Wolf?

Plaque in the shape of a wolf (?)

Eastern Zhou Dynasty, Warring States Period, 8th-6th c. BCE, Ordos Region. Bronze with malachite inlay. The Museum of East Asian Art, Berlin. Inv. Nr. 1965-69

But is it possible that this is not a wolf, but a composite "beast"?

The first thing that looked weird to me was the hair on the animal's back and neck...I have seen this before and not on a depiction of a wolf.

Celtic Bronze boar statue from the sanctuary at Neuvy-en-Sullias (1st c. BC)...

And the real thing

Of course, wolves can also be seen with their hair standing up on their back when they are about to attack...So...

The second thing that looked weird to me was the tail...It didn't look like a wolf tail at all...

It looked like a snow leopard tail...

Or a Siberian tiger tail...

And the whole body,  kind of looked cattish not wolfish...

Of course, wolves also wag their tails, but according to this wolf tail dictionary, not when they are snarling and ready to attack...So...

The only kind of wolfish part of the animal could be the head, with the gaping snarling jaw...But then that could also be actually a leopard or a a tiger head too...

So not sure what is actually depicted on this plaque...

So maybe this is a composite animal, with wolf, wild boar and a leopard parts. Or maybe this is just a very very stylised depiction of a wolf with an aggressive arousal 🙂...

I personally think this is a composite animal calendar marker for winter, cause all of the above animals mate during winter:

Wild boar mating season starts in Oct/Nov...Beginning of winter...

Tiger mating season starts in Oct/Nov...Beginning of winter...

Wolf mating season starts in Jan/Feb...End of winter...

Leopard mating season starts in Jan/Feb...End of winter...

That's that. 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...

Phoenician rain dish

Phoenician dish (?), National Museum of Archaeology, Valletta, Malta. Pic by Merike Joosep.

It is "decorated" with a very interesting design: A wild goat, followed by a wild cat followed by a wild goat followed by a wild cat...

Is this just a meaningless "nice" design?

Well, of course, this is possible. Not every object has a "meaning". But let's play a game "what if the maker of this dish wanted to convey some message through the choice of animals and the way they were ordered"...It'll be fun...For me at least🙂...

The goat is an Ibex goat...In Fertile Crescent, which includes Levant, Ibex was the Goat (calendar marker) of Rain (season)...Because in Fertile Crescent, the start of the mating season of Ibex goats (Oct/Nov), coincided with the start of the rain season. I talk about goat of rain in many of my posts...

So the wild goat's identity is certain...

But the wild cat is not so easy to identify. The body shape could be that of

Asiatic lioness

Asiatic leopard

Asiatic cheetah

All three of these wild cats were common in Levant when Phoenician civilisation flourished there...

Depending on which cat is depicted, the meaning of the "decoration" changes...Why? Because if we want to look at the depictions of these animals as animal calendar markers, we need to know when they either mated or gave birth, cause this is what animal calendar markers marked...

Asiatic lions mating season started in Jul/Aug and spanned the whole of Autumn (Aug/Sep/Oct)...

You can find relevant data here...

Which is why autumn starts in Leo (Jul/Aug). And why lion is the symbol of autumn...You can read more about these four symbols of the seasons in my post "Symbols of the seasons"...

I talk about the use of lion as a mythologised animal calendar marker for Jul/Aug, the hottest/driest time of the year in Europe, Mediterranean, Western and Central Asia, in many of my posts...

So lioness would also be an animal calendar marker for Jul/Aug...

When I first saw this Phoenician dish, I was convinced that the wild cat was indeed an Asiatic lioness, because it has no spots of any kind...

Which would make the message encoded in the "decoration" of the Phoenician dish:

Goat (symbol for cool wet season) follows Lioness (symbol for hot dry season) follows Goat (symbol for cool wet season) follows Lioness (symbol for hot dry season) follows...

But then something caught my eye: the dots and circles...

Which look very much like cup marks...

Which look very much like this...

I talked about this in my post "Lapis Manalis"...

Now apparently, dots and circles were used in the past to represent rain. I talked about this in my posts "Malatya relief", "Lapis lazuli water seal"

As I already said, Ibex goats have mating season which starts in Oct/Nov, the beginning of winter. And both Asiatic leopards and cheetahs have mating season which starts in Jan/Feb, beginning of spring...

Now if we look at the climatic charts for Levant again (it is pretty much the same all over Fertile Crescent), we can see that Winter (Ibex, Nov/Dec/Jan) and Spring (Leopard/Cheetah, Feb/Mar/Apr) is the cool, wet, rainy, green season in this part of the word...

Rainy season which can be symbolically depicted by "Ibex followed by Leopard/Cheetah among the dots with a green tree (of life) behind them"...

