Mother Earth from Revadim

A clay plaque of the Mother Earth, from the Late Bronze Age, Found in Revadim, Levant, dating around 1250 BC. Similar terracotta plaques have been found in archaeological excavations in sites like Tel Harasim, and Tel Aphek. 

The Revadim mother earth is depicted:

1. With a prancing Ibex goat facing a tree on each of her legs...

2.  Spreading her vagina...

3. Nursing people...

4. Wearing a crescent moon necklace pendant...

Why?

Let me try to decipher these symbols in this post:

The Revadim mother earth is depicted:  

1. With a prancing Ibex goat facing a tree on each of her legs...

The reason why rampant Ibex goats are depicted facing trees (of life) is because the climate in Levant is divided into hot, dry half (Apr/May-Oct/Nov) and cool, wet half (Oct/Nov-Apr/May)...

The rains, which support (the tree of) life in Levant, arrive when male Ibex goats start their mating fights over females, in Oct/Nov...

So prancing (fighting) ibex goat became an animal calendar marker for the start of the rain season...

This is why we also find two prancing ibex goats facing the tree of life on this pottery vessel, a ewer, from the Fosse temple at Lachish, Levant, dated to the 13th century BC, which also bears an inscription on the shoulder which reads from left to right "Mattan (the donor), an offering to my lady ’Elat"...

I talk about this amazing animal calendar in my post Lachish animal calendar

Here is another vessel from the Fosse temple at Lachish also dated to the 13th century BC. On this vessel we see two rampant goats facing not a tree, but a vulva...Vulva is the symbol of fertility number one...Obviously...Easy to understand why...

Vulva is used on a lot of ancient artefacts to represent the fertility of the land. And here this is explicitly spelled out: mating goats of rain, rain which makes land fertile, facing vulva, symbol of fertility...

Please note that the tree of life surrounded by prancing Ibex goats is on the Lachish vessel depicted in a shape of Menorah...Just like here, on this 3,000 BCE Sumerian Stamp Seal with Impression Tree of Life with Rampant Goats. Mesopotamia. Chicago. Oriental Institute Museum...

I talk about the link between Menorah and the Tree of life and the Hanukah that is celebrated in Tevet, Dec/Jan, the "muddy month" (peak of the rain season in Levant) which is marked by the goat mazal (which marks Dec/Jan, middle of the Ibex goat mating season)...in my post The Tree of Life/Light...

The tree of life also resembles menorah here too, on this super cool Bactrian bronze stamp, dated to 2400BC-1600BC...And again it is surrounded by prancing Ibex goats...

I talk about it in my post Bactrian Bronze Age menorah...

The tree of life surrounded by prancing Ibex goats was also depicted on this seal found in Alalakh/Tell Atchana, located 20 km from Antakya (Antioch) in what is now Turkey's Hatay Province. It was found in one of the rooms of the Level VII (c. 1800BC) palace...

I talk about it and another similar find from the same site in my post Pottery shard from Alalakh...

Same climate, same animals, with the same behaviour, same animal calendar marker, which later gets deified...And eventually into a god...

Elamite bronze idol of a (goat-) man with large ibex horns, 3rd-2nd millennium BC...

I talked about this transition, which is found all over the world, in my post Kuseh Gardani about the traditional Iranian "Kuseh Gardani" ritual, which is performed by men dressed as Ibex goats, in times of drought or low rainfall...

"Kuseh" (rain god turned devil of drought)...

The Revadim mother earth is depicted:

2.  Spreading her vagina (giving birth to all things)...

Bedrock is in the Balkans known as "živi kamen, živa stena" (living stone, living rock) because it is believed to be still part of the living body of the Mother Earth which gives birth to all life...I talk about it in my post Living stone...

I think this belief was what lied at the core of all mother goddess all over the world. Because:

"Man — despite his artistic pretensions, his sophistication, and his many accomplishments — owes his existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains."

What is the best way to symbolically depict "Mother Earth"? Place mountains, plants and animals between eyes and  a pubic triangle. Decorated bone depicting slightly bewildered "Mother Earth", 6th - 5th millennium BC, Hagoshrim, Southern Levant. I talked about this in my post Eyes...

Or in the case of the Revadim mother earth, place the "goat of rain" and a "tree of life" on her thighs, just below here vagina, the source of all life...

This Revadim Goddess is believed to be the earliest depiction of Asherah, who herself is just another name for Inanna/Ishtar...

Remember what Inanna, Sumerian Mother of Grain, said in "The Courtship of Inanna and Dumuzi":

"...Before my lord, Dumuzi,

I poured out plants from my womb.

I placed plants before him,

I poured out plants before him.

I placed grain before him,

I poured out grain before him,

I poured out grain before my womb..."

I talked about "Mother of Grain" in many of my posts...

