Nude winged hero dominating snakes

Double-sided stamp seal, late 3rd - early 2nd millennium BC. Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex. Currently in the Met museum...

Official interpretation of the images: "nude winged hero dominating snakes" on one side and "winged dragon" on the other. 

Hmmm...

About the "nude winged hero dominating snakes"...This is not a "master of the animals"...This is Mesopotamian Shamash (or his BMAC equivalent), the sun god, with sun heat rays coming out of his shoulders...Both of his shoulders. Which means full power, maximum heat...Depicting here in dry irrigation canal. In between the lions...Which means in Leo. The hottest and driest part of the year in Mesopotamia...And Bactria by the way... 

I talked about this particular seal in my post "Canals"...And you can read more about Shamash in my post "Shamash young and old"...

The sun god on the Bactrian seal is not "dominating the snakes", he is holding the snakes because they are symbol of sun's heat. They are out only during hot part of the year...I talked about the symbolic link between the snakes and the sun in my posts "Chthonic animal" and "Enemy of the sun"...

Here is the same dude, again from a Bactrian seal, with sun heat rays coming out of his shoulders. But instead of holding two snakes, his has snake hands...And a snake belt...I talked about the snake symbolism on BMAC artifacts in my post "Bactrian snakes and dragons"...

That the snake is the symbol of the sun's heat is spelled out on this Bactrian seal. Here we have a lion headed dude, with sun heat rays coming out of one of his shoulders and a snake coming out of the other...This symbolically equates the sun heat rays and snakes...

About the "winged dragon"...In Bronze Age Mesopotamia the dragons did indeed have lion's bodies...But had no wings...They had the heat rays radiating from their backs, just like Shamash...They also had snake heads...7 snake heads. One for every month of the old Sumerian summer. 

I talked about the Sumerian dragons in my post "Seven headed dragon"...

So maybe the wings are late development. Stylization of heat rays...And maybe we can see how it happened on BMAC seals...Starting with this cute kitty with heat wave radiating from his back. 

I talked about him in my post "Lion radiating heat"...

Evolving into this lion dude with heat rays radiating out his back in "wing like" fashion, on our original BMAC seal...

Until we get to the winged lion...Which no one really understands very much...I talked about this cute guy and the reason why he has wings and why he likes chewing bull's butts in my post "Butt chewing"

PS: I just found this. 

Steatite stamp-seal, Tepe Giyan, Western Iran, 5000-4000BC...One face depicts a figure walking right and grappling two snakes, one in each hand. The other face depicts a pair of coiled snakes (Not shown)...Currently in the British Museum...

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...

Lion radiating heat

One of the coolest lions ever. Bactrian seal. From: "Sulla Via delle Oasi. Tesori dell’Oriente Antico" Ligabue and Salvatori 1989, fig. 46, p. 196).

Lion with "sun's heat" rays coming out of his back. These are usually seen coming out of the shoulders of the Mesopotamia Sun God Utu (Shamash). 

Or out of the back of dragons of Sumer and Akad who had 7 snake heads and lion body...I talked about these dragons in my post "Seven headed dragon". 

Snakes being the symbol of sun's heat, because they are only out when it's hot....I talked about this in my post "The enemy of the sun"... 

Dragon being the symbol of extreme heat and drought of the late summer...I talked about this in my post "Dragon that stole rain"...

So why do Mesopotamian dragons have lion bodies? And why are there sun rays coming out of our original lion's back?

Leo (July 23 and August 22), which marks the end of summer, beginning of autumn, is the hottest part of the solar year in the northern hemisphere. 

In Iraq, this is the hottest and driest part of the year

Which is why on this seal we see Shamahs, the Sun God, standing in the middle of a dry canal, river bed, in the middle of Leo (see the two columns with lioness, left, and lion, right), in the middle of the hottest and driest part of the year...

This is why Mesopotamian dragons have lion bodies...

But why is this part of the year marked by a lion? Because of the Eurasian lions and their mating habits. 

Their main mating season starts in August...

I talked about it in my post "Entemena Vase"...

Because the Asiatic mating season overlaps with autumn, lion is also the symbol of autumn...

I talked about this in my post "Symbols of the seasons"

Hence the sun (heat) waves coming out of the lion's body on our Bactrian seal...Just so you don't think that this could be one of a kind "coincidence":

"Bactrian seal of the sun god (see the wavy lines depicting heat coming out of his body). Sumerians depicted their sun god in the same way. Bactrian sun god is holding two snakes because the sunny part of the year is the period between the appearance and disappearance of snakes"...

From my post about "Bactrian snakes and dragons"...

Here is the actual seal, currently kept in the Met Museum...

What I didn't know until today is that this is a double sided stamp seal...Guess what's on the other side Winged Lion Dragon....

In Bactria Leo (Jul-Aug) is the hottest and driest part of the year...

So no wonder that there too lions radiate heat...And ibex goats bring rain...Their mating season coincides with the beginning of the rain season in Bactria...

I talked about Bactrian climate in my post "Fluffy"...