Animals march three by three

Sumerian limestone bowl fragment with three ibex goats following a lion...3300-3100 BCE, Currently in the Detroit Institute of Arts...

What's all this about?

Well, I think, climate in Mesopotamia and annual lifecycle of the depicted animals...

I am so sorry only a fragment of this bowl has survived. But I could bet that the original bowl had 

3 ibex goats, following 3 lions, following 3 bulls, following 3 leopards...

Why?

Check this post out. It is about a copper bowl from the same period and the same area...And about the climatic year in Sumer and Elam, and local Sumerian/Elamite animal calendar markers for the four seasons...

A Sumerian or Elamite Copper Bowl. Early 3rd Millennium B.C.E., H. 9.2 cm., D. 16.2 cm.

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...

Elamite water bull

c. 3000BC, Proto-Elamite silver figurine of a clothed kneeling bull which "shows a curious blend of human and animal traits"... holding a spouted vessel. Currently in the Met Museum... The artefact page says: "possibly a symbol of a natural force"...So who (or what) does this figurine represent?

My guess is either Enki (Sumerian god of sweet water) or Utu (Sumerian sun god)...Or their unnamed Elamite equivalent who possibly combines both of them in one...

What do either Enki or Utu have to do with bulls?

In "Enki and the world order" we read: "...Father Enki...he stood up full of lust like a rampant bull, lifted his penis, ejaculated and filled the Tigris with flowing water. He was like a wild cow mooing for its young in the wild grass..."

You have to imagine this, no pics 🙂

In the same text we also reed: "Enki placed in charge of the whole of heaven and earth the hero, the youth Utu (Shamash), the bull standing triumphantly, audaciously, majestically...the great herald in the east of holy An...with a lapis-lazuli beard, rising from the horizon..."

Hence Shamash depicted as a golden (solar) bull with lapis lazuli (water) beard... 

These identifications of these two gods with a bull is not coincidental. These are yearly charts of the water levels in Tigris and Euphrates. You can see that they both peak in Apr/May, Taurus, Bull...

Tigris 

Euphrates

This is the result of the heating up of the mountains which are the source of the two great rivers: Anatolian highlands and the Zagros mountains...Which causes the snow to melt, which causes the rivers to swell...

Snow cover (inverted snowmelt), Zagros

River flow, Zagros

Sun (Utu), "the triumphant bull" melts the snow and fees the water (Enki) who then fills the two rivers, right at the beginning of the calving season of the wild Eurasian cattle, when "wild cows moo for their young in the wild grass"...

I talked about this in my posts "Solar bull" "Shamash young and old", "Butt chewing", "Green pastures", "Rain and flood"...

Hence Enki, bull who ejaculates two rivers...Hence Elamite bull holding a water vessel with a spout, pouring rivers in Taurus...

The link between Taurus and the maximum river water levels is also found on the artifacts of the Jiroft culture, which flourished in the Zagros mountains in the 3rd millennium BC. 

Rivers flowing out of bulls. Held by a figure dressed just like the Elamite bull. I talked about this in my post "Jiroft flood vase"...

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...

Goat petroglyphs from Iran

Petroglyphs from Southern Iran. Dating:  Second millennium BC (??? - estimate, no real data)...

The Petroglyphs are from a site near Dehtel village, Hormozgan province... 

As you can see, the predominant motif on the Dehtel petroglyphs is Ibex goat...Which is not surprising when we know that almost 90 percent of Iran's rock art consists of the ibex depictions!!! 

The first ancient petroglyphs in Iran were discovered (recorded) in 2002 by Mohammed Naserifard in the hills outside the town of Khomein in central Iran.

He estimates that since the initial discovery in 2002 he travelled more than 700000 kilometres across two dozen Iranian provinces, unearthing some 50000 ancient paintings and engravings...Ibex after ibex after ibex...And few other things...

On the Bradshaw foundation site about Iran rock art we can read a short piece about Iranian ibex petroglyphs with a comment from Dr Mohammed Naserifard about their meaning...A very interesting comment indeed...About Ibex being linked to water...

Archaeological evidence shows that Ibex was hunted in Iran from the Middle Paleolithic period onwards. So pre people in the area knew the behavior and the lifecycle of this animal in detail...

They knew that the mating of Ibex goats happens every year at the same time...When the first rains arrive...In Oct/Nov...This is climatic chart for Western Iran...

So once the agriculture started in the region, the first farmers knew that the rains, needed for ploughing and sowing, arrive when Ibex goats start to mate...In Late Oct - Early Nov...