So I think that the Revadim goddess could be depicted giving birth to food (grain)...

This is explicitly depicted on this gold pendant, dated 1400-1200 BC. It is 4.9 cm in height and was found in Ugarit, Syria. Louvre Museum, Paris, France. See grain growing out of the Goddess's pubic area? Another very common symbol found all over Central Asia, Mesopotamia, Iran, Levant, Aegean...

I talked about this in my post Hathor grain pendants...

BTW, do you see how the trees (of life) depicted on Revadim Goddess's thighs, one on each side of her vulva, look like grain ears?

Just like the grain ears depicted on the (possibly) the earliest (symbolic) depiction of Demeter (Vulva/Mother surrounded with grain ears)...

This symbol is hidden in plain sight on 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 it in my post The oldest Demeter depiction...

The Revadim mother earth is also depicted:

3. Nursing (her) people...

What is the milk of the Mother Earth? Spring water of course...

And considering that Asherah was called the "Divine Nurse" of gods and people...

This image shows few of thousands of similar pillar figurine of Asherah, found in house shrines from the Iron Age II period (8th–7th century BC) Levant...

I talk about "the milk of the Mother Earth" in these two posts, Mesa Mouliana vessel and Anavlochos mountain, where I talk about Cretan version of the same goddess, where similar figurines were found deposited inside cracks on limestone mountain peaks (remember living rock, the body of mother earth):

The Revadim mother earth is finally depicted:

4. Wearing a crescent moon necklace pendant...

I wonder if this is "The Wet Moon", the Winter/Spring (Wet Season) Moon...Just depicted inverted...Pouring water on the Mother Earth...

Wet Moon?

During the winter, the ecliptic plane intersects the western horizon at its steepest, most vertical angle at sunset. Because a waxing crescent Moon follows right behind the Sun along this steep line, it sits directly above the Sun. This makes the crescent look like a upright bowl (the "wet moon") that sinks straight down into the horizon...

I talk about the Wet Moon and why Moon Gods were so important in places where winter is the rainy part of the year, like Mesopotamia, Iran, Levant, Northern Arabia in many of my post...

Also, guess what else happens in Dec/Jan, around Winter Solstice, the peak rain season in Levant, the peak Ibex mating season in Levant, when the Wet Moon starts shining in the night sky?

Sirius, the original Star of Inanna/Ishtar/Asherah..., reaches its highest point in the night sky... 

Ever seen this symbol?

I talked about Inanna/Ishtar and why it was Sirius that was her original "star" in Sirius mother of venus, Inana and Sukaletuda, The brightest star, Inanna in Egypt, Temple of Isis on Philae Island, Apocalypse, Whore of Babylon, Dog coin...

I think this is all I have to say about this clay plaque of the Mother Earth, from the Late Bronze Age, Found in Revadim, Levant, dating around 1250 BC. And why she was depicted 

1. With a prancing Ibex goat facing a tree on each of her legs...  

2.  Spreading her vagina...  

3. Nursing people...  

4. Wearing a crescent moon necklace pendant...

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...

Natufian symbol for grain

Wow...Mortars and pestles from an Early Natufian settlement Wadi Hammeh in Pella, Jordan, dated to about 14,500 to 14,000 BP...These are amazing...

Oh and look at this! Look at this! A scratched depiction of a field with grain growing out of the furrows...From the same site...

Pic from "The Natural Inspiration for Natufian Art: Cases from Wadi Hammeh 27, Jordan"...

How do we know it's grain? 

I talked about this symbol in my posts about the "Mother of Grain"...

The symbol is also found in PPN Anatolian sites. This is a Tell Qaramel shaft-straightener depicting on the left two pair of snakes meeting (usual symbolic depiction of mating), while on the right we see ear of grain growing out of the snake mouth...Grain harvest in Central Anatolia starts in Apr/May, when vipers start to mate...I talked about this in my post "PPN snake calendar marker"...

These are first farmers we are talking about, and they are already using symbol for grain...

They also made stone depictions of grain seeds...I know they are shaft straighteners but they are not just shaft straighteners. 

BTW, Just remembered that I talked about this site already in my original post about the Mother of Grain...

The same type of objects, just made from clay, were found deposited in a sacrificial pit in the 7th mill BC early grain farming Starčevo culture Blagotin settlement in Serbia... 

To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, which are at the root of all our mythologies, start here…Then check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am way way behind...

PPN Snake calendar marker

About (one of two) earliest animal calendar markers for the grain harvest season: snake, depicted here on the pillar 22 from enclosure D, found in PPN site Göbekli Tepe, Turkey, and dated to 11th - 10th c. BC...

So where do I start? With a snake of course...

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)...

I talked about snake as the solar symbol in many of my posts...

This is why on this 3rd - 2nd mill BC decorated standing stone we see Sun god and his favourite pet animals, snakes...

