Lyres of Ur

A lyre player from "The Standard of Ur", a Sumerian artefact found in one of the largest royal tombs in the Royal Cemetery at Ur, associated with Ur-Pabilsag, a king who died around 2550 BC. Now in the British Museum...

4 lyres of this type were actually found in royal graves in the Royal Cemetery at Ur.

These instruments were not ordinary instruments. They were ceremonial instruments. 

Stele representing a bull-lyre player and singer on the lower register and a priest with a plumb-bob on the upper register. Limestone, period of Gudea, ruler of Lagash, ca. 2120 BC, found in Telloh (ancient city of Girsu). From 1910 History of Sumer and Akkad...

This is obvious from the fact that the Sumerian sign for lyre also means "to praise." You can read about this here. But praise who?

All the lyres have a sound box topped by a bull head, three with a bearded bull head and one with a normal bull head. And no one knows what the meaning of the (bearded) bull head is...Well...

Well, we kind of know that the bearded bull is the symbolic depiction of the sun god Utu/Shamash. Why? Cause in "Enki and the world order" we read  "Utu/Shamash...the great herald in the east of holy An...with a lapis-lazuli beard, rising from the horizon..."

But why (lapis lazuli) beard? No one knows...Well...Over 70% of all the water flowing down Tigris and Euphrates comes from the snowmelt in the mountains where these two rivers originate. 

Snowmelt caused by Utu/Shamash, which peaks at the beginning of summer, Apr/May, in Taurus...

Which is why the water level in Tigris and Euphrates also reaches its peak in Apr/May, in Taurus. Which causes the annual flood, the source of life in lower Mesopotamia...

Which is why Utu/Shamash was depicted as a golden bull (Sun in Taurus) with flowing lapis lazuli beard (flowing water)...I talked about this in many of my posts. Like: "Shamash young and old", "When Utu steps up into heaven", "Butt chewing", "Maran"...

BTW, Taurus here is The Old Taurus, the animal calendar marker for the beginning of the calving season of wild eurasian cattle...I talked about this in my post "Cow and calf ivory", "Calydonian boar", "Bull carrying grannary", "Cypriot stamp seal with cow and calf"… 

Seal from Tell Brak

So I think that these harps were used to praise Utu/Shamash, the sun god...

Now interestingly, two of the harps have golden bull head with lapis lazuli beard, on has a golden bull head with golden beard, and one has silver bull head with no beard. Is this significant? I think so. Of course this could all be just me seeing thing again. What do you think?

Anyway, why am I talking about this? Cause of Apollo and his Lyre...Remember that in one of my recent posts about the Apollo I said that I finally realised why he is constantly dragging his lyre with him and insisting to play it weather anyone liked it or not?

In my post "Lyre of Apollo" I already explained that Apollo's lyre was a complex animal calendar marker for Apr/May, Taurus, beginning of the hot, dry half of the year ruled by the (sun) god Apollo...

But I wrote this article in 2022, and I it was only recently that I realised that Apollo is basically Shamash/Nergal. And that all his main attributes are found in Shamash/Nergal mythology of Mesopotamia...Including...the bull lyre...

Remember, Shamash, Sun, can be both life bringing (Apr/May, Taurus) and life taking (Jul/Aug, Leo)...

With Apollo, this is depicted through his two main attributes: bow and arrow and the lyre...

Let me explain what I mean...

As I showed in my two articles "Marble throne of Apollo", "Apollo the great archer" and "Apollo Sminthius", bow and arrow are the symbols of destructive Shamash, in Jul/Aug...Shamash the lion/serpent/dragon...

A Coin depicting Apollo Sminthius (Apollo lord of the mice) with his plague causing bow and a mouse/rat at his feet. 

And I think that the lyre is the symbol of the other, life giving side of sun god Shamash...

But then, I heard that lyre is a great instrument to play while watching the world burn...🙂

That's it. I will write about Ur lyres comics 🙂 at some stage, hopefully soon...

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...

Lyre of Apollo

Seated Apollo with laurel wreath, holding a lyre and pouring a libation. Attic white-ground kylix. Found in Delphi and dated c. 460BC. Archaeological Museum of Delphi...

In this post I would like to talk about this lyre...Its origin, and its symbolism...

First, according to the "Homeric hymn 4 to Hermes", this lyre was given to Apollo by his younger brother Herms...In exchange Apollo gave Hermes caduceus...All very important... Symbolically... But why did this exchange of gifts take place? Remember this post, "When grapes flower" in which I figured out Hermes's birthday?

 

This post is an analysis of (some) animal and plant calendar markers contained in the "Homeric hymn 4 to Hermes" which describes what Hermes did the day he was born (4th of May, when grapes flower)...

What Hermes did on the day he was born, was steal Apollo's cows. 

He then invented fire drill, made fire, and sacrificed one of the cows to the gods...I talked about this in my post "12 Olympians" about (apparently inexplicable 🙂) link between Hermes and Hestia (fire)... 

Apollo eventually caught Hermes and called on Zeus to decide how this "situation" should be resolved...And Zeus decided that they should shake hands and make friends, hence the exchange of presents...

But where did Hermes get the lyre? Well, he invented it...He made it himself...Apparently, as soon as he was born, he ran out of the cave he was born in, and at the entrance he saw a tortoise crawling in the grass...