Just like on this 3200-3000 BC seal from Late Uruk/Jemdet Nasr Period...I talked about this in my post "Ibex and leopard"

Or even more explicitly on this vessel from Tepe Hissar, dated to 4500-4000 BC...Both Ibex goat and Leopard/Cheetah are actually ejaculating rain...I talked about this in my post "Vessel from Tepe Hissar"...

So is it possible that the animals on the Phoenician dish were depicted as silhouettes, and that the wild cats depicted with wild goats among the raindrops are not Asiatic lionesses but instead Asiatic leopards/cheetahs?

Just like on this Greek Hydria. Kerameikos,  Athens, Archaeological Museum in Athens. 660-580 BC. Where we see a leopard paired with boar, another animal calendar marker for Oct/Nov, and lion paired with fallow deer, another animal calendar marker for Jul/Aug...I talked about it in my post "Sirens"...

In which case the message encoded by the maker of this amazing Phoenician object would be "rejoice, it's raining (wild) cats and (wild) goats" 🙂...

Anyway, we will never know, but I think musing over this was fun...At least it was for me...How was it for you? 🙂

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...

Casa dei Ceii zodiac

Very interesting fresco of hunting animals from the garden of the Casa dei Ceii, Pompeii (I.6.15)...

What is interesting is that the animals are, from left to right, top to bottom, all arranged in order based on their anima calendar marker meaning...

Top row, left to right:

Deer, mating season Sep/Oct/Nov

I talked about deer as animal calendar marker in many of my posts...

Boar, mating season Oct/Nov/Dec/Jan. 

I talked about boar as animal calendar marker in many of my posts...

Wolf, mating season Jan/Feb/Mar. 

I talked about wolf as animal calendar marker in many of my posts...

Leopard: Mating season Jan/Feb. 

I talked about leopard as animal calendar marker in many of my posts...

Sheep: Lambing season, Feb/Mar/Apr. 

I talked about ram/lamb as animal calendar marker in many of my posts...

Bottom row, right to left:

Bull: Calving season Apr/May/Jun. 

I talked about bull/calf as animal calendar marker in many of my posts...

Lion: Mating season Jul/Aug/Sep/Oct. 

I talked about lion as animal calendar marker in many of my posts...

So here we have a full solar year marked circularly, sunwise (turning from left to right as the sun moves in the sky) by animal calendar markers...

Coincidence? Or deliberate? No idea. If deliberate, why? Again, no idea...

That's that. 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...

Gisgis relief

The other day @Anatolian2023 alerted me to this amazing artefact: The Gisgis relief, a 2900 years old relief located on a hard-to-reach south facing cliff within the borders of the village of Gisgis in Diyarbakır's Ergani district in Turkey. You can read more about this relief in this article...

The relief depicts a king facing a procession of gods. From left to right: 

Ishtar on a lion.

Moon god Sin, symbolically depicted with the crescent moon standard, on "a complex creature".

Sun god Shamash, symbolically depicted with the winged sun standard, on a bull.

So why is this relief so "amazing"? Cause this is another complex animal calendar, which divides the year into three parts, and confirms what I have stated in my article "Moon god Nana/Sin" about why the god Sin was so important to Mesopotamians. 

In short, for the lazy ones, I postulated that the god Sin was the god of the "Wet moon", the moon of the wet, cool, half of the year in Mesopotamia, Oct/Nov-Apr/May...

And this relief actually confirms this. But to see how, we need to look at the animal mounts of the gods in the procession as animal calendar markers...

Let's start with Lion: Lion marks the period Jul/Aug, which is when the main mating season of Eurasian lions, which once lived in Levant, Mesopotamia and Persia, starts...

This is why Ishtar stands on a lion:

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"...

For those who say Inanna/Ishtar is Venus and not Sirius. This article, "Sirius the mother of Venus" and linked articles might be of interest...

Apart from being the symbol for Jul/Aug, lion is also the symbol for Autumn, Jul/Aug-Oct/Nov, the main mating season of the Eurasian lions...

One of many Lion (autumn, starts in Leo) killing Bull (summer, starts in Taurus) scenes found all over Eurasia, this one depicted on the wall of the Great Mosque of Diyarbakir the oldest mosque in Anatolia.

Some articles that analyse artefacts which contain this animal calendar marker and related symbols: "Mystery seal", "Angra mainyu", "Bull leaping in Syria", "Lion killing bull under date palm", "Butt chewing"...

Then we have the "complex creature", which has scorpion tail, hind legs with claws like those of birds of prey, wings and [my suggestion, not clear] feline [leopard] head and front legs. This "complex creature" is of course a complex animal calendar marker...They all are...

