Rhubarb and Ibex

3rd mill BC cup made in Western Iran, by the people of the Jiroft culture. According to this paper by Maryam Rezghirad from the University of Tehran, "It depicts ibex goats and a tree of life". Here are some interesting excerpts from the text:

I'll answer all of the questions at the end.

Quote: According to "The History of Iran in Achaemenid Period (From the History Collection of Cambridge)" by Gershevitch: "This animal (Ibex) was once worshiped as the incarnation of human and herd fertility...

Me: Why?

Quote: Motifs of the goat have long been a symbol of water, rain, abundance and guardian of the moon... 

Me: Why?

Quote: According to "The Concepts of the Mithras and Moon in Pre-Historical Potteries" by Abdollahian: "Horned animals such as Ibex are the symbol of fertility due to their horns’ resemblance of the crescent"... 

Me: Why is moon linked with fertility?

Quote: "Zoroastians" by Mazdapour: "When the first people Mashya and Mashyana had grown out of a rhubarb plant, ibex protected them and suckled them. For this reason, the goat is the symbol of fertility and growth".

Me: Why rhubarb and Ibex? 

Answers:

To understand any of this, we need to look at the climate in Iran and Mesopotamia, the annual variation of the angle of the crescent moon in the sky over Mespotamia and Iran, annual lifecycle of Ibex goats and rhubarb. Don't forget rhubarb...

In Iran/Mesopotamia, rains arrive when Ibex goats begin to mate, in Oct/Nov...

The ibex mating season is marked by wild male goat head banging, the sound of which can be heard from miles away...Not something you would easily miss if you lived in the area...

As I said once before, all our mythologies are the result of the fact that people are very good at noticing patterns in nature while simultaneously being very bad at distinguishing between correlation and causation 🙂

In Iran and Mesopotamia the fact that the beginning of the ibex goats mating season announced the beginning of the rain season resulted in ibex goat becoming "symbol of water, rain, abundance...and fertility"...

Ibex became "Goat of rain"...Which is, to me, best depicted on this 5000-4000BC vessel from Tepe Hissar, Northeastern Iran...I talked about this in my post "Vessel from Tepe Hissar"...

I talked about symbolism of ibex goats as animal calendar markers for winter/rain season in many of my posts, like 

Europe:

"Pitys", "Goat in European culture", "Patera of Rennes"... 

Levant:

"The tree of life/light", "Lachish animal calendar"...

Mesopotamia:

"Feast plaque from Louvre", "Green pastures", "Problems with Abzu", "Relief from Dur Sharrukin", "Goatfish"...

Iran: 

"Flamingos from Susa", "Goat carrier", "Iranian goat of rain", "Strider", "A vessel from Tepe Hissar"...

And it is that rain, that supports (the tree) of life...Hence goats and trees of life for everyone in Eastern Mediterranean, Levant, Mesopotamia, Iran, Central Asia...The same climate, the same ibex annual lifecycle, the same mythology...I talked about this in my post "Bactrian Bronze Age menorah", in which I talked about this cool Bactrian bronze stamp, dated to 2400BC-1600BC...

It was in Iran where we find the earliest transition from Goat of rain to God of rain...Through a goat man...I talked about this in my post "Master of animals from Tepe Giyan", in which I talked about this cool "Master of Animals" stamp seal from Tepe Giyan, Iran, dated to 5000-4000 BC, and depicting the eternal struggle between the rain goat and the sun serpent/dragon...

Actually this transformation of the goat of rain into god of rain started much earlier, most likely in the 9th millennium BC...I talked about this in my post "Zawi Chemi Shanidar"... 

What about the link between the rain, fertility, moon and ibex goats? 

To understand this, we need to know that this rain, fertile moon, is not just any moon. Its the upward pointing crescent moon. Crescent moon points upwards only during the wet half of the year...

Which is why it became the symbol of the moon god Nana/Sin. The most important god in Mesopotamia...Also linked with rain, water and fertility...

I talked about this here in my post "Moon god Nana/Sin" in which I analysed this cool Old Akkadian Cylinder Seal, dated to 2294-2270 BC...

And so winter Ibex goat brings rain and winter moon catches it...Rain which makes plants grow...As depicted on this Sassanian gem stone...