Which is why Ibex, with its curving horns and characteristic beard, went on to be incorporated into "decorative" friezes on painted pottery and they also appear on many stamp and cylinder seals from Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age Iran...

Except these were anything but decorative motifs...These were religious symbols, "magic" animal calendar markers....For the most important annual event, the beginning of the rain season...

I talked about this in my post "Iranian goat of rain" Tepe Hissar pottery, "Strider", "Winged bull with Ibex horns", "Goat in a tree", "Jumping goat"...And many more...

Did people believe that it was the goat which brought the rain? I thinks so...Otherwise we would not see things like these:

Ibex-headed figure, possibly a human wearing the horns of an ibex, appears "in the guise of the master of animals" 🙂 in Iran from 4000BC...(Spoiler: there is no such thing as master of animals)

Well they also appear in Syria and Iraq around that same time...

These two stamps, one from Arslan Tepe and one from Tepe Gawra, are very interesting. They both show Ibex, which we know was associated with the arrival of first autumn rains. But who is depicted with the Ibex goats? A man with an Ibex mask...Priest playing Ibex? Ibex god? Master of the animals?  🙂

Of course we know that this is not any "master of the animals". There is no such a thing...Just a deified Ibex (Goat of Rain) transitioning 🙂 into the Rain god whose sacred animal is Ibex...

Here is an Elamite figurine from around 3000BC, depicting a man with goat horns (or a goat horns helmet, cap)...

I talked about this in my post "Strider"...

Here is the interesting bit from Dr Mohammad Naserifard's text. He says that

...the symbolic and/or religious significance of the ibex in pre-Islamic Iran is unclear, although some argue that it was integral to a pre-Islamic creation narrative...

According to the Zoroastrian cosmogony, Mashya and Mashyana were the first man and woman whose procreation gave rise to the human race. According to Mohammad Naserifard, it was the ibex that was chosen as the symbol of divine assistance....

Where Ibex "may have represented an over-riding belief in, and request for, the provision of water, the guarantee of fertility and birth, and a Divine Hu, blessing and protection"...

Ha! Of course no explanation why would Ibex symbolize "provision of water"...

Ibex goat mating season starts Oct/Nov, with Ibex males, which are normally solitary, gather to fight for females...And then the rains arrive, provided by the Divine The Goat of Rain...

Pic: Elamite (South Iranian) seal with two male Ibex goats and a cross...

Is this what this cross under the Ibex horn means? IMPORTANT!!!

Anyway, if anyone knows Dr Mohammad Naserifard, can they ask him why he thought that Ibex was the symbol of Divine provision of water?

Finally, here are two seals from Susa Iran, dated to 4000BC and depicting a "goat-man" holding snakes.

Here is another one, this one is from Tell Brak, dated to 3800-3600BC...

Snake is the symbol of sun, more precisely sun's heat. And dragon, the old snake, is the symbol of the destructive heat of the late summer sun...I talked about this in several of my articles, like "Enemy of the sun", "The chthonic animal", "Dragon who stole rain", "Bactrian snakes and dragons", "Seven headed dragon","Nude winged hero dominating snakes"...

Knowing this, on the above Susa seals we have goat, the symbol of rain, subduing snakes, symbols of sun's heat...Rains, brought by the goat of rain, end the drought, brought by the snake of the sun...

BTW, something just occurred to me. You know how in Levant, Mot, the god of death was equated with the sun, which is symbolised by a snake, dragon...And how Devil is all about fire...And has a pet snake...And likes dressing up as a dragon... 

Fun...

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...

Upside down

Another Elamite seal. Iran. From "The Elamite Cylinder Seal Corpus, c. 3500–1000 BC" by Karen Jane Gordon. This one even more amazing...

On the right we see a deer, a fallow deer, common to Iran...

On the left we see a goat, a markhor goat, common to Iran...

So why do we have a fallow deer and markhor goat side by side upside down? Climate and animal behavior again...

The climatic year in Elam is divided into dry season (May-Oct) and wet season (Nov-Apr)...

The driest part of the year is August. There is no rain and the snow runoff from the Zagros mountains has finished. I talked about the climate and water in Iran in my post "Winged bull with ibex horns"...This is also the time when fallow deer start their mating season...

The rains arrive at the end of October beginning of November. This is also the time when markhor goats start their mating season...Is this the symbol for flowing water next to the markhor goat?

The time when fallow deer mate is, for the farmers, the time of death...The time when markhor goat mate is, for the farmers, the time of life...Knowing this, I personally think that the seal was most likely viewed like this: markhor up, life, fallow deer down, death...

