Whore of Babylon

Whore of Babylon on the Seven-Headed Beast, Illustration for Rev. 17:3–8. From the Las Huelgas Apocalypse, ca. 1220

I love this. The Whore of Babylon (aka Sirius, aka Ishtar) riding (in the middle of, in Jul/Aug, in Leo) seven headed beast (seven months of Mesopotamian summer Apr/May - Oct/Nov), just before she starts rising with the sun before dawn (so still invisible in the day, red sky)...

I talked about her in my post "Apocalypse" in which I give full symbolic analysis of the Woman of the Apocalypse, described in Chapter 12 of the Book of Revelation...

The same girl...

The Woman Clothed with the Sun (aka Sirius rising with sun in Leo, aka Ishtar), an illustration from the Rothschild Canticles, c. 1300

The same girl again...

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, Apr/May-Oct/Nov)...Analysis of this seal dated to 2200 BC can be found in my post "Seven headed dragon"...

The "dragon" (summer) is depicted while his 4th head (4th month, Jul/Aug) is being killed (is in progress). To the left we see "The Lady" standing under a star (Ishtar -  Sirius)...

Why is Ishtar depicted standing next to the seven headed dragon? 

For the same reason she is depicted here standing on a lion. Cause she is deified Sirius, which rises with the sun (morning star) in Leo, Jul/Aug, the hottest time of the year. Which is why she is depicted standing on a lion with the sun above lion's head and is known as "The Lioness of heaven"...

For the same reason she is the one who sits on a lion throne...

I gave complete explanation of why Ishtar is Sirius and not Venus in this article containing full symbolic analysis of the Sumerian poem "Inanna and Šukaletuda"...

I talked about Inanna/Ishtar and why it was Sirius that was her original "morning star" in many of my posts...

You can start here: You know how everyone thinks that Inanna/Ishtar (Morning Star) is Venus and how I think that it was originally Sirius, and only later became Venus?

Well, it seems that Ancient Egyptians preserved the proof of this switch in their myths about Sopdet...

I talked about this in my post "Sirius mother of Venus"...

She of course has many faces and names...

Silver seal from Gonur Tepe, Turkmenistan, late 3rd-early 2nd mill BC. Depicting a winged goddess riding on a lioness...

Who could this be?

Well, of course, a Central Asian version of the "Lioness of heaven", Inanna/Ishtar/Asherah/Artemis.../Sirius in Leo...

I talk about this in my post "Silver seal from Gonur Tepe"

Back to the original Whore of Bablylon painting and why I like it so much. The same "two skies" trick was used here: Does anyone else think that this picture, allegedly showing King John on a stag hunt, looks strange, and may be hiding something in plain sight? No? 

Well I do 🙂 I explain why in my post "King John"...

In short, King John here is symbolic depiction of St John's day, Midsummer day, Summer solstice. 

White horse is a universal solar symbol. On this Celtic coin from Hungary, this is symbolically depicted through "solar rider", an anthropomorphised sun riding a horse. 

I wrote many posts about horse/equid as a solar symbol from Around the world. 

Horse is a solar symbol because horse fertility is governed by sunlight and peaks on Summer solstice. St John (day), Summer solstice is in the middle of the solar horse, going from red sky (increasing sunlight, before summer solstice) to blue sky (decreasing sunlight, after summer solstice)...

John is riding after (towards) a stag, (the symbol of) winter...

Jingle bells, Jingle bells, Jingle all the way...Bronze stag pendant with bell feet, early 1st mill BC, Transcaucasia or Iran. Currently in the Met Museum...

Stag is a symbol of winter because it is through the winter that stags have their full grown antlers. 

I talked about the stag as the symbol of winter in my posts "Winter deer"  and "Deer kills snake" 

What is very interesting is that deer antlers are fully grown in Sep/Oct, right in time for the start of deer mating season and the end of the horse mating season. The old antlers fall off, and the new ones start growing, in Mar/Apr/May right in time for the start of the horse mating season. 

This means that deer and horse are natural animal calendar markers for the opposite halves of the year...Which is why King John on his white horse will (symbolically) never catch the deer... 

So, (never ending) stag hunt..Talked about it in my post "White stag"...

If you are interested in reading 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...

PS: Just came across this amazing painting: The woman clothed with the sun and the seven-headed dragon, c. 1360-70 by Giusto di Giovanni de Menabuoi.

