Shaking the olive tree

Mosaic of Farming Activities from Julia Caesarea, Algeria. Agriculture was paramount to the Numido-Romans.

Numidia was successful in becoming a main provider of agricultural surpluses to other parts of the Empire, and this achievement was depicted in many very fine floor mosaics

This Roman mosaic is depicting two people ploughing the field and sowing grain. Behind is an olive tree full of dark coloured almost ripe olives. Cherchell, Algeria.   

In Algeria grain is sown starting in Oct/Nov and olives are harvested also starting in Oct/Nov...

Here is an interesting use of ripe olives as a plant calendar marker: 

Persephone "...cried out...calling upon her father... But no one...heard her voice...nor yet the olive-trees bearing rich fruit..." That's just before olive harvest, which starts in Oct/Nov...I talked about this in my post "Abduction of Persephone"...

Persephone, deified grain seed...Abducted and taken "under ground"...Sown...Grain sowing season in Greece starts in Oct/Nov...And so does the olive harvest season...

Here is a much much older example of the use of olive tree full of ripe fruit as plant calendar marker from Knossos, Crete: Minoan fresco, depicting ibex goats (Mating starts Oct/Nov) flanking the (olive) tree of life (harvest starts Oct/Nov) while crocuses are blooming all around (blooming and harvest starts Oct/Nov)...I talked about this in my post "Goat riding thunder god"... 

Now check this out: 

A while back I came across this X post by @Michssspp82096:

Numerous Minoan gold rings  depict individuals shaking trees. This could represent the main form of divination in Bronze age Crete...

So I replied: 

You shake trees to get fruit down...Like olives...Look at these beauties. Almost ready to be harvested...

In Crete, Olive harvest starts in Oct/Nov, which is also the beginning of the rain season...Super super important...

And now that I thought about it, these trees from Minoan seals, that always looked weird to me

do look like olive trees...

On Minoan Crete it was Goddess who was linked to rain, goats, crocuses and fertility...Talked about it in my posts "Mesa Mouliana vessel", "Anavlochos mountain", "Goat riding thunder god", "Male female Minoan bowl", "Minoan flying goddess with griffin", "Saffron", "Origin of saffron"...

I now think she was also linked to olives...And shaking of olive branches might have indeed been a ritual linked with rain and fertility...

Shaking of olive branches makes olives fall and they only start to fall when they are fully ripe and when they are fully ripe, in Oct/Nov...rain starts to fall...Fucking cool...

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...

Four Seasons from the House of Bacchus

Romans, using plant calendar markers to depict seasons 🙂

Roman mosaic of the Four Seasons from the House of Bacchus in Complutum, today's Alcalá de Henares, Spain.

Counterclockwise from top right: spring, summer, fall, and winter.

Overpowering

Roman stone sculpture of a bear overpowering a boar, from an ancient tomb monument, Trier...🙂 I think that "overpowering" is a nice way to "put it"...

Hmmm...Should I talk about obvious or hidden...

Considering everyone else is going to talk about animal sex,  I will talk about it too...And animal calendar markers derived from mating seasons of animals caught here in the act....

The wild boar mating season in Eurasia starts in November...At the beginning of winter...Which is why wild boar has been used to represent winter...

I talked about wild boar symbolism in my posts "Calydonian boar" and "Double headed eagle"...

Bears don't like shagging in the snow...They are asleep while boars are having fun...Bears emerge from their hibernation in spring, and are seen in some parts of the world, like Slavic countries, Romania as heralds of Spring...Which is why bears are part of Spring festivals...

I talked about bear symbolism in my post about "Bear dancers"...

There disappearance underground at the beginning of the winter and there reemergence from the underground at the end of the winter is seen as a symbolic death and rebirth...Just like sun and nature die and are reborn every winter...

The Christian holiday known as "Presentation of Jesus at the Temple" is celebrated on February the 2nd. In Serbia known as "Sretenje" (Meeting)... Serbians say that this is the day when "winter meets summer"...

Which is interesting because this is actually the beginning of spring...

I talked about this "Natural year division" in my post "Two crosses"...

Now Serbian tradition says that on this day, bears will awaken from their winter hibernation. If a bear comes out of his den and sees his shadow, he will get frightened back into hibernation, and winter will last 6 more weeks...Otherwise, winter will end soon...

So what about bear shagging??? Well, bear mating season stats in May...At the beginning of summer...This makes bear the opposite to boar from the symbolic point of view...

Bear is basically a solar symbol, because it is in our world during the warm part of the year, when sun is here too, and is in the underworld during the cold part of the year, when sun is there too...

This is why in Slavic mythology, the God Veles, the enemy of the Thunder God Perun, is represented as bear...Now it is well known that Thunder God's enemy is The Summer Sun, which causes drought...

So back to our "bear overpowering boar"...Knowing all this, this statue could be interpreted as summer overpowering winter...

But, whether whoever made this statue knew any of this or whether he had any ulterior motives or he was just a lover of bestiality, I honestly don't know...But this was a great excuse to talk about animal symbolism and animal calendar markers 🙂

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...