A goat in a tree

This is one of the two identical Sumerian figures excavated in Ur, in southern Iraq, dated to c. 2600–2400 BC...This amazing work of art, depicts a horned animal with wings (???) standing on his hind legs and nibbling leaves from a flowering tree. What is the meaning of all this?

First what horned animal is this? Originally people thought this was a ram... But today most people agree that this is a Markhor goat. 

Why was Markhor goat chosen to be depicted here? Surely not because it looks cool (not that he doesn't). Markhor is depicted here because Markhor mating season starts in November...

Which is important because? 

Because in Iraq the climatic year id divided into dry and wet part. And the wet part of the year starts in November...Right at the time when the Markhor goats start mating...Precipitation table Iraq.

So again, like in Eastern Mediterranean, Middle East, Arabia, Central Asia...Wherever rains arrive in Oct-Nov, we find goat worship...The Goat of rain...This rain is what allows life to flourish in these desert lands...Hence the Goat of rain nibbling on the Tree of Life...

But why wings? If they are indeed wings.... Maybe they are just stylised clumps of hair. Except that Markhor doesn't have any clumps of hair on his back, only around his neck...But ok let's allow for artistic freedom and say that these are not wings...

But if they were 🙂...

Well, at the exact time when the Goat of rain starts prancing around, certain types of Eurasian vultures start their mating rituals which involve synchronised flying...

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

Looked from the ground this flying pair looks like this:

Which is where the symbol of the double headed eagle most likely comes from, why rain gods are associated with eagles and why this Goat of rain has vulture's wings...

Also adding wings on things makes them more "heavenly"...

But whether this goat has wings or not is not important...

In most of the lands where rains arrive in October-November, the Goat of rain is depicted as an Ibex goat...The same is true of Iraq...This relief on the side of a cosmetic vessel from Nippur shows exactly the same flowering Tree of life except the Goat of rain is Ibex...

Now here is something interesting...The range of the Markhor goat, has historically been Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and northern India...Which means that people in Mesopotamia could not have been able to observe them and associate them with rain...

Which opens the question: why and how do we find depictions of Markhor in Mesopotamia, which match exactly the depictions of Ibex, from the earliest times. Like on this Hassuna redware bowl, circa 5500 BC

This is a mystery...

(Dramatic pause) 😉

There is one place where we find lots of Markhor goats though...I mean the animal is the national animal of the place...And the mating season of the Markhor (Nov-Dec) announces the beginning of the maximum precipitation period (Dec)...This place is Balochistan, just next to Indus Valley...

And guess what we find In Balochistan? We find this: Mehrgarh Neolithic site (dated c. 7000 BCE to c. 2500/2000 BCE) built by farmers...To whom rain was very very important...And so they probably also worshiped the Goat of rain...In the shape of Markhor??? 

So any link between Early Sumerians and Mehrgarhans? The appearance  of the worship of Markhor goats in Mesopotamia where Markhors don't live certainly suggests that...

Well I would say we are possibly looking at common root of both Mesopotamian and Indus Valley civilisations...

PS, maybe the "wings" are not wings but a "stylistic depiction of Markhor goat hair"...Maybe, although I am not sure why would they use different colour...Anyway this doesn't change the meaning of the scene...

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...

The faceless one

Kostenki is a very important cluster of Paleolithic sites on the Don River in Russia. Dated to after 25 000 BP, these were settlements of mammoth hunters who lived in dwellings made of mammoth bones...

And they loved making "Venus" figurines from mammoth ivory...

The figurines bodies are all anatomically perfect and different, definitely modelled on real probably pregnant women from the community. But they are all the same in one respect: they are all faceless...

In my recent article about faceless "Palaeolithic venus figurines" from Europe I argued that these figurines were deliberately made faceless to emphasise the they were symbols of fertility, of fertile earth, Mother Earth, and not depiction of real women...

I concluded that this was a proof that Palaeolithic people were able to invent, transmit and understand complex symbols and their meanings...

Then someone replied that I was wrong, and that most likely the reason for making these figurines faceless was that there was a taboo on depicting human faces. Considering that we have lots of depictions of anatomically perfect animal faces.

When I replied that we have found both faceless figurines and figurines with perfectly depicted human faces (both male and female) on same archaeological sites, the same person replied that maybe there was a taboo on depicting only the face of the goddess...

This got me thinking. The thing is The Goddess has no face. Fertility, Fertile Earth, Mother Earth has no face. Putting any face on The Goddess would demeen her and "desecrate her" in the most literal sense of this word...

Our Palaeolithic ancestors seem to have understood this.

Our Neolithic ancestors also understood this, as a lot of the early Neolithic Goddess figurines don't even have a head...

Like this one from Tappeh Sarab, Kermanshah ca. 7000-6100 BCE, Iran

Or this one from Cucuteni–Trypillia, 5500-3000 BCE, Moldova, Romania, Ukraine

Those figurines that have heads are either faceless, like this Cycladic female figurine, from Amorgos, 5300 – 3200 BC...