Which is, I think, much better viewed like this...

The Woman clothed with the sun - Sirius rising with the sun in Jul/Aug, the middle, the hottest part of the Mesopotamian summer which lasts seven months...

The Dragon - Nergal, The Destructive Sun (God) Shamash...The God whose seat is in Jul/Aug, the middle, the hottest part of the Mesopotamian summer which lasts seven months...Whose main head is the middle head of the seven headed dragon...

This guy...

Little horses

The žirgeliai (little horses), are common motifs on Lithuanian rooftops, placed there for protection of the house...

They are a symbolic depiction of the Ašvieniai, Baltic counterparts of Vedic Ashvins, who are said to pull the chariot of Saulė (the Sun Goddess) through the sky. As depicted on this rooftop of a house in Nida...

Both names, Lithuanian ašva and Sanskrit ashva, mean "horse" and are derive from the same Proto-Indo-European root for the horse – *ek'w-...

And in India, we also find (horse headed) twins...

Surya's wife Saranyu transforms into a mare and runs away from her husband. Surya eventually finds her, turns himself into a white stallion and...

After which Saranyu delivers horse head twins called Ashvins...

I talked about this in my post "Hayagriva" about the Indian solar horse mythology...

BTW, these guys were hidden in our zodiac as Dioskuri, divine twin horsemen... 

The guys who wanted to marry "the daughters of the white horse". They mark Summer Solstice, the peak of the horse mating season, characterised by wild stallion fights for mares...

I talked about solar horse (more precisely equid) in many of my posts...

We find the same horse twins in Etruria. I talked about this in my post "Ponte Sodo fibula" about this Etruscan gold disc fibula, from the Necropolis of Ponte Sodo, Vulci, Etruria, Italy. 650 BC, from the "Orientalizing period". Currently in the Antikensammlungen, Munich, Bavaria, Germany. 

We find them in Sasanian Iran, on this plate with youths and winged horses drinking water from a jar ca. 5th–6th century AD. I talked about this in my post "Dioskuri plate from Iran"...

And in Gotland. Together with horses. And pile of soar symbols...I talked about this in my post "Gotland sun stone with Dioscuri"...

But this link between (horse) twins and Summer Solstice is not just an Indo-European thing. 

In Mesopotamia, we find them "guarding the gates of hell". In my post "White raven" about Apollo-Nergal, I talk about the Sumerian twin gods, identified as Gemini constellation, and associated with Nergal, which "guard the gates of hell"...Are they holding torches? Or keys?

And in Egypt, we find god Hapi, the god of the annual flooding of the Nile, who was "often depicted as twins, tying papyrus and lotus flowers together". Papyrus flowers in Apr/May, and lotus in Jul/Aug...I talked about him/them 🙂 in my post "Lotus and papyrus"...

Twins marking summer solstice, Nubia. I talked about this in my post "Meroitic language"...

In Central America the Hero Twins pour the water of heaven (rains there arrive in Jun/Jul). I talked about this in my post "Resurrection of the maize god"...

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...

Temple of Isis on Philae Island

This painting by the 19th century French painter Théodore Frère depicts the Philae Island, located near the First Cataract of the Nile in Upper Egypt, with the central structure being the oldest temple, temple of Isis, built by Psamtik II (595 BC – 589 BC)...

The temple was the last temple built in the classical Egyptian style. It was also the place where the last known Egyptian hieroglyphic inscription (394 AD), and the last known Demotic inscription (452 AD) were found...

Finally, it was the last functioning pagan temple in Egypt (the temple was closed down in AD 537).

The temple of Isis was Christianised by carving lots of Coptic crosses into its walls and columns...

My favourite being this one. Why? Cause Christians also carved a star just above the cross...And this is actually an astonishing find. Why? Here's why:

Christ as the sun-god Helios/Sol, 3rd c. AD, Vatican. Christ is born on Winter Solstice, (re)birth day of the sun (god), he enters Jerusalem on a donkey, "animal of the (sun) gods and kings", and gets put on a cross, symbol of the sun (god). Interesting...I talked about this in my post "Alexamenos graffito"...

I often wondered if early (Hebrew) Christians did know that cross represented sun god Shamash? 

I talked about this in my posts "The cross of Shamash" and "Sun god tablet"...

You know Shamash, the solar deity of the early Hebrews, to whom they dedicated their first temple (according to their own scriptures)...

