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.

Ancile

This is a silver denarius from the time of Augustus. On the reverse you can see the sacred shield (ancile) that is said to have fallen from heaven, during the reign of Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome...

Apparently the ancient sources gave many different potential etymologies for the word "ancile". Like being derived from Greek ankylos (ἀγκύλος) meaning crooked...Crooked what? Basically etymology was and still is unknown... 

Now I am beginning to believe that god has a very good sense of humour and is basically taking the piss...This is Coat of Arms of Serbia. Stemmatographia by Hristofor Zhefarovich (1741)...

It is a cross with 4 fire-steels, of the type used since Roman times...These are used to strike a piece of flint to produce a spark when kindling fire...

In Serbian, and many other Slavic languages, these fire-steels are called "ocila", which basically just means "steels", plural of "ocil" meaning steel... 

The word is cognate with Medieval Venetian azzal (steel) and Medieval Greek ἀτσάλιν (iron)...Both apparently from Late Latin acies (steel) which originally meant sharp and which comes from Indo-European root h₂eḱ - ( sharp )...

Now look at the ancile shield again. What do you see in the centre of the shield? Four arches. Four crooked irons? 4 fire-steels?

Or maybe not...Romans would have surely known this...Or Maybe not...Numa Pompilus, to whom many of Rome's most important religious and political institutions are attributed to, including ancile, was Sabine not Roman...

Now I am not saying that ancile and ocila has anything to do with each other...Just that God has a wicked sense of humour...

Why? Cause I don't think that Slavic "ocila" is linguistically linked to "ancile"...But it is possible that the Serbian cross with 4 ocila might point at what "ankylos" (ἀγκύλος), "crooked" thing could have given the name to "ancile": crooked steel...fire-steel...Maybe...

Fige

When I was a little kid, this was "the rude gesture" before I learned the other ruder gestures 🙂. 

It turns out this gesture has been used at least since the Roman time...Apparently in Roman times it was known as "manu fica" (fig sign) "for the resemblance to female genitalia" (???)  Does this remind you of a female genitalia?

Also, this sign "was made by the pater familias to ward off the evil spirits of the evil dead" (???) during Lemuria, the festival of "cleansing the home from the evil dead" (???) 

Are the dead really afraid of the female genitalia?

I actually think that the Romans had actually forgotten the original meaning of this sign. This sign represents male genitalia. Which is why it is pater familias (the father of the family) who is making it.

Here is the origin of the sign

So not a female genitalia, right? That this is actually a sign represented male genitalia, can be seen from the fact that in Poland this gesture, also called figa, means "nothing" as in "you will get nothing (from me)", while in Serbia, the expression "dobićeš kurac" (literally you will get dick) means you will get nothing...

Also the whole "evil spirits of the dead" is another sign that the Romans had forgotten the "old ways"...The dead, the ancestors, were not god or bad...They were good to the living if they respected them, remembered them, and bad if they didn't...

It is the dead, the ancestors who brought all the good things to the living...In return for regular mention, food and drink...I talked about this in my posts "Diduch", "Thirst", "Blood red wine" and "Wolf feast"...

And originally this sign was probably not made "to ward off the evil spirits of the dead"...The pater familias was making it to remind the ancestors that they are all part of the the same family...Paternal family...Symbolised by the...

Or I wonder, was pater familias actually telling the ancestors that they will get dick if they don't behave? Risky, very risky...Look what happened to the Hittites when they forgot their ancestors "House of the bones"...

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...

Scullball

Of the 52 skeletons discovered in the fourth-century A.D. Roman cemetery discovered in the village of Great Whelnetham in Suffolk, England, 17 had been decapitated and the heads were placed between their owner's legs or feet. Why? Well... 

When archaeologists opened medieval graves at a highway construction site near Gliwice, Poland, they came across skeletal remains of humans whose severed heads rested upon their legs...

Apparently this is an ancient Slavic burial practice for disposing of suspected vampires, in hopes that decapitated individuals wouldn't be able to rise from their tombs...Practiced by the Western Slavs mainly...

Now the article about the English Vampire burials says that: "The decapitations might be related to pagan belief systems that held that spirits need to be released for the afterlife or even that the head was a container of the soul."

Which is why the head was cut off...The vampire was "the undead", the body which soul never left...So kind of linked...Otherwise all the dead would have been decapitated, right?

So the question is who were the people buried following Western Slavic vampire burial rituals in the late Roman cemetery in England? Or how did Medieval Western Slavs got to practice Roman Vampire burial rituals???

By the way you do know that Vampire is a Serbian word? 

Few articles related to the Serbian (Slavic) vampire lore: Vampires, Tombstones, Stake, Enemy of demons

Janus

Article, in which, considering that today is the 1st of January, I would like to ask few questions about Janus, Ancient Roman god of beginnings (and ends), gates, transitions, time...and the god after which January was named...

So to start: Happy new beginning (and end)

Question 1: Why is Janus the god of beginnings? 

This is a valid question that I couldn't find answer to...Romans believe that he was the Primordial god with no parents. His main epithet, Pater, means that for Romans Janus was the first of the gods and thus their father...But why?

To understand this we need to look at the rights performed in honour of Janus. They were performed at the beginning of the Year, at the beginning of each month and at the beginning of each day...Nothing strange here, god of the beginnings...

Well...

First strange thing: Why was the beginning of the year celebrated on the 1st of January, after Winter Solstice which was celebrated on the 25th of December? 

Remember my post about the end of time (calendar) and the dead days? In it I talked about Lunisolar calendar which is at the base of Serbian ritual calendar. It consist of a Solar year, solar "kolo" (wheel) which is ever turning...This solar year has 12 full moons. The last full moon of the solar year ends on the 30X12=360th day. What is left are 5 "extra" days. Five days which lay outside of the "calendar" (koledar?). Five "dead days" as they are called in Serbia. 

Beginning of this 5 day period is the end of the old Solar year and the end of this 5 day period is the beginning of new Solar year. They are not the same day...In Serbia dead days are still marked as last five days before winter solstice (Christmas). In Bulgaria they marked after winter solstice (Christmas)...

Romans probably also did what Bulgarians do today...Which is a later change as Solar year is calculated from Winter Solstice to Winter solstice Solstice using full moons...

Janus had another epithet: Iunonius (Junonius). He was the patron of all 12 kalends (moons) from the republican calendar, which were associated with Juno. Macrobius says that: "Iunonium...not only does he hold the entry to January, but to all the months...all the kalends being under the jurisdiction of Juno"...

At the time when the rising of the new moon was observed by the pontifex minor the rex sacrorum assisted by him offered a sacrifice to Janus in the Curia Calabra while the regina sacrorum sacrificed to Juno in the regia...Why?

Well because we are talking about lunisolar calendar here. 

Solar year, which starts on winter solstice, indeed holds the key to all 12 moons which comprise it...Juno does rule the moons, small "kola" (wheels)... But Janus rules both the solar year, big "kolo" (wheel) and all 12 small "kola" (calends, wheels). 

All this points at Janus being the Solar year and Juno being the lunar month...Together they create Time...And interestingly, it is this cyclic "Time", the result of the continuous oscillating, rhythmic interplay between Sun and Earth, which drives the change of seasons. And the change of seasons is what is behind all the phenomena which we built our gods from...

This is why Janus is the god of gods...

Was he seen as Sun himself? 

Well he has another interesting attribute: Janus Quadrifrons ("Janus Fourfaced")...Why? Well, interestingly Slavic sun god Svetovid (the one who alights and "sees" everything) was depicted with 4 faces... 

Is this in anyway linked? 

Well maybe...

Here is when I will ask my second question: Why is Ianus (Janus) called Ianus??? 

No one really knows...Romans couldn't agree on the meaning of his name, which means that it had no obvious etymology in Latin. 

To me this is very very strange. The primordial god, god of beginnings, the god of new solar year, the god of new calendar, the father of all gods, if he was indeed Native Roman god as they claimed, had to have name which clearly depicted his function in Latin. But he didn't...

Interestingly (again) the name of this god of new beginnings has perfect etymology in Slavic languages...Etymology which describes his role of god of new beginnings: "Ja+Nov" (pronounced as Janov, Janow, Janou) meaning "I+New"...

Now the Slavic word "nov" (new) is an ancient PIE word with cognates in every IE language, including Italic languages, where we find "*nowos". So this part could have come from some Italic language... 

But the problem is the beginning of Janus's name. In Latin, the word for I, Me is "ego", from Proto-Italic *egō,  from Proto-Indo-European *éǵh₂. If we look at the descendants of this root, we see that the only one which sounds like "Ia" (Ja) are Slavic languages...

This of course makes no sense. If this is a coincidence, this is bloody crazy coincidence:

Fourfaced epithet of Janus - Slavic 4 faced sun god
Solstice and New Year are different days - 5 dead days, days outside calends (full moons) in solar calendar of Slavic folklore
Kalend and Great Kalend - kolo wheel in Slavic, 
Janus has no Latin etymology - Janov, Janow, Janou+s (I new in Slavic), great name for the God of Beginnings

Anyone has any idea what's going on here?

In the end, there is also a hidden message in the two faced image of Janus. 

It describes the biggest predicament of humanity: inability to be in "now"...

Every moment in time is "now", the only moment in time that really exists. Yet in every one of these moments, we are either focused on the past or on the future, completely forgetting about the fact we only exist when we are focused on that ever changing "now"...

Which unfortunately results in most of us never really existing or experiencing during our journey between our beginning and our end...

Love magic doll

Roman "love magic doll", showing nude female bound and stabbed with 13 pins. Found with a lead curse tablet, 2nd-3rd century, Antinoopolis. Currently kept in Louvre. These dolls are called "kolossoi". This one was used in a love magic ritual :)

1. brain: only think about me; 
2. eyes: only have eyes for me; 
2. ears: only have ears for me; 
1. mouth: only speak about me; 
1. heart: only have feelings for me; 
1. vagina: only have desire for me; 
1. anus: only have desire for me; 
2. hands: only work for me;
2. feet: never walk away from me... 

Total 13

Bound: only be mine...

For those who say that this is a horrible custom, I have one question: What do most people today have in mind when they say that they want their partner to be "faithful"?