Alchemical and rosicrucian compendium

Alchemical and rosicrucian compendium, c. 1760...

Very very interesting scene...Which proves that (at least some) people in 1760 knew the real meaning of griffin: complex animal calendar marker for autumn...

Let me explain why I think so:

On the left we see an adult sun (god) riding on a lion. I would suggest that this is Sun in Leo, Jul/Aug...Apollo...

If you want to know why I think so, check my article "Lions of Delos" first. It talks about the Lions of Delos, the burning destructive sun in Jul/Aug, Leo, and the fact that both Nergal and Apollo are linked to lions...

And then the rest of these articles about Apollo and his links to Nergal:

"Palil". About "Palil" a nickname of Nergal, the terrible, burning, destructive sun of Jul/Aug, Leo...And about the origin of the name Apollo and its meaning...

"Lord of the flies". About Nergal and Apollo as "The lords of the flies"...And about Jul/Aug, Leo, being the peak of the fly and fly born diseases season in Northern Hemisphere...

"Lions of Delos". About the Lions of Delos, the burning destructive sun in Jul/Aug, Leo, and the fact that both Nergal and Apollo are linked to lions. 

"Apollo and dolphins". About Jul/Aug, Leo being the "best time to sail in Eastern Mediterranean", and the link between dolphins and Lions...and Apollo...

"Marble throne of Apollo". About snakes (symbols of sun's heat), dragons (symbols of burning sun's heat) and terrible sun gods, Nergal and Apollo who are dragons themselves...

"Apollo and Python". About why Python followed Apollo after his birth? Cause snakes are solar animals...According to the Delphian tradition, Apollo was born on the 7th day of the month of Bysios (Jan/Feb)

"White raven". About the black and white raven legend which is found in both Nergal and Apollo mythology, Egyptian vultures and the twins that guard the gates of hell. And some other weird stuff...

"Threshing floor of Apollo". About the threshing floors as solar observatories/temples, about the threshing floor of Apollo from Delphi, about Jul/Aug, Leo, being the holy month of Apollo, and about solar bonfires...

"Apollo the great archer". About why Apollo was the terrible "far shooting" archer...About arrow and bow constellation from Mesopotamia, Ishtar, Sirius, and Jul/Aug, the season of Perseid meteor shower...

"Apollo Sminthius". About Apollo and peak infectious diseases season, Jul/Aug

Lion marks the period Jul/Aug because this is when the main mating season of Eurasian lions starts...Talked about lion as an animal calendar marker in many of my posts...

Lion/Leo marks the hottest time of the year on the northern hemisphere. After that the weather starts getting cooler. I talked about this in my post "Lion eating sun", in which I analysed this detail from the Alchemical and Rosicrucian compendium - c.1760...

Now back to our original image. 

On the right we see a baby with two faces, one looking forward and one looking backward, holding a shield with  the sun head identical to the one the lion rider has. He is riding on a griffin, whose front half is an eagle and the back half is a lion...

I would suggest that this is Janus, sun on Winter Solstice/New Year, at the time of death of the old Sun (Solar year) and the time of birth of the new Sun (Solar Year)...

I talked about Janus in my post "Janus"...

And I talked about his Sumerian predecessor Isimud in my post "Adda seal"...

The two faced one arrives in Europe after the end of autumn, Jul/Aug - Oct/Nov. This is what griffin represents, Autumn, the time between the mating of Eurasian lions (starts in Jul/Aug)

and mating of Eurasian Vultures (starts in Oct/Nov).

The oldest griffin that I know of is depicted on this 3000 BC Proto-Elamite seal.  

I talk about griffin as an animal calendar marker in many of my posts...

The riders point their lances at each other, Apollo points at the Janus's sun shield, and Janus points at Apollo's head, basically indicating that they are one and the same, just at two different points in time...

I am not sure what why Apollo carries moon shield...Maybe it is to depict the cooling which starts in Jul/Aug and which "brings" rains at the end of autumn? I talked about the link between moon and rain in my post "Moon god Nana Sin":

Why was moon (god) so important to Mesopotamians? This article tries to answer this question. Spoiler: Cause the moon that was worshiped was not just any moon. The moon that was worshipped was the crescent moon that points upwards, aka "wet moon"...

 Or maybe just to symbolise summer moons...

Anyway, I just thought this was interesting. 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...

Janus

Article, in which, considering that today is the 1st of January, I would like to ask few questions about Janus, Ancient Roman god of beginnings (and ends), gates, transitions, time...and the god after which January was named...

So to start: Happy new beginning (and end)

Question 1: Why is Janus the god of beginnings? 