Or look like they have masks over their faces, like this Vinca culture figurine dated to 5000 - 4500 BC.

I talked about these Vinca culture masked figurines in my post "Mask from Belo Brdo".

If you were a priestess playing the role of the Goddess, wearing a mask would transform you in the eyes of the observers from a mare woman to a Godddess personified...

Masked figurine from Gumelniţa culture, 4700BC-3950BC Bulgaria, Romania

This is very important, as we can see soon in this thread...

Of course, there were also figurines which had faces. But most of these were just outlines of human faces, usually just noses on blank face with or without eyes. Like this figurine from Starčevo culture, 6200-5300 BCE, Serbia

But eventually all Goddess (and God) depictions were made with human face.

Why?

Because if the Goddess (or God) has a human face, we can reason with her (him). We can plead to her (him). We can argue with her (him). We can bargain with her (him). We can (try to) cheat her (him)

If you are staring at an expressionless blank face, all you can do is submit and accept your faight...

Interestingly, by the time we get to the Ancient Greece, the only deity still (sometimes) depicted without a face is the dreaded Goddess of the Underworld: Persephone...

Not Hades, the god of the underworld...

Why?

Well, because it is the Goddess, Mother Earth, is the mother who eats her children...And as our return to the Mother who gave birth to us is unescapable, there is no need to put a face on it. We can't plead, argue, bargain, cheat our way out of it...

Believe or not (again) this faceless Persephone could be preserved to this day by Sorbs (Baltic Serbs)...

Every year, just before Christmas, the oldest unmaried girl in a village gets dressed as a "bride", puts on a faceless mask, and visits the houses accompanied (orginally) by two other girls bringing good luck, good fortune and presents. She never speaks...

I talked about this custom in my post "Bescherkind".

She is "the maiden", "the bride", "the giver of gifts" (all epithets of Persephone as Kore, the Young Spring Earth). Her two female companions are most likely the summer and autumn earth, bountiful Demeter, and winter earth, the "old lady", "the witch" Hekate...

But wait, the winter is in Slavic folclore the part of the year rulled by Morana, the Goddess of Death, the old hag...Why do we then have a faceless maiden wander oround villages in mid winter giving presents to little children?

Because Morana (winter), Vesna (spring) and Mokosh (summer, autumn) are just three faces of The Goddess, Mother Earth. In Serbian mythology she is known as Dajbaba (Giving Mother), the wife of Dabog (Giving God, Giving father)...Da+Mater (Give, Allow + Mother in Serbian)...

Morana, believe or not, was by Slavs also imagined as a white maiden.

Her effigies, were ceremonially burned (heating up the earth) or drawned (thowing the earth) at the beginning of February, beginning of Spring...

These effigies were originally made of sheafs of grain over which a white maiden robe was put on. She was often decorated with necklaces made of egg shells...

The meaning of this effigy was: "spring emerging from under the snow (from underworld, dead part of the year, winter)"

And remember how Serbs believe that all good luck, good fortune, good harvest are all the gifts of their dead ancestors. Which is why the dead are majorly spoiled by the living with constant prayers and sacrifices...Especially during the winter. I talked about this in my post "Wolf feast".

So who better to represent this role of the dead, but the "giver of gifts", "giving mother", the faceless Mistress of the underworld, the land of the dead, the dead time of the Year, Persephone...

Persephone, who was to Minoans known as "pe-re-swa" Interestingly (again) "pe re swa" in Slavic languages means "One who was before all others"...

Fitting name for The Goddess, the Mother Earth, the mother of gods, the one who came before all other gods...

But maybe this is just a coincidence...

Sun stones

These are drawings of some of hundreds of "sun stones" found in Late Neolithic Vasagård archaeological site located on the southern side of the island of Bornholm, Denmark...

Pic: https://www.sciencealert.com

Vasagård is a complex religious site consisting of a dolmen and a passage grave and causewayed enclosures dated from between 3500 BC to 2700 BC...

Pic: http://bornholmsecrets.com

As amazing as these sun discs are, to me even more amazing are other pieces of shale which depicted what looks like grain fields...

Pic: https://www.sciencealert.com

Pic: https://www.sciencealert.com

Pic: https://www.sciencealert.com

You can read more about these stones in "Recent finds of Neolithic miniature rock art on the island of Bornholm – including topographic motifs" by Flemming Kaul, Jens Andresen and Michael S. Thorsen

It is a distinct possibility that these stones were a kind of prayer stones. They were found in ditches containing broken pottery, burned bones...Indicating that they were ritually deposited...

You can see more excavation pictures on this Facebook page.

But why did people make these stones? And why were they ritually deposited in the rings of ditches that surround the sacred enclosure? And why were they made and ritually deposited specifically during the period between 2900BC-2700BC?

Maybe this can point us to one possible explanation. The Greenland Ice Cores provide a temperature record for the last 5,000 years. The below chart was found on some climate change website which seems not to be online any more and which stated that the chart was "drawn based on the raw data from the Grootes, P.M. et al. 1993, Nature vol. 366, pp. 552-4"... 