Finally, rhubarb...According to this article the wild rhubarb grows in Iran between Apr/May and May/Jun. 

When it is picked by the locals and turned into delicious food, like "Khoresh-e Rivas" – Lamb Rhubarb Stew. Here's the recipe...

Now the wild rhubarb picking season coincides with the end of the rain season, and with the beginning of the ibex birthing season (Oct/Nov + 160 days gestation)...

Which means that the first mortals born out of the rhubarb plant could indeed be suckled by lactating ibex goats...

Fun...

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...

Zawi Chemi Shanidar

AI prompt: A prehistoric Iranian man, wearing griffin vulture wings on his back and a headdress with ibex horns, standing in a mountain landscape, under dark clouds, holding a long wooden staff.

You are probably all going WTF? 

Ever heard of Zawi Chemi Shanidar?

Zawi Chemi Shanidar was a small settlement located in the Northern Mesopotamia, dating to the late 10th or early 9th mill BC...

It was built and used by the people of the so called Karim Shahir Culture, named after the Karim Shahir archaeological site...

The people of this culture shared many cultural traits with the people of the Natufian culture...

The excavations of the site took place in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Sickles, grinding stones, and querns were found during the excavation testify to the wide use of wild cereals and possible early cereal domestication, basically agriculture...

There is also evidence that by the end of the Zawi Chemi Shanidar's occupation, the residents had domesticated sheep...Basically we are talking about the evidence of Hunter Gatherers evolving into Farmers...You can read more about Zawi Chemi Shanidar in "The Proto-Neolithic People of Zawi Chemi Village and Shanidar Cave in the Western Zagros Highlands"...

This is the area from where "Gods brought grain to Sumer". I talked about this in my post about the Sumerian legend "How grain came to Sumer", which turns out to describe exactly how grain came to Sumer from the north, and which have been over 6000 years old when it was first written down...

Anyway, this is not the most interesting thing about Zawi Chemi Shanidar. There is one discovery that makes this site stand out among other Fertile Crescent sites. During the excavations, a structure was found that appears to have been for religious purposes...

And we believe that this is indeed some kind of a temple, because next to it, archaeologists found a ritual deposit composed of at least 15 skulls of goats and the articulated wing bones of at least 17 huge predator birds, vultures, eagles and a bustard. You can read more about it in "Birds of prey in prehistory and early history"...

Knife marks on the bird bones indicate that they had been carefully cut from the birds. The archaeologists interpreted these wings as part of ritual costumes. The goat skulls were thought to be part of the paraphernalia of the ritual...

But what kind of ritual, no one knows...And so "A prehistoric Iranian man..." This is not just me dreaming up shit. 6000 years later, in the same part of the world, we find this: Proto-Elamite dude with Ibex goat horns cap, Vulture wings cape, and very schmancy shoes...

As I said in my article "Strider", to understand the real meaning of this Proto Elamite figurine, we need to look at the climate in Iran, and at the lifecycles of Ibex goats and Vultures...

The same thing will help us understand the strange find from Zawi Chemi Shanidar. So let's start with climate, which is pretty much the same in Iraq and Iran.

We can see that the climatic year is divided into two halves:

Hot, dry half, Apr/May - Oct/Nov

Cold, wet half, Oct/Nov - Apr/May

Now if you are a farmer in the part of Iraq and Iran which don't lie in the flood plains, then you are totally dependant on rain to water your fields, and the arrival of the rain in Oct/Nov is probably the most important event in your agricultural year.

This is because it is after the first rains that you can start sowing your grain...

And right at that time, in Oct/Nov, Ibex goats start mating...The mating is marked by vicious male goat fights for females...

Coincidence that a good hunter gatherer could't miss...

And as I said before: Mythology is a result of people being very good at noticing patterns in nature and very bad at distinguishing between correlation and causation.

How long do you think it took the first farmers to start believing that it was mating ibex that brought rain?

I first talked about this in my post "A vessel from Tepe Hissar", about this amazing Neolithic vessel from Tepe Hisar. Great example of related animal calendar markers used together. Mating Ibex (start of winter) followed by Mating Leopard (start of spring). Both winter and spring are rainy seasons...Semen turns to flowing water...

