Giant eagle dude with mouflons

In 2011, this beautiful object was sold for 97,000 pounds sterling...A Bactrian gold stamp seal, c. 2200-1900 BC...

Official description: "...central figure of a winged giant, with muscular human torso and legs, the head and talons of an eagle, wearing a short open tunic with wide belt, and a pendant necklace, grasping in each hand an inverted ibex..."

What the heck is the meaning of this scene? Here is the stamp print which makes the scene depicted on the stamp much clearer...

Well to understand this, we need to first identify the two animals the "winged giant" is holding in his hands. They are not Ibex goats...They are not goats at all. They are wild sheep. Mouflons...

Look at the horns...

Bezoar goat, native to Bactria. 

Mouflon sheep, native to Bactria...

But I am just being picky...It actually makes no difference whether these are Bezoars or Mouflons, from the point of view of understanding this scene...

This is because both species have the same mating season, which starts in Oct-Nov, at the beginning of the rain season in Bactria...And the beginning of winter...

You can see that in Bactria, the climatic year is roughly divided into hot and dry and cool and wet parts

Both animals were used in Eurasia as animal calendar markers marking the beginning of the rain season and the beginning of winter...The rejuvenation of nature...Like on this vase design from Jiroft culture, just a bit down south from Bactria...

Both animals mating season last throughout the winter, Nov-Dec-Jan...Which is also the time when local vultures have their mating season....

Which is why vulture, and more specifically, a vulture dude, like our winged giant, became a symbol of the rain season...Basically the vulture (eagle) dude is the rain god...I talked about this in my post "Eagle calendar markers"...

Here is another Bactrian seal, with the same eagle dude, this time actually holding two Bezoar goats...Just so you see that Bezoars and Mouflons are actually interchangeable as calendar markers...

I talked about this seal in my post "Fluffy"...

And here is the same eagle dude, this time with two heads, on an axe head from Bactia...

I talked about this amazing artefact in my post "Double headed eagle"...

Why two heads? Because the main vulture mating ritual is the synchronized flying...

Which from the ground looks like this: A double headed eagle...

So...Another very very cool example of animal calendar markers, which are found all over Eurasia and North Africa...

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...

Grazing horned animals

One of the most common designs found on Bronze Age Jiroft culture vessels from Halil River catchment area is "horned animals grazing on green shoots"...

The two animals depicted on these designs are:

Wild goats (Bezoar ibex)

Wild sheep (Mouflon)

Both animals have mating seasons which start at the end of Oct, beginning of Nov, at the exact moment when the rain season starts in the Halil river (Jiroft) valley...

The baby Bezoar goats and baby Mouflon sheep are born in April, at the end of the rain season...So the mating (Oct/Nov) and birthing (Apr) of wild goats and wild sheep marks the beginning and the end of the rain season in the Halil river (Jiroft) valley...

The rain season is also the "green" season, the time of new growth...Which is why these two animals are always depicted together with branches or bushes or trees full of new (green) leaves. Basically, they are used as calendar markers for beginning (and end) of the rain season...

So two more animals to add to already identified list of Jiroft culture animal solar year calendar markers I talked about in these two articles: "Khafajeh vase" and "Jiroft flood vase"...