Look at this chart of polar temperatures...Look at the period between 3000BC and 2500BC...The temperatures are rapidly dropping...This is not a very good thing for grain farmers in the north of Europe...

Now compare this with Early medieval cooling and the Little ice age. Both catastrophic weather event which froze the north of Europe...Did this happen around 2900BC too?

Were sun and field stones part of the rituals in which people prayed to the sun to shine again and heat their frozen fields? I think that's quite possible...

To see how bad that sudden drop in temperature could have been, can be seen from the effect early medieval cooling period had on Scandinavia: "The long, harsh Fimbul winter is not a myth. Probably half of Norway and Sweden’s population died. Researchers now know more and more about the catastrophic year of 536."

That my hunch about the weather change being the trigger for the appearance of the sun and field stones is probably correct can be seen by the fact that at around 2800 BC there is a sudden change in religious practices...

Old enclosures, which were aligned with solstices, were filled in and curious "woodhenges" appear... 

Pic: https://ifrglobal.org

Archaeologists say that "something happened" which caused this change. That "something" could be the fact that the sun lost its power...

To understand what was happening at Vasagård between 2900BC and 2700BC we need to look at another archaeological site from Bornholm from the same period where sun stones were also found. Rispebjerg. 

Pic: http://bornholmsecrets.com

The site looks almost identical in its layout to Vasagard. The fenced area originates from the Funnel Beaker Culture, 2900-2700 BC...

Apart form slate sun discs, several clay sun discs were found in both Vasagård and Rispebjerg. The clay disk to the far left is from Vasagård - the other clay slices are all found at Rispebjerg...These were definitely amulets designed to face forward (hence two string holes)...

Five "woodhenges" were discovered at the site. This is the excavation plan of one of the woodhenges. In addition to the circular post-built plant, two rows of smaller posts lead into the woodhenge...

Pic: www.naturstyrelsen.dk

A colonnade entrance? 

Around the excavated wood hinges on Rispebjerg, burned clay layers were found, which looked like they had fallen from the sky. This was interpreted as the remains of a fallen clay-clad platforms which were supported by the posts of the "woodhenges"... This would make posts leading to the "woodhenge" being the support for the stairwell leading to the platform...

Pic: www.naturstyrelsen.dk

These platforms probably held sacred sacrificial fires were cattle were sacrificed, as is evident by many burned cattle bones found in centres of "woodhenges"...

These structures intended to "raise the fire towards the sky" could be another proof that people at that time tried desperately to rekindle the sun...

The wood henges seem to have been built, then destroyed. In Rispebjerg, the entire ornamented sun disc, burnt flint axes, clay vessels and burnt animal bones from ritual meals were placed in post holes of destroyed "woodhenges"...

Pic: www.naturstyrelsen.dk

Maybe this is where (when) we need to look for the origin of the Yule log ceremonies... People's fear that sun's fire will be extinguished unless humans helped to preserve it was real... And probably triggered by the real event of sun getting cold...

Interestingly if we look at the list of weather events, we find something called "The Piora Oscillation". This was an abrupt cold and wet period generally dated to the period of c. 3200-2800. It was "wetter in Europe and drier elsewhere"...

So the climate didn't just get colder it got wetter. What is interesting is that one of the "offerings" found in Bornholm "woodhenges" were burned flint axes...

When flint is heated it explodes with loud bangs. Archaeologists are saying these were kind of Neolithic firecrackers 🙂 If you think that modern bangers are dangerous think again. Imagine exploding flint axes spirting razor sharp flakes everywhere...

Pic: www.naturstyrelsen.dk

Strangely, flint is not found on the Island of Bornholm. The nearest sources of flint to Bornholm are over 100 kilometres away. Across the sea.

Pic: www.naturstyrelsen.dk

Which means that these were extremely precious objects which were not lightly chucked into fire. 

By the way the same burned flint axes were found in Vasagård too...

So why did these people make flint axe bangers? Was it just for show?

What I find super interesting is that flint axes were by Slavs connected with Perun, the thunder god. Slavs believed that they were petrified lightning bolts...

I always thought that this linking of flint axes to Thunder god was a recent development. I proposed that it was not any stone axes which were believed to be petrified lighting bolts. It was specifically flint axes  I explained this link through the fact that flint was once used for creating sparks for kindling fire...It was a source of man made lighting. Hence the belief that flint was a petrified, solidified lightning...But from this exploding axes ritual, I now believe that this link between flint, and specifically flint axes and Thunder god originated in Neolithic...

Exploding flint axes all of a sudden make a lot of sense as part of religious ceremony during catastrophic cold and wet weather event in Middle Neolithic...

It is funny that it is only Slavs who preserved this link between flint axes and their thunder god, Perun...

I talked about this link in my post "Axe of Martin"...

Add to this all the burned cattle bones found in "woodhenges" and "cattle sacrifices" (killing, roasting and eating of bulls) which Slavs performed to Perun...As part of harvest ceremonies...

Another ancient religious belief (ceremony) preserved by Slavs???

This is all very peculiar...

The article talking about Rispebjerg.