Zodiac, with Helios in its center. 6th c. synagogue at Beit Alpha, Israel. Why? Well:

"Josiah removed from the entrance of the LORD's Temple the horse statues...and burned the chariots...which...kings of Judah dedicated to the sun..." 

I talked about this in my post "Sun god from the first temple"...

The First (solar) Temple was built on a threshing floor. Threshing floors were used in the past as solar observatories. Now if you wanted to make a (solar) temple on a solar observatory, and "orient" it (make it to face east), if you wanted to make a "House of God" to face the "House of (Sun) God", how would you do it? Like this:

The two little sticks could then be deified and called Boaz and Jachin...I talked about this in my post "Boaz and Jachin"...

Solar temple dedicated to a Sun god in a chariot pulled by 4 horses...I originally thought that this god was some kind of local Helios...But since then I learned that Shamash also traveled in a chariot pulled by four equids...

I talked about this in my posts "Sun god from Tell Brak" and "Shamash playing with solar horse"... 

So the Sun God that Josiah says the Jews worshiped in the First Temple was most likely Shamash...They still do worship him BTW...

Remember this post, "The tree of life, light", about the origin of the Hanukah (Winter Solstice) celebration? And the link between Yahweh and Shamash, the old Semitic (Akkadian) sun god...

Now in this post, "Menorah from Nipur", about this 3rd mill. BC seal from Nipur, I postulated, based on the fact that Shamash is depicted sitting between two bulls, that the Shamash worshipped through Menorah was Sun in Taurus, Apr/May. The good sun, the sun of life...

But I completely missed the fact that the two bulls have erections, which means they symbolised Jul/Aug, the start of the beginning of the mating season of wild cattle...I talked about this important "detail" in my post "Tree huggers", about this strange moulded plaque, Babylonian, ca. 2000–1600 BC. 

And I also, for some weird reason, ignored the fact that Shamash is holding the reed cutting knife. I talked about the importance of the reed cutting knife in my post "Canals", where I explain why Shamash holds reed cutting knife when he is depicted standing in an empty canal/river bed. About Jul/Aug being the best time to cut reed in Mesopotamia if you want to make long lasting reed boats, houses and canal dams...BTW, see how he is standing between two lions, in Leo...

Both pointing to the fact that the Shamash of the Menorah is Shamash in Jul/Aug...See how Shamash has (mostly) 3 heat waves coming from each shoulder? Togehter whith his head, that is 7...7 months of the Sumerian summer...With the head in Jul/Aug, the hottest part of the year...

Sun in Jul/Aug. Nergal...The deified destructive "burning" sun, which was depicted as a lion man

because Jul/Aug, Leo, is the hottest and driest part of the year in Mesopotamia...

Talked abut Nergal in my post "Winged superhuman hero"...

Nergal the god of death...Is Jahveh?

As I said, I often wondered if the early Christians did know that cross represented sun god, and I had a feeling that they did. And this particular cross with the star above it proves that at least some of them did know...

Cause carving this cross with the star above it into the column of the temple of Isis only makes sense if they knew that the cross represented Sun. And that the star represented Sirius. And that together, sun and star represented Isis, Sirius rising with the sun in Leo (Jul/Aug).

So what did the person who carved this cross and star really want to tell the world? A lot...

EGYPT. Drachm. Antoninus Pius. AD 138-161. Zodiac series. Lion springing right; above, star and radiate and draped bust of Helios right...

The star is of course Sirius, which rises before the sun in Jul/Aug, Leo. 

This is the same as:

Sirius in Leo, also known as Ishtar...For those who will say "Ishtar was the morning star", yes she was, in Leo (Jul/Aug), when Sirius rose in the morning with the sun...Which is why Ishtar stands on a lion (with sun above the lion) and why Ishtar is known as "The Lioness of heaven"...

I talked about deified Sirius in many of my posts...

You can start here: You know how everyone thinks that Inanna/Ishtar (Morning Star) is Venus and how I think that it was originally Sirius, and only later became Venus?

Well, it seems that Ancient Egyptians preserved the proof of this switch in their myths about Sopdet...

I talked about this in my post "Sirius mother of Venus"...

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...

Ponte Sodo fibula

Etruscan gold disc fibula, from the Necropolis of Ponte Sodo, Vulci, Etruria, Italy. 650 BC, from the "Orientalizing period". Currently in the Antikensammlungen, Munich, Bavaria, Germany. 

