asherah, who was symbolically depicted as an Asherah Pole, was associated with both lions and doves...And so were Inanna and Demeter...

Asherah the goddess represented as a wooden pole erected on "high places". We have no idea what this means, but I have a hunch that the "high places" were threshing floors and that Asherah poles were central poles of the threshing floors...

I talked about this in my post "Sacred marriage on the threshing floor"...

And this is what Homer says about Demeter and threshing floors:

"And even as the wind carries chaff about the sacred threshing-floors / of men that are winnowing, when fair-haired Demeter / amid the driving blasts of wind separates the grain from the chaff"...

Which is why Eugene Vanderpool in "ΕΠΙ ΠΡΟϒΧΟΝΤΙ ΚΟΛΩΝΩΙ: The Sacred Threshing Floor at Eleusis" proposes that threshing floors were sacred to Demeter and were in fact her temples...I talked about this in my post "Demeter riding panther"...

But as we can see from the our "Frying Pan", I think that this "Mother of Grain" from the Fertile Crescent came to Greece much earlier...In the 3rd mill BC. Via Greek Islands...Already linked with the god of the sea...

Look at this:

Asherah's son is Yam, god of the sea, or more precisely Yam, deified sea itself. And because of all this, Asherah's title "Rabat Athirat Yam", found in the Baal Cycle, can be translated as "Lady Aṯhirat (Asherah) of the Sea"...

The same sea god Yam, who in Phoenician and Canaanite mythology, was associated with horses?🙂

Phoenician ships often adorned with horse heads as tributes to Yam, who was believed to be appeased with such offerings to prevent destructive storms.

Reproduction of a Phoenician ship from the Archaic era, called a hippoi by the Greeks (due to the horse head at the bow), carved in bone, c. 11th-9th centuries BC, Ifergan Collection, Malaga, Spain (2019)

I talked about this in my post "Trojan horse", in which I asked a question: was Trojan horse "hypos" - a wooden horse left as tribute, or  "hypos" - a wooden boat with a horse head used for transporting tributes...

And in this article I also pointed at this "coincidence":

In the Phoenician religion, there was a tripartite division of power between Baal (Storm god), Mot (God of death) and Yamm (Sea god)...

This "seems to have" (first understatement of a millennium) influenced the Greek division between Zeus (Storm god), Hades (God of death) and Poseidon (Sea god)...

Are you kidding me? How many other tripartite divisions of power like this do we have?

It "is possible" (second understatement of a millennium) that Poseidon/Neptune was directly inspired by a Phoenician counterpart Yam...

Is Asherah/Astarte then "inspiration" for Demeter? I just realised I wrote another post, "Goddess on a horse", about this 13th c. BC levantine gold plaque, depicting a lady on a horse, probably Astarte or Anat (according to Israel Museum), who was linked to grain and sailing...

Sooooo...What do you think of all this? 

The oldest symbolic depiction of Demeter and Poseidon? 

Or 

The oldest depiction of Asherah and Yam?

Or both?

I hope you had fun reading this thread. I definitely had a lot of fun researching it, thinking about it and writing it...

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...

Tuna boats

This is the amazing fortified Bronze Age settlement of Kastri, located on the Greek island of Syros and dated to the Early Cycladic II period (Keros-Syros culture, 2600–2300 BC)... 

Near this settlement, archaeologists have discovered a cemetery, with more than 700 graves excavated to date. The graves are of the subterranean corbelled type, which is exclusive to Syros...

This is the grave XI with some of the grave goods found in it...You can read more about it in "Figurines in context at the Chalandriani cemetery on Syros".

For this article, the most interesting thing found in this grave is the so called "frying pan"...

Curious objects, which do resemble frying pans, but no one really knows what they are or what they were used for... 

Here is what these objects look like from both sides...

One proposal is that they were used as liquid mirrors. You fill the vessel with a liquid and...Pics of the reflection in four liquid mirrors with: (a) water, (b) olive oil, (c) ‘black’ water (d) ‘black’ olive oil...

You can read more about it in "The ‘frying pans’ of the Early Bronze Age Aegean: an experimental approach to their possible use as liquid mirrors"...