Early Bronze Age Okunev culture which flourished in the Minusinsk Basin on the middle and upper Yenisei, Siberia, Russia. More details can be found in this article...

And why on this 3rd mill BC, Bactrian seal, we see the sun god (see heat rays found on Utu/Shamash depictions emanating from his shoulders) holding snakes, symbols of sun's heat...I talked about this in my post "Nude winged hero dominating snakes"...

The fact that snakes need sun's heat to function and are only out when it's hot, made snakes ideal symbol of sun's heat...Which causes drought...

The Luwian Storm-God kills a Dragon. Or is it a Snake. Knowing that dragon (symbol of extreme sun's heat) is just an old snake (symbol of sun't heat), it really makes no difference. Analysis of the scene depicted on this image can be found in my post "Malatya relief"...

I also talk about snakes and dragons and sun's heat and drought in my post "Letnitsa treasure" about the metal plaques the famous Thracian Letnitsa treasure, dated to the first half of the 4th c. BC, which depict a lot of common motifs from Balkan (and not just Balkan) Slavic fairy tales...Like this one depicting a princess being abducted by a three headed dragon with snake heads...

This is also why 3rd mill BC Mesopotamian dragon has lion body (Jul/Aug, Leo is the hottest time of the year) and seven snake heads (one for each hot month of Mesopotamian summer)...Analysis of this seal dated to 2200 BC can be found in my post "Seven headed dragon"

BTW, the same scene depicted on this Mesopotamian seal is also depicted here: the Woman of the Apocalypse, described in Chapter 12 of the Book of Revelation. I give full symbolic analysis of this text in my post "Apocalypse"...

Anyway, back to the PPN Anatolia and its obsession with snakes. I already talked about snake as an animal calendar marker in PPN Anatolia in my post "Goat and snake from Kortik Tepe" from 2022 about these two objects from the 10,000BC  Pre-Pottery Neolithic B site Körtik Tepe, Turkey... 

Interestingly, the mating season of Goats marks the start of the wet season and the mating season of Snakes marks the start of dry season in the Körtik Tepe area...

What I proposed was that these two plaques depict: 

The start of the mating season of ibex goats (Oct/Nov)

the start of the mating season of viper snakes (Apr/May) 

in Western Asia...

These two events divide the solar year in this part of the world into hot, dry season (Apr/May - Oct/Nov) and cool, wet season (Oct/Nov - Apr/May)...

Symbolically, this wet/dry division of the solar year is depicted as "Eternal struggle between goat and snake"...on this stamp seal from Tepe Giyan, Iran, dated to 5000-4000 BC...I talked about this in my post "Master of animals from Tepe Giyan"...

The wet season could have actually been depicted by this "Mythical animal" found depicted on many tablets found in Körtik Tepe. I talked about this in my post  "Mythical animal from Kortik Tepe"... 

Now, check the Enclosure D, pillar 22 again. See the snake heads triangular shape? That's the shape of viper head...

So we know that PPN people specifically depicted vipers and that these stylised depictions of snakes with "arrow heads" from Tell Qaramel are also vipers...

Also, see how vipers get entangled during their mating "dance"? 

Is this what all the "X crossed snakes" depictions, like this one from a Körtik Tepe stone vessel, mean? Viper mating season? I think so...

So...What does this have to do with grain?

The other day I came across this image: a plaquette "bearing iconographic symbolism from Göbekli Tepe"...With no explanation what this symbolism is...

But I knew straight away what I was looking at: ear of grain between two snakes (meaning during the mating of the snakes)...

Look at this: Left is the Göbekli Tepe symbol, middle is Sumerian symbol for grain and the symbol used with the meaning "grain" since neolithic in the Balkans, Levant, Mesopotamia, Central Asia, Iran...

I talked about this symbol in my post "The oldest Demeter depiction" about the oldest depiction of Demeter, the Greek Mother of Grain? Which I believe to be this symbol which is 4500-4200 years old.

And which is depicted on one the Early Cycladic "Frying Pans" found on Cycladic islands in Greece and dated to the second half of the 3rd mill BC...

I also talked about the symbol for grain in my post "Mother of grain from Mari" about this alabaster stele [my comment: depicting the Mother of Grain], which was presented in 2012 catalog of the Phoenix Ancient Art, as a cult plaque originating from the Near East and dating from the beginning of the third millennium BC...Which depicts the same vulva surrounded by grain symbol...

I then I came across this paper and in it I saw this: Tell Qaramel shaft-straightener with the depiction of two snakes between two grain symbols. 

Please note that snakes here have X shaped heads. Symbol for "when snakes mate"? I think so...

So my hunch was right. The chevrons symbol was indeed stylised grain symbol.

Ok, but what is the link between viper snakes mating season and the grain harvest season?

Well, In fertile crescent, they both start in Apr/May...