WTH is all this stuff depicted on it? Here is the official description:

"Around a central cross, above, are several birds in flight and, at the sides, two lions with a pendent tongue and serpentine tail; in the centre, two helmeted warriors, with short sword and shield, fight surrounded by a bird respectively." That's it?

Yes, but what does this mean? Apparently no one knows...So let me try to decipher this...

First the central cross. The cross is a solar symbol, and more precisely symbol of the Mesopotamian sun god Shamash...I talked about this in my posts "The cross of Shamash" and "Sun god tablet"...

Here is the same cross on a late 7th c. Boeotian clay pyxis, currently in the Antikensammlung Berlin (thanks twitter friends🙂)  depicting the "Mistress of the Animals and some animals 🙂" (sure sign that "we have no idea what is really depicted here").

But I can tell you few things about the decorations: They are all solar symbols. You can find detailed analysis of these symbols in my post "Beotian solar pyxis"

In Greece, the sun god Shamash, more precisely the "terrible" sun, Shamash as Nergal,  became Apollo. The "terrible" sun god Apollo...I explained why terrible in my post "Lions of Delos" about the lions from the 600 BC Temple of Apollo from Delos:

So I believe that the cross here is the symbol of Apollo...

The "Mistress of the Animals" is Artemis, the the original, archaic, "terrible" twin sister of the "terrible" sun god Apollo...Definitely not moon goddess here with all these snakes. And lions (wink wink, notch notch)

And "some animals" are all solar animal calendar markers...

Sooo, if the central symbol on this Etruscan fibula from the "Orientalizing period" 🙂 is a cross of Shamash as Nergal / Apollo, then could we assume that the rest of the stuff is also somehow "solar"? You bet!

But before I explain what everything else means, do you see how the central cross is actually swastika too? Remember that on the Boeotian clay pyxis we see both crosses and swastikas...Swastika is a solar symbol too...Symbol of ever spinning solar wheel. Solar year...

I talked about it in my post "Kolo-vrt", about this ancient (officially medieval???) standing stone, Bosnia. Depicting solar wheel (swastika) and solar dance (kolo)... Pic by Kemal Čolak...

So what is depicted on both sides of the Shamash as Nergal / Apollo cross? Two lions...So sun cross between two lions...Sun in Leo...

Nergal, the deified destructive "burning" sun, was depicted as a lion man, because Jul/Aug, Leo, is the hottest and driest part of the year in Mesopotamia...Talked abut him in my post "Winged superhuman hero"...

And these are not just any lions...They are lions with "serpentine tails"...Why? Maybe to emphasise the "solarness, solarity, solaritude 🙂 of the lions". Cause:

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)... talked about it in many of my posts...

Where did I see lions with serpent tails before? Oh yeah, here

Chimera, mythical beast or complex animal calendar marker for "hot dry season", Apr/May (mating of snakes), Jul/Aug (mating of lions), Oct/Nov (mating of goats)? 

The hot season ends in Oct/Nov, hence Bellerophon killing Chimera by spearing the goat.

I talked about this in my post "Pegasus and chimera"...

So what about "several birds in flight" 🙂? It's actually 7 birds in flight...It's not so difficult to count them. But I guess no one thought the number of birds was significant...Could these be 7 doves? Why? Cause in Greek mythology, the Pleiades are the seven daughters of Atlas

whom Zeus transformed first into doves

and then into stars...

Why first into doves and then into stars? Well, he is Zeus, he doesn't have to explain himself...(Hint: animal calendar markers) I talked about this in my post "Pleiades"...

Pleiades rise with the sun in Apr/May, at the beginning of the summer...So they are another (important) solar symbol...

But what about the two birds at the bottom? Well, could this be a symbolical depiction of migratory birds?

Like this? 

Leto, Slavic name for summer and year is most likely derived from the word "let" meaning flight...Leto (the old summer, the hot, sunny half of the year) is the period between the arrival and departure of the migratory birds. I talked about it in my post "Leto"...

The two identical birds are facing each other. They are also flanking two identical "warriors" who are facing each other. And the "warriors" are in turn flanking what looks like a pyramid with the sun (cross) right above it...Hmmm...