Another proposal is that these were vessels used for salt extraction through natural solar evaporation...Structures, which until recently were used for solar brine evaporation in Greece...

You can read more about it in "Neolithic flat-based pots from the Carnac Mounds in the light of Cycladic ‘frying pans’". Those interested in ancient salt extraction techniques might like this post "Fulacht fiadh salt extraction facility"...

Now quite a lot of these Cycladic frying pens have depictions of boats as part of the decoration...Like this one...A boat depicted among the swirling spirals representing waves, or moving, running water...And right above the bow of the boat there is always a depiction of a fish...Which would suggest that Cycladic boatsmen were fishermen...

Here are some examples of the the boat-fish designs from the Cycladic frying pans...

The fish depicted has a very big dorsal and tail fins...To me the look the most like tunas...

Which would suggest that Cycladic boatsmen were not just fishermen, but tuna fishermen...

Now in my post about the "Tuna coin from Akanthos" I talked about different native types of tuna fish that live in Mediterranean, their mating seasons and their fishing season...

Basically, the tuna fishing season in Mediterranean, including Cycladic islands is from Apr to Nov...With the peak in Jul/Aug...Basically when summer (which starts in Taurus) ends (gets killed) by autumn (which starts in Leo)...

Ram, marks lambing of Eurasian wild sheep

Bull, marks calving of Eurasian wild cattle

Lion, marks mating of Eurasian lions

Goat, marks mating of Eurasian wild goats

You can read more about it in my post "Symbols of the seasons"...

This time when lion kills bull (Jul/Aug) is also "the best time to go to the sea" according to Hesiod... 

I talked about this in my post "Tetradrachm from Byblos"...

So after this lengthy intro 🙂 let me get to the interesting bit: This is a silver belt found in one of the Cycladic graves on Syros. This is an amazing object...Which no one knows how to interpret...

I would propose that this is a calendar...No surprises there, if you have been following me for a while🙂 

But why calendar? 

And calendar depicting what?

The answer to the second question, "calendar depicting what?" is "calendar depicting tuna fishing season"...

The answer to the first question "why calendar?" is "because birds and dogs are well known animal calendar markers which when depicted the way they are depicted on the diadem, mark the beginning the end and the peak of the tuna fishing season in the Cyclades area"...

Let me explain what I mean: The Cyclades are on the major bird migration route between Europe and Africa. 

The spring migration from Africa to Europe suddenly peaks in Apr/May...

Sudden appearance of millions of migrating birds above the Cycladic islands coincides with the onset of the sailing (and tuna fishing) season in the Eastern Mediterranean...

Birds announcing the time to go to the sea...Interesting...I talked about the sailing season in the Eastern Mediterranean and how birds were used as animal calendar markers for the beginning of the sailing season in my post "Three sacrifices" made for "good winds" by the Greeks at the beginning and the end of the Trojan war...

The birds migrate from Europe to Africa between Sep and Oct...

When the last migrating flock disappears in the southern skies, it is time to pull the boats on the beach, as this marks the end of the seafaring (and tuna fishing) season in Eastern Mediterranean...

So that could explain the birds depicted on the Cycladic silver belt...What about the dogs?

Remember this? 

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...

I talked about this in my posts "Dog days" Egypt, "Tishtrya" Mesopotamia, "The bitch of the gods" India...

The middle point between the beginning of the spring bird migration and the end of the autumn bird migration...

And "the best time to go to the sea in Cyclades in search of tuna"...

Apr/May - Jul/Aug - Oct/Nov

Oh, and these "discs" between the animal calendar markers are suns...Apr/May - Jul/Aug - Oct/Nov is the sunny, hot, dry half of the year in Syros...

So to recapitulate, I believe that this belt is a kind of calendar, which using animal calendar markers depicts the sunny, dry half of the year, which is also the time when you can go to the sea in search of tuna fish...

I could be wrong, but I can't see any other reason why someone would depict birds, suns and dogs on such a precious object...And I refuse to accept that the choice of the depicted symbols was random...

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...