The rain (brought by the goat of rain) is what supports (the tree of) life in Iran, Iraq, Levant, Eastern Mediterranean, Central Asia...All the areas with the same climate...And the same ibex goat behaviour...

Which is why in all these places we find ibexes flanking the tree of life. I talked about this in my post "Bactrian Bronze Age menorah"...

Hence, I believe, all the goat heads found next to the Zawi Chemi Shanidar temple. And the goat horns headdress I proposed...

BTW the goat dude seems to have been a thing in the border area between Iraq and Iran for thousands of years.

2000 years before the Proto Elamite goat dude

"Master of Animals" stamp seals, Tepe Giyan, Iran, 5000-4000 BC...From my post "Master of Animals from Tepe Giyan"

Which depicts the eternal struggle between the rain goat (mating of goats marks the beginning of the rain season) and the sun serpent/dragon (mating of snakes marks the beginning of the drought season)...

2000 years after the Proto Elamite goat dude

Dancing goat men, 8th–7th century BC. Luristan, Iran...From my post "Dancing goat men from Luristan"...

Just for completeness, the Zawi Chemi Shanidar goat dudes could have held the goat head mounted on a staff, instead of wearing ibex horns on their headdress...

Or they could have both worn the ibex horns headdress and held ibex goat head mounted on a staff...

If you are interested, you can find pile of articles about ibex, the goat of rain, goat of winter, animal calendar marker for Oct/Nov-Jan/Feb in these articles from my blog...

Now what about the raptors?

All the raptors whose wings were found next to the Zawi Chemi Shanidar temple, are either resident species which mate during the winter/spring rain season or are migratory species which spend winter/spring rain season in the Zawi Chemi Shanidar area...

Bearded vulture, resident, mating during the winter

Griffon vulture, resident, mating during the winter

White tailed sea eagle, winter visitor

Great bustard, winter visitor

Unidentified small eagles??? Could be winter visitors as well...Like steppe eagle

How long do you think it took people from this part of the world to arrive to this: Sumerian god Ningirsu, the oldest thunder god we know by name (?), was in the earliest times imagined as a huge black bird, with outstretched wings...

I talked about this in my post "Eagle dance"...

Eagle dance:

Montenegro 1963AD

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...

Did they already have this religious idea formed at the time when all those raptor wings were deposited with the goat heads next to the Zawi Chemi Shanidar temple?

I believe so...

BTW, just so we know that the eagle dude and the goat dude are one and the same dude...Thunder, Rain God...The Feathered one...The Winged one...The rain cloud...Bactrians actually spelled it for us in the 3rd millennium bc. Clouds...In a shape of a two headed eagle dude and his goat...

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

Again, for completeness, maybe the the Zawi Chemi Shanidar goat dudes weren't actually goat dudes. Maybe they were eagle dudes, who held the ibex goats (heads or maybe whole goats) in their hands?

Like depicted on this end of 3rd beginning of 2nd millennium BC Bactrian seal showing an eagle dude holding "winged" ibex goats...

Or on this Kassite period (1595-1155 BC) seal depicting a "bird-demon" 🙂, holding two ibexes, by their hind legs. 

Found in Iraq, UChicago, A29439. The description reads: "Marduk, great lord, on the servant who reverences you show mercy."

What is really depicted here?

I talked about this seal in my post "Kassite bird demon"...

You can read more about vultures and eagles as animal calendar markers linked to rain and thunder in these posts from my blog...

Sooo....What do you think?

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...

Master of Animals from Tepe Giyan

"Master of Animals" stamp seals, Tepe Giyan, Iran, 5000-4000 BC...

Master of animals? I don't know what that is...What I think is that this is a depiction of an early incarnation of a rain god killing an early incarnation of a dragon...

Let me explain why I think so:

This is the climatic chart of the Kerman province of Iran where Tepe Giyan is located. 

You can see that the climatic year is divided into two halves: 

Hot and dry half (Apr/May-Oct/Nov)

Cool and wet half (Oct/Nov-Apr/May)

It just so happens that in this area, 

Snakes start mating in Apr/May, at the beginning of the dry season. 

Ibex goats start mating in Oct/Nov, at the beginning of the rain season.