This is a valid question that I couldn't find answer to...Romans believe that he was the Primordial god with no parents. His main epithet, Pater, means that for Romans Janus was the first of the gods and thus their father...But why?

To understand this we need to look at the rights performed in honour of Janus. They were performed at the beginning of the Year, at the beginning of each month and at the beginning of each day...Nothing strange here, god of the beginnings...

Well...

First strange thing: Why was the beginning of the year celebrated on the 1st of January, after Winter Solstice which was celebrated on the 25th of December? 

Remember my post about the end of time (calendar) and the dead days? In it I talked about Lunisolar calendar which is at the base of Serbian ritual calendar. It consist of a Solar year, solar "kolo" (wheel) which is ever turning...This solar year has 12 full moons. The last full moon of the solar year ends on the 30X12=360th day. What is left are 5 "extra" days. Five days which lay outside of the "calendar" (koledar?). Five "dead days" as they are called in Serbia. 

Beginning of this 5 day period is the end of the old Solar year and the end of this 5 day period is the beginning of new Solar year. They are not the same day...In Serbia dead days are still marked as last five days before winter solstice (Christmas). In Bulgaria they marked after winter solstice (Christmas)...

Romans probably also did what Bulgarians do today...Which is a later change as Solar year is calculated from Winter Solstice to Winter solstice Solstice using full moons...

Janus had another epithet: Iunonius (Junonius). He was the patron of all 12 kalends (moons) from the republican calendar, which were associated with Juno. Macrobius says that: "Iunonium...not only does he hold the entry to January, but to all the months...all the kalends being under the jurisdiction of Juno"...

At the time when the rising of the new moon was observed by the pontifex minor the rex sacrorum assisted by him offered a sacrifice to Janus in the Curia Calabra while the regina sacrorum sacrificed to Juno in the regia...Why?

Well because we are talking about lunisolar calendar here. 

Solar year, which starts on winter solstice, indeed holds the key to all 12 moons which comprise it...Juno does rule the moons, small "kola" (wheels)... But Janus rules both the solar year, big "kolo" (wheel) and all 12 small "kola" (calends, wheels). 

All this points at Janus being the Solar year and Juno being the lunar month...Together they create Time...And interestingly, it is this cyclic "Time", the result of the continuous oscillating, rhythmic interplay between Sun and Earth, which drives the change of seasons. And the change of seasons is what is behind all the phenomena which we built our gods from...

This is why Janus is the god of gods...

Was he seen as Sun himself? 

Well he has another interesting attribute: Janus Quadrifrons ("Janus Fourfaced")...Why? Well, interestingly Slavic sun god Svetovid (the one who alights and "sees" everything) was depicted with 4 faces... 

Is this in anyway linked? 

Well maybe...

Here is when I will ask my second question: Why is Ianus (Janus) called Ianus??? 

No one really knows...Romans couldn't agree on the meaning of his name, which means that it had no obvious etymology in Latin. 

To me this is very very strange. The primordial god, god of beginnings, the god of new solar year, the god of new calendar, the father of all gods, if he was indeed Native Roman god as they claimed, had to have name which clearly depicted his function in Latin. But he didn't...

Interestingly (again) the name of this god of new beginnings has perfect etymology in Slavic languages...Etymology which describes his role of god of new beginnings: "Ja+Nov" (pronounced as Janov, Janow, Janou) meaning "I+New"...

Now the Slavic word "nov" (new) is an ancient PIE word with cognates in every IE language, including Italic languages, where we find "*nowos". So this part could have come from some Italic language... 

But the problem is the beginning of Janus's name. In Latin, the word for I, Me is "ego", from Proto-Italic *egō,  from Proto-Indo-European *éǵh₂. If we look at the descendants of this root, we see that the only one which sounds like "Ia" (Ja) are Slavic languages...

This of course makes no sense. If this is a coincidence, this is bloody crazy coincidence:

Fourfaced epithet of Janus - Slavic 4 faced sun god
Solstice and New Year are different days - 5 dead days, days outside calends (full moons) in solar calendar of Slavic folklore
Kalend and Great Kalend - kolo wheel in Slavic, 
Janus has no Latin etymology - Janov, Janow, Janou+s (I new in Slavic), great name for the God of Beginnings

Anyone has any idea what's going on here?

In the end, there is also a hidden message in the two faced image of Janus. 

It describes the biggest predicament of humanity: inability to be in "now"...

Every moment in time is "now", the only moment in time that really exists. Yet in every one of these moments, we are either focused on the past or on the future, completely forgetting about the fact we only exist when we are focused on that ever changing "now"...

Which unfortunately results in most of us never really existing or experiencing during our journey between our beginning and our end...