The PPN people were hunter gatherers who by pure fluke were living in the area where wild barley, emmer and einkorn wheat and rye grew in huge quantities, covering sides of hills around their settlements...You can find more info in this paper...

Wild barley

Wild emer

Wild einkorn

Wild rye

These wild grains were all annual winter grains, meaning they all sprouted in Oct/Nov after the first rains, grew over the winter and spring, and ripened during the summer after which they could be harvested...

Harvesting was done by pulling, breaking, cutting the ripe ears with stone blade sickles off the stalks. You can read about it in this paper.

Based on the experimental results, all the above techniques will cause the ears to shatter and a lot of seeds to fall on the ground...

So the authors of this paper suggest that much more efficient way of harvesting wild cereals, and the one most likely used by the PPN people was to wait for the ripe seeds to fall on ground, and then to collect them from the ground...

Both sets of authors say that the wild cereal harvest in the fertile crescent started in Apr/May.

The first to ripen was barley (starting Apr/May) and then wheat and rye (starting Jul/Aug).

So basically grain harvest started "from the time when viper snakes start mating"...

Here is one more interesting thing. In Turkish part of fertile crescent snakes come out of brumation and into our world in Mar/Apr, just before the start of grain harvest and go back to brumation and out of our world in Oct/Nov, just after the end of grain harvest...

So grain seeds were continuously collected "from the time when snakes started mating and all the while snakes were in the grain grass"...Symbolically, you could depict this like this...

This is another Tell Qaramel shaft-straightener depicting on the left two pair of snakes meeting (usual symbolic depiction of mating), while on the right we see ear of grain growing out of the snake mouth...

Remember what I said "Mythology is a result of people being very good at noticing patterns in nature and very bad at distinguishing between correlation and causation"...

Did the PPN people somehow start believing that snakes, which they came across in the wild grain fields during the harvest time, somehow influenced ripening of the wild grains? I could bet they did...

This image is from this paper and depicts grain growing out of snakes. This article also fails to put forward any explanation for this, and fails to even identify the symbol for grain...

This probably lead to some kind of deification of a snake into a snake god of sort, to whom they prayed for good harvest...And for not being bitten and killed by the "guardians of the grain"...

Something like this:

You've got something crawling on the back of your head...Nevalı Çori, south-eastern Turkey, head with snake; limestone. Şanlıurfa Müzesi. Early to Middle PPNB. Photo courtesy of Euphrat-Archiv, Berlin-Heidelberg...

BTW, remember the stacked chevrons symbol meaning grain. The chevron could just be stylised depiction of V shaped einkorn wheat spikes which is what they look like when the ears shatter and the seed spikes fall to the ground...Einkorn was the first grain to be domesticated...

Oh, and remember that the wild grain seeds which fell to the ground after Apr/May after the last rains, or as the PPN dudes would say "after viper snakes start to mate" sprouted in Oct/Nov after the first rains, or as the PPN dudes would say "after ibex goats start to mate"...

So if you were a PPN hunter gatherer who has just figured this out and is starting to plant some of the seeds that he has gathered, the best time for planting these seeds was "when ibex goats start to mate"...

Suddenly you have this...Agricultural animal calendar...

So the PPN first farmers were planting their grain and hoping that "The Goat of Rain" would bring rain and make it germinate...You can read about "The goat of rain" in these posts...

Soooo...Almost done...Remember that Mesopotamian seven headed dragon that represented 7 hot/dry months of summer (Apr/May-Oct/Nov)...

On this depiction, God with grain growing out of his head, had just cut the first of the 7 dragon heads with a sickle. That's Apr/May, the month when grain harvest starts in Fertile Crescent...

Demeter, Greek Goddess of Grain Harvest was also, inexplicably 🙂 linked with snakes. 

Plaque Campana - Initiation to Eleusinian Mysteries. 1st half of the 1st century BC. Terracotta. Campana collection purchase 1861. Louvre museum (Paris, France). 

Well, Orphic dudes knew why. According to them: 

Rhea give birth to Zeus (thunderstorm season in Greece starts in Apr/May).

Rhea then turns to Demeter (grain harvest season in Ancient Greece started in Apr/May).

Zeus and Demeter mate as snakes and make Persephone (Snake mating season starts in Apr/May).

I talked about this in my post "Why are Persephone's parents"...

So Orphic dudes knew, and now we also know why, right?

This is also why Demeter/Ceres, arrives in chariots pulled by two snakes or two dragons...And brings ripe grain and a sickle...Like on this drawing by Pietro de Angelis...

I talked about this in my post "Demeter riding panther"...

PS: If these snakes remind you of something else, where do human seeds come from?

PPS: I would really like the people working on PPN sites who follow me to let me know what they think, apart from "we will never know for sure" 🙂

To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, which are at the root of all our mythologies, start here…Then check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am way way behind...