As I said many times, 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)...Which is why snake eventually became symbol of sun's heat...I talked about this symbolic link in many of my posts, like:

"The chthonic animal", "Enemy of the sun", "Beotian solar pyxis", "Mystery seal", "Snake god from Hatra", "Goat and snake from Kortik tepe", "Pegasus and Chimera"...

This is this 3rd millennium BC, Bactrian seal depicts the sun god (see heat rays emanating from his shoulders) holding snakes, symbols of sun's heat...See snakes, Solar animals number one, the symbols of sun's heat...I talked about it in my post "Nude winged hero dominating snakes"...

Sun's heat which during the hot, dry half of the year burns the earth and cause drought and death...And that then turns snake into a dragon...

Which is why dragon was depicted on this Tell Asmar seal, dated to 2200 BC, with lion body and 7 snake heads. 

Snake is the symbol of sun's heat. The dragon has 7 snake heads because there were 7 summer months in Mesopotamian calendar. And the dragon has the lion body, because the hottest part of summer is Jul/Aug, Leo. You can read about this in my post "Seven headed dragon"...

The drought which starts in Apr/May (marked by snake animal calendar marker) and which peaks in Jul/Aug (marked by lion/dragon animal calendar marker) finally ends when rains arrive in Oct/Nov (marked by ibex goat animal calendar marker)...

I talked about symbolism of ibex goats in many of my posts, like 

Europe:

"Pitys", "Goat in European culture", "Patera of Rennes"... 

Levant:

"The tree of life/light", "Lachish animal calendar"...

Mesopotamia:

"Feast plaque from Louvre", "Green pastures", "Problems with Abzu", "Relief from Dur Sharrukin", "Goatfish"...

Iran: 

"Flamingos from Susa", "Goat carrier", "Iranian goat of rain", "Strider", "A vessel from Tepe Hissar"...

Eventually, ibex goat animal calendar marker gets deified, anthropomorphised...It gets turned into a human looking god with goat horns...And eventually into a human looking god with goat as his sacred animal (or goat wet nurse 🙂)...

So what we see on this seal from Tepe Giyan is the first phase of deification of the Ibex goat, the transformation of the goat of rain into the god of rain...The drought (snake/dragon) killer...

More goat dudes can be found in my post "Goat petroglyphs from Iran"...

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...

Winter deer

Winter deer...Iran, 14th - 10th century BC...

Why winter deer?

Judging by the antlers, these are red deer, most likely the subspecies known today as Caspian red deer...

Deer, including red deer, shed and regrow their antlers annually...

Red deer antlers become fully grown right in time for the beginning of their mating season, rut, which lasts between late Sep and early Nov, and peaks in Oct. Red deer rut is marked by loud stag mating roars and wild stag fights for females...

This is not something you would easily miss...And just as the red deer mating season gets into the full swing, the rains arrive to Iran...Life giving rains...Guess when the rains stop? Right after the red deer shed their antlers...

So from the point of view of animal calendar markers, in Iran, red deer with fully grown antlers is equivalent to ibex goat, the goat of rain, the most depicted animal in the ancient Iranian art.

Ibex head, Iran, 5th-4th c. BC. I want to thank Gabriella Brusa-Zappellini for posting the pic...

Posts about Ibex, the "Goat of Rain": 

Europe:

"Pitys", "Goat in European culture", "Patera of Rennes"... 

Levant:

"The tree of life/light", "Lachish animal calendar"...

Mesopotamia:

"Feast plaque from Louvre", "Green pastures", "Problems with Abzu", "Relief from Dur Sharrukin", "Goatfish"...

Iran: 

"Flamingos from Susa", "Goat carrier", "Iranian goat of rain", "Strider", "A vessel from Tepe Hissar"...

The both have mating seasons, characterised by loud, vicious male fights, which start around the beginning of the rain season...

A perfect alarm clocks for the beginning of winter (Nov,Dec,Jan), and the cool, wet half of the year...

BTW, deer with fully grown antlers is also a symbol of winter in Europe too...For the same reason...

And so is Ibex goat...For the same reason...

Article explaining the link between Mountain Ibex Goats, #Capricorn zodiac sign, #Yule Goat, #Krampus and all the other Christmas related goat characters and masks: "Krampus"...

Sooo...Merry Christmas, to all, regardless whether your presents are brought to you on a sled pulled by deer or goat...🙂

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...