So sun, lions, pyramid...I talked about the pyramids (and lions, sphinxes) in my posts "Sphinx" and "Giza lioness" where I explained why (sun in) Leo (Jul/Aug) was so important to Ancient Egyptians...

What's that got to do with our Etruscan fibula? Remember we are Orientalising here 🙂

So this could be a pyramid with the sun in Leo (Shamash as Nergal / Apollo) cross above it...

But what about the two identical warriors facing each other?

Well, if we have calendar marker for the beginning of summer (7 birds, Apr/May), and if we have calendar marker for the end of summer (two lions, Jul/Aug), what's missing? A calendar marker for the midsummer, summer solstice...

Well...How about these dudes? The twins...In Etruscan version without horses...

Horse zodiac symbol is disguised as Dioskuri, divine twin horsemen. The guys who wanted to marry "the daughters of the white horse". They mark Summer Solstice, the peak of the horse mating season, characterised by wild stallion fights for mares...

I talked about solar horse (more precisely equid) in many of my posts...

BTW, twins, always linked to summer solstice are also found in India (this time as horse headed twins)

Surya's wife Saranyu transforms into a mare and runs away from her husband. Surya eventually finds her, turns himself into a white stallion and...

After which Saranyu delivers horse head twins called Ashvins...

I talked about this in my post "Hayagriva" about the Indian solar horse mythology...

In Mesopotamia, you'll find them "guarding the gates of hell". In my post "White raven" about Apollo-Nergal, I talk about the Sumerian twin gods, identified as Gemini constellation, and associated with Nergal, which "guard the gates of hell"...Are they holding torches? Or keys?

In Egypt, where we find god Hapi, the god of the annual flooding of the Nile, who was "often depicted as twins, tying papyrus and lotus flowers together". Papyrus flowers in Apr/May, and lotus in Jul/Aug...I talked about him/them 🙂 in my post "Lotus and papyrus"...

In Central America as Hero Twins who pour the water of heaven (rains there arrive in Jun/Jul). I talked about this in my post "Resurrection of the maize god"...

We find them in Sasanian Iran, on this plate with youths and winged horses drinking water from a jar ca. 5th–6th century AD. I talked about this in my post "Dioskuri plate from Iran"...

And in Gotland. Together with horses. And pile of soar symbols...I talked about this in my post "Gotland sun stone with Dioscuri"...

Aaaaanyway...The twins on our Etruscan fibula, are standing facing the moment when the sun is in it's highest position in the sky? That pyramid...With the sun above...Maybe...

God most high...  

Snake: Apr/May, beginning of the main snake mating season, beginning of summer. 

Lion: Jul/Aug, beginning of the main lion mating season, end of summer.  

And in the middle, summer solstice, sun most high. 

I talked about this in my post "You will trample great lion and serpent"...

Which reminds me of the "lions with serpentine tails" 🙂 Are they also symbols of summer, the period between Apr/May (mating of snakes), Jul/Aug (mating of lions)?

Maybe they don't mean sun in Leo, but sun in summer? Middle of summer? Summer solstice?

BTW, probably totally unrelated, but just thought to throw it in for fun...

8000 years ago, people of Lepenski Vir culture in Serbia, built houses in the shape of the hill shaped like a flat top pyramid they could see from their settlement. 

Why? Because every summer solstice, the sun rose on top of it...

I talked about this in my post "Sun on top of pyramid"...

But then, (sun) god works in mysterious ways...Christ is born on Winter Solstice, (re)birth day of the sun (god), he enters Jerusalem on a donkey, "animal of the (sun) gods and kings", and gets put on a cross, symbol of the sun (god)...Interesting...

I talked about this in my post "Alexamenos graffito"...

Anyway, what do you think? Makes sense? Or not? 

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...

PS: Some people pointed out that the animals flanking the sun cross could be horses. With sharp teeth and snaky tails? But actually...They could be...A kind of chimera, with horse/equid body, lion head and snake tail...Even more amazing...

This would explain why horses are "suspiciously" missing from the fibula. Considering that Horse/Equid is one of the main solar symbols...

These "beasts" would then be incredible composite animal calendar markers for summer (I have never seen one like this before): 

Start of summer: when snakes start mating in Apr/May.

Mid summer: when horses mating season peaks, Summer solstice.

End of summer: when lions start mating, in Jul/Aug.

With the addition of a horse (usually linked to summer solstice, like through Dioskuri) in the mix just confirms my interpretation of the whole scene...