Zodiac killer

Elamite seal. Iran. From "The Elamite Cylinder Seal Corpus, c. 3500–1000 BC" by Karen Jane Gardon.

Soooo What's this all about?

Top row:

Autumn (symbolised by a lion) follows summer (symbolised by a bull)...This is the moment in time that this seal marks. This is why we have a lion chasing bull and  the cross in the upper panel...I talked about the symbols of the seasons in this post...

So what about the bottom row with two bulls facing each other? 

Based on the horn shape and no hump, these are bulls of the Eurasian wild cattle, aurochs...

Beginning of August, the end of summer, beginning of autumn, is also when Eurasian wild cattle, aurochs used to mate...During this time auroch bulls fought (faced) each other for females...I talked about the reproductive cycle of aurochs in my post "Ram and bull"....

By the way, this is also the time when Eurasian lions main mating season started too...I talked about this in my post "Musth"...

This is the hottest part of the year in the northern hemisphere, which is why this is the day of Helios...In the Balkans this is the day of St Elijah the Thunderer, the Thundering Sun...

Why Thundering Sun? I talked about the "weird" link between the sun and thunder god in my post about Croesus and Apollo, The thundering Sun...

The reason why we have Thundering Sun God is easy to see from this chart of thunderstorm frequency in Europe...

Interestingly, in Bosnia, on the day of Thundering Sun, the day that marks the end of summer beginning of autumn, the day when aurochs used to fight, people sacrifice bulls and hold bull fights...I talk about this in my post "Alidjun"

So it seems that both the upper and the lower panel of this seal point at the same moment in the Solar year...The moment when the lion (autumn) catches up with the bull (summer) and when bulls fight...

What does this have to do with Europe? Well the key for deciphering images like this one is found in, of all places, Balkan Slavic folklore, remnants of mythologies and religions of ancient people which mixed in the Balkans, and which are preserved to this day by Slavic peasants.

It was the parallels between the bull cult found in Serbia and the bull cult found in Ireland that made me think: "we are dealing with something ancient here"... and led me to deciphering of the first animal calendar marker: bull...

After that I started looking at other well known animal calendar markers, collectively known as Zodiac...And what I found was that they all mark mating or birthing seasons of animals in question...In Europe...I talked about this in the articles linked to this page about "Zodiac"....

After this I started looking at Ancient Eurasian and North African mythologies which were full of animal images...All the ones I touched so far, turn out to also be calendar markers derived from the behavior of animals in question...

It seems that mythologies were built around ancient agricultural calendar, which probably has the common root in the fertile crescent, 15,000-10,000 BC...And which used animal calendar markers to mark different parts of the solar year, important for early farmers...

This same symbolic system was then used throughout the ancient world as the agriculture spread...The mythologies developed around it are full of "monsters made up of different animal parts", "gods with animal heads or bodies", "masters of animals" and "mysterious animal images"...

Which no one understands any more...Well...Maybe we can now understand these crazy bits of our common heritage a bit better...

There is just one problem...

The problem is that "there is nothing mysterious or holy or enlightening or mind blowing" at the bottom of the rabbit hole...

There is no all powerful wizard behind the curtain holding a magic wand looking up at the stars and constellations...Just a sweaty peasant holding a plough and looking up at the sky wandering if the Sky God will be cruel or merciful this year...

Not something you can make a career of "speculating what mystery lies behind"...

I was already told by some people that "when they see that my article is about calendar they just skip it"...

Because it's boring...

The best comment I got so far was that I was a "Zodiac killer"...Cause I killed the mystery that zodiac held for so many people and turned it into an agricultural calendar...

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...

Nahal Mishmar hoard

In 1961, an extraordinary treasure was found in a cave in Israel. Hidden in a natural crevice and wrapped in a straw mat, the hoard contained 442 different objects: 429 of copper, six of hematite, one of stone, five of hippopotamus ivory, and one of elephant ivory

You can read more about this in "The subterranean landscape of the Southern Levant during the chalcolithic period" by Yorke M. Rowan and in "Expedition C — The Cave of the Treasure" by P. Bar-Adon...

The incredibly elaborate metal objects were made with a copper containing a high percentage of arsenic (4–12%), basically arsenic bronze. Radiocarbon dating of the mat in which objects were wrapped showed that they were made between 4000 and 3500 BC...

The round knobs are usually said to be mace heads, but there is no evidence that any of them was ever used in combat...