Scorpion is an animal calendar marker for Oct/Nov, the beginning of the wet, cool half of the year, because this is when scorpions disappear from the fields and appear in people's homes...

I talked about this in my post "Angra Mainyu". 

The old Sumerian summer, the 7 headed dragon, can be depicted using animal calendar markers like this too: starts in Apr/May, Bull head, Taurus, peaks in Jul/Aug, Lion body, Leo and ends in Oct/Nov, Scorpion tail/Eagle wings and talons, Scorpio/Eagle...

Eagle/Vulture, is the animal calendar marker for the beginning of the vulture mating season, Oct/Nov...

Which is also the beginning of the wet season in Mesopotamia...

I talked about this first in my article "Double headed eagle" about this amazing silver gilt cast shaft-hole axe head, made between 2500-1500 BC in the area along the Oxus and Murghab rivers in modern Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan...

And I talked about this in my post "Eagle dance" about the "Eagle dance", 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...

And in my post "Kassite seal with Apkallu", aout this mad Kassite seal, where we see two headed eagle spewing water from the sky.  Originally people believed that rains were brought by the rain god, who was in Bronze Age Mesopotamia imagined as huge black eagle...

And in many other articles. So together the eagle and scorpion mark the beginning of winter, Oct/Nov, and winter as a whole, Oct/Nov-Jan/Feb. Hence Eagle-Scorpion dude...

"On this seal, a bird-man with a scorpion tail aims a bow and arrow at a winged lion-griffin standing on a hillock". 

I have to say I love this description. It says that officially they have no idea what this all means...

But "we" actually do. I it winter killing autumn...I talked about this in my article "Scorpion man". BTW, I talked about the origin of Griffin as an animal calendar marker for autumn, in my article "Origin of griffins"...

Now why do I think the front of the "complex creature" is leopard? Because winter is followed by spring, and spring starts in Jan/Feb, when Eurasian leopards mate. I talked about this in my article "Mosaic floor from Sulcis, Sardinia", about this mosaic which depicts leopards drinking from a krater for mixing wine and water with a grapevine growing from the krater...

And in my article "The oldest narrative scene" about this 11,000 years old relief from Anatolian Neolithic that no one can interpret...

And in my article "A vessel from Tepe Hissar", about this neolithic vessel which is a 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... 

And in many other articles. So leopard marks the beginning of spring, Jan/Feb, and spring as a whole, Jan/Feb-Apr/May.

Together Scorpion/Eagle/Leopard, mark the cool, wet season, Winter/Spring, Oct/Nov-Apr/May, the time of the "Wet moon" god Sin...

The Scorpion/Eagle/Leopard is followed by a bull. Bull which is an animal calendar marker for Apr/May.

Silver stater from Korkyra. Circa 510-480 BC. A sun above a cow suckling her calf. Summer sun. Summer starts in Apr/May, in Taurus, when wild Eurasian cows started calving...

I talked about this in many of my posts, like "Cow and calf ivory", "Foundation peg of the goddess Nanshe", "Elamite water bull"...

Apr/May, Taurus, marks the beginning of summer, Apr/May-Jul/Aug. Hence, A Sumerian song exclaims: "Hero emerging from the holy interior of heaven...the great wild bull, youthful Utu [Shamash, the sun god], who like a torch illuminates the Land from the holy heavens..."

And another one says:

In "Enki and the world order" we can reed that: "Enki placed in charge of the whole of heaven and earth the hero, the youth Utu (Shamash), the bull standing triumphantly, audaciously, majestically..."

Triumph, Taurus, Peak of the Flood, Leo, End of the flood. I talked about this in my post "Butt chewing"...

There is also this

Maran (Lord) Shamash (Sun) with bull horns, the main god of Hatra, an ancient city in Mesopotamia, whose full name was Hatra (Temple) Shamash (Sun)...

Maran...Like Maran-Atha (Our Lord - has come) from the bible? Which lord? Golden calf. Sun in Taurus. 

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

And this

This is one of the most interesting seals I have ever seen. It was found in the 3rd mil. BC layers of the scribal quarters of Nippur. And it depicts Shamash, The Sun God (the central light of the Menorah) between two bulls (means in Taurus, Apr/May). 

I talked about this in my post "Menorah from Nipur"...

And I talked about this in many other articles...

So bull marks the beginning of summer, Apr/May, and the summer as a whole, Apr/May-Jul/Aug...

And so...It seems that the symbols representing Ishtar (left), Sin (centre) and Shamash (right), as depicted on the upper half of a kudurru of Meli-Shipak II and many other artefacts, are not ordered randomly after all...

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...