He then "...killed the tortoise and cleaned its shell. He cut stalks of reed to measure and fixed them, fastening their ends across the back and through the shell of the tortoise, and then stretched ox hide all over it by his skill..."

"...Also he put in the horns and fitted a cross-piece upon the two of them, and stretched seven strings of sheep-gut...[then] he proved each string in turn with the key...At the touch of his hand it sounded marvelously..."

Here is a reconstructed 5th-4th century BC lyre found in Athens in parts. Currently in the British Museum...

Obviously based on the original design by Hermes...

Now, what if I told you that the lyre made by Hermes was a complex animal calendar marker for the day when Hermes was born, the 4th of May, mid Taurus...

If you have never heard of animal and plant calendar markers you would tell me I was mad...But if you did hear of them...

If you did hear of animal and plant calendar markers, you know that they mark important event from the annual cycle of the depicted animal or plant: mating, birthing, migration, flowering, fruiting...

So...the lyre's sound box was made of a tortoise shell.

The most common type of tortoise from Mediterranean, Greek tortoise, mates in Greece in Apr/May, in Taurus...When Hermes was born...

The sound box made from the tortoise shell was then covered with stretched ox hide. 

After making the sound box, Hermes then attached horns to it...No explanation what that means...But judging by the shape of the lyre horns, I can bet that these were Auroch horns...

Here I want to thank @realVoxVulgaris for posting this in one of his twitter threads: 

It is a natural thing to believe the curves were "flat", extending mostly outwards like on paintings but a couple of rare sideviews show that they curved mostly frontwards. Maybe best represented on this, the (Roman archaicising) Heidelberg Votive Lyre

See, shaped like bull horns...

Taurus marks the beginning of the calving season of the wild Eurasian Auroch cattle...

I talked about this in many of my posts, for instance this one, "Cow an calf ivory"...

Anyway, after creating the lyre frame, Hermes then attached 7 strings to the lyre...Why 7? The Poeticon astronomicon attributed to Hyginus says:

"...[Hermes], when he invented the lyre on Mount Cyllene in Arcadia, gave it seven strings, from the number of Atlas's daughters [Pleiades], of whom his mother, Maia was one"...

Pleiades, which at the time when the Homeric hymn to Hermes was written, rose with the sun at the beginning of May, when Hermes was born...

Oh, and the first song Hermes sang with his lyre was about his mum...

But also, 7 months of summer (hot dry half of the year) which starts in Apr/May, in Taurus???

BTW, Orphic hymn to Apollo says:

"[Apollo, You are] the cause of the blooming of all things; with your...lyre you harmonize...the heavens...You have arranged the highest three strings in the winter, the lowest in the summer...The middle one in spring...

Now, he used sheep guts for strings...Remember my post "Aries must die" about shepherd's rituals performed on St George's day, in which I explained why rams are sacrificed to St George, the end of Aries and the beginning of Taurus? 

Aries must die (end) so Taurus can begin...BTW Aries marks the end of the lambing and the beginning of the sheep Milking season season. And Taurus marks the beginning of the calving and cow milking season...

And if we look at the lyre which Hermes made, its parts mark this super important part of the year for shepherds...Hence, Good Shepherd...

Interesting, right? Considering that after Hermes made the magic lyre, he stole Apollo's cows...In the middle of Taurus...

Which eventually lead to in exchange of gifts between Apollo and Hermes: Hermes gave Apollo the lyre (complex animal calendar marker for Apr/May) and Apollo gave Hermes "shepherd's staff" which is to become caduceus...

Now according to the Greek and Roman tradition, caduceus was a staff made from either bay laurel (Apollo's sacred plant) or olive wood...

Interestingly, both bay laurel (L) and olive (R) flower in Greece in Apr/May...

Which one is more suited to adorn the sun god? 🙂 I would definitely pick laurel...

Hermes used the shepherd staff Apollo gave him to separate two fighting snakes. They coiled around his staff in perfect harmony, creating the familiar caduceus tip...

Interestingly, most common snakes in Greece mate in Apr/May, when males engage in ritualised fights that once were interpreted falsely as mating ceremonies... 

I talked about this in my post "Who were Persephone's parents"...

Soooo, Hermes gave Apollo lyre, complex animal calendar marker for Apr/May...And in exchange, Apollo gave Hermes caduceus, a complex animal and plant calendar marker for...Apr/May...Beginning of summer, the time of the year dominated by the sun, Apollo...

But why would Hermes, messenger of Zeus, carry a staff which is a calendar marker for Apr/May? Cause the messenger (the voice of) Zeus is thunder/lightning...I talked about this in my post about Iris, another messenger of Zeus (also carries caduceus 🙂) ...

And so Hermes, the messenger of Zeus, the one who announces Zeus, carries the staff made from the wood of trees which flower in Apr/May, around which are coiled snakes which mate in Apr/May, cause in Greece, the thunderstorm season starts in...Apr/May...

I talked about this in my post "Eagle and snake struggle"...

So when Greek poet Alcaeus in his hymn to Apollo written by the 6th c. BC says that it was Zeus who gave Apollo his lyre, this actually doesn't change anything in the interpretation of the lyre as a complex animal calendar marker for Apr/May...

Sooo...Cool, right? 

Oh look! Hermes with both the lyre and the caduceus...Thief...

To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…then check the rest of the blog posts related to animal calendar markers I still didn't add to this page, and finally check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am 9 months behind now...