The same goes for the so called "battle maces" or "sceptres" of "staffs"...No one really know what these were or what they were used for. Some had traces of wood in the holes, suggesting that they were stuck on poles...

But some, like this this one with a face (cute 😊) were definitely ceremonial objects. Unless these guys took "head butting" to another level 🙂

And there is no way that this amazing one topped with 4 horned animals with straight horns and 1 animal with spiral horns head was a weapon. It had to be a ceremonial object of some sort...

This is actually one of the most amazing objects I have ever seen...

10 of these cylindrical objects were also found in the hoard. The interpretations go from "crowns" to "stands for vessels with pointed bottoms". This one might have been used as a stand, but what a waste of a precious metal, when the same can be made from clay...

But some of these cylindrical objects were definitely not pointy bottom vessel stands...Like this one...Topped with birds and some strange structures with pointy horns attached to them...

So what are we to make of this. Items in the hoard were made by the people of the Ghassulian culture, a sedentary farming, metal working culture, which suddenly appeared "from somewhere up north" and settled in the area between 4500 and 3500 BC. 

They lived in villages and cultivated olives, grapes and grain...These are bedrock mortars used by Ghassulians for grinding grain...

You can read more about this in "Cereals in the Ghassulian Culture in Central Israel: Grinding Installations as a Case Study" by David Eitam

They also built temples. Like this one known as Ein Gedi temple, literally "temple of the spring of the goat"...Located near an Ein Gedi oases bordering the Dead Sea...

You can read more about this in "Temples in the Ghassulian Culture: Terminology and social implications" by Milena Gosic

The bronze hoard was found in a cavern located on the nearly inaccessible slopes of Nahal Mishmar, a seasonal stream that flows into the Dead Sea. 12 km. from the Ein Gedi temple...

The remains of over 20 individuals were also found in the caves. Their lives ended in these caves under tragic circumstances which is indicated by the fact they had numerous injuries and that the wrappings were stained with blood...

They were members of the "foreign" "northern" Ghassulian population who were most likely attacked by the locals, their neighbours. They fled, hurriedly collecting and bringing with them their most valuable possessions, probably the temple relics...

Now what is interesting is that these Ghassulian guys seem to have been obsessed with horned animals with straight pointy horns. I believe that these were depictions of Ibex goats...

Here is another ceremonial axe, mace, staff (???) from the Nahal Mishmar hoard with two horned animals with straight pointy horns...

Which animals are these? 

I believe that these are Ibex (Bezoar) goats...

Why would these guys be so into Ibex (Bezoar) goats? 

Well, like all the farmers, Ghassulians were super dependant on rain...Especially because they lived in one of the driest places on Earth...Dead Sea...And there the rains arrive at the end of October beginning of November...

And guess what happens every year at the same time? Ibex (Bezoar) goats start mating...The beginning of the Ibex (Bezoar) goats elaborate mating rituals involving dancing and vicious fighting, was the signal that the rains are on their way...

Again, in Israel, like in Crete, Cyprus, Lebanon, Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Arabia...In all the places where rains arrive in November, we find Ibex (Bezoar) as the holy animal depicted in sacred art by farmers, praying for rain. And looking at Ibex (Bezoar) to tell them when it will come...

Now I will go back to my favourite object, the goats staff...

The four Ibex (Bezoar) goats on sides are not what the makers of this object wanted the viewers to have their attention focused on. It is the weird spiral horned goat in the centre...

I checked around and found that there is one animal with spiral horns which once lived in Levant: Addax

Now if the spiral horns animal depicted on the staff is Addax, we can finish this article right here...Addax has no distinct mating season...Which one of the reasons why I don't think that it is Addax which is taking the central stage on this amazing Ghassulians staff...

I think the spiral horns animal depicted on the staff is Markhor goat. 

Why would this guy be depicted on the stuff? Surely not because it looks cool (not that he doesn't). Markhor is depicted on the staff because Markhor mating season also starts in November...At the beginning of the rain season...

So here we have double animal symbol pointing to the same, extremely important annual event in Levant: the beginning of the rain season...

So all the goats depicted on this staff are directly linked with the arrival of rain, heavenly water...The most important event in the agricultural calendar of the people who built the temple of Ein Gedi (the spring of the goat). "Which was apparently linked to water warship"...

Did the people who prayed in Ein Gedi temple pray to the holy goat, the goat of rain? I already asked this question half jokingly when I talked about Ibex goat in Greek mythology...

But seriously now...

There is something very very interesting about this depiction of the Markhor goat on this Ghassulian staff...Markhor goats don't and as far as I know, never did live in Levant...They live in Central Asia...

Which means that the makers of the staff could not have seen a Markhor. Nor could they have observed Markhor's mating habits and linked them to the arrival of rainy season...

So does this mean that I was wrong and that the Ghassulians did indeed depict an Addax on the staff and not a Markhor? 

Well, I still think I am right and that the mysterious animal with spiral horns depicted on this staff is indeed a Markhor goat...And that the makers of the staff could have seen it and observed its behaviour for long enough period to link it to the beginning of the rain season...

But not in Levant...

The Ghassulians did come from "somewhere up north"...

How far up north...

Maybe as far as Elam? Or even Central Asia?

I will here propose that the staff was made by someone who came to Levant from Iran or Central Asia, or the staff was made in Iran or Central Asia...

And here is why I am so confident I am right...

This is the "Statuette of a bearded man". Elamite, 3rd millennium B.C.E. Height: 11.5 cm. Forughi Collection, Tehran...

Look at the "crown" he is wearing...Looks familiar? 

How many other similar objects do we know of?

But this presents us with another very very big problem...

The Nahal Mishmar hoard was dated to between 4000 and 3500 BC...Almost a 1000 years earlier than the above Elamite statue...

If the man depicted on this statue is indeed wearing one of "crowns" found in Nahal Mishmar hoard, and we know (believe) that the Ghassulians were immigrants from "up north" then is the dating of these artefacts correct?

Or did Ghassulians leave Levant and go back north, all the way to Elam?

Hmmmmm.....

PS:

I sent my article to Alla Yaroshevich from the Israel Antiquities Authority to get her opinion...

She sent me the link to this article published in 2018:

"Ancient DNA from Chalcolithic Israel reveals the role of population mixture in cultural transformation"

The article gives the analysis of the genetic data obtained from the remains found in the cave, which contained the Nahal Mishmar hoard...And this is the conclusion:

The Chalcolithic period in the Levant witnessed major cultural transformations in virtually all areas of culture, including craft production, mortuary and ritual practices, settlement patterns, and iconographic and symbolic expression. 

The current study provides insight into a long-standing debate in the prehistory of the Levant, implying that the emergence of the Chalcolithic material culture was associated with population movement and turnover.

We find that the individuals buried in Peqi’in Cave represent a relatively genetically homogenous population. This homogeneity is evident not only in the genome-wide analyses (half of the people burried in the cave had blue eye gene, and all had pale skin gene) but also in the fact that most of the male individuals (nine out of ten) belong to the Y-chromosome haplogroup T. This finding contrasts with both earlier (Neolithic and Epipaleolithic) Levantine populations, which were dominated by haplogroup E24, and later Bronze Age individuals, all of whom belonged to haplogroup J24,26.

The presence of Iran_ChL-related ancestry in Levan chalcoithic population – but not in the earlier Levant_N – suggests a history of spread into the Levant of peoples related to Iranian agriculturalists, which must have occurred at least by the time of the Chalcolithic. The Anatolian_N component present in the Levant_ChL but not in the Levant_BA_South sample suggests that there was also a separate spread of Anatolian-related people into the region. The Levant_BA_South population may thus represent a remnant of a population that formed after an initial spread of Iran_ChL-related ancestry into the Levant that was not affected by the spread of an Anatolia_N-related population, or perhaps a reintroduction of a population without Anatolia_N-related ancestry to the region. 

These genetic results have striking correlates to material culture changes in the archaeological record. The archaeological finds at Peqi’in Cave share distinctive characteristics with other Chalcolithic sites, both to the north and south, including secondary burial in ossuaries with iconographic and geometric designs. It has been suggested that some Late Chalcolithic burial customs, artifacts and motifs may have had their origin in earlier Neolithic traditions in Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia. Some of the artistic expressions have been related to finds and ideas and to later religious concepts such as the gods Inanna and Dumuzi from these more northern regions. The knowledge and resources required to produce metallurgical artifacts in the Levant have also been hypothesized to come from the north.

Our finding of genetic discontinuity between the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age periods also resonates with aspects of the archeological record marked by dramatic changes in settlement patterns, large-scale abandonment of sites, many fewer items with symbolic meaning, and shifts in burial practices, including the disappearance of secondary burial in ossuaries. This supports the view that profound cultural upheaval, leading to the extinction of populations, was associated with the collapse of the Chalcolithic culture in this region.

This paper, which I didn't know about when I proposed that the people who made the objects from Nahal Mishmar hoard came from Iran, basically confirms my hypothesis...

Genetics confirms symbolic analysis...

How cool is this?