Mehr

Late Sassanian depiction of a deity on a column capital now held in Taqe Bostan , which @persiaantiqua identified as Mehr (Mithra) based on the fact that he is surrounded by blooming lotuses...

Mithra was directly associated with lotus, to the point where on the most famous relief of Mithra, the one from Taqe Bostan, he is actually depicted standing on a lotus flower, radiating light, while witnessing Ahura Mazda giving ring of power to king Ardashir II...

I talked about this ring giving ceremony and it's meaning in my post "The ear ring of god" if anyone is interested...

Anyway, why Lotus? Mitra originates in India. Where he was, in the earliest times, directly associated with Varuna, the old Monsoon good whose Vahana was a crocodile, an animal calendar marker for the monsoon season in India....

Varuna, the old Monsoon god, rides on a crocodile/Makara...In India, crocodiles hatch during the monsoon season...I talked about this in my posts "Makara" "Yakshi" "Proto Durga" and "Maruts".

Mithra was so closely linked to Varuna, that the two of them were invoked together as Mitra/Varuna...Which would indicate that Indian Mitra was also in some way linked to the monsoon season in India. How?

I recently read this paper "Mit(h)ra(s) and the Myths of the Sun" by David H. Sick, in which he talks about the solar aspect of Mithra and proposes that Indian Mitra, the observer and enforcer of contracts between men and gods, was (linked to) the sun from the earliest times...

This is because sun sees and knows everything...Slavs called sun god Svetovid, meaning "The one who sees (everything in) the world", but also "The one who makes things visible in the world"...I talked about this in my post "Svetovid"...

Most people in the world thought the same about the sun.

Skull with amber discs on clay in eye-sockets. 

Dated to the 4th mill BC. Latvia. One of many amber "sun" disc (obverse (sun cross), reverse (sun rays) and cross-section) made by the same culture...

And Sumerian symbol for sun...

Sun + Eye = Sight

I talked about this in my post "Sun eyes"...

The Sun = The God of Justice...The one who sees everything...Like Utu/Shamash, Mesopotamian Sun God...

Akkadian seal, 2350-2100BC. From "Gods, demons and symbols of ancient Mesopotamia: an illustrated dictionary" by Jeremy Black and Anthony Green...Depicting the sun god Utu/Shamash...The god of justice...Being bribed...I talk about this in my post "Bribing Shamash"...

The Sun God Shamash whose symbol was a cross...

I talked about this in my post "The cross of Shamash"...

The symbol on this Solar Disc, the symbol of Shamash, is the Solar Cross, which combines a sun, a cross (solstices and equinoxes), and wavy lines representing sun (heat) rays...

The Sun God Shamash, who is the "Central light of the Menorah"...

I talked about this in many of my posts...

The Sun God Shamash, God of Justice, who is related to this "other" God of Justice" who also sees everything...

Christ as the sun-god Helios/Sol, 3rd c. AD, Vatican. Christ is born on Winter Solstice, (re)birth day of the sun (god), he enters Jerusalem on a donkey, "animal of the (sun) gods and kings", and gets put on a cross, symbol of the sun (god). Interesting...

I talked about this in my "Alexamenos graffito"...

Anyway, I talked extensively about Mithras/Mithra/Mitra, including about his solar aspect, in my post "Mithras"...

And in it I postulated that this god was, from it's earliest incarnation in India, directly linked to Jul/Aug...When Mithras kills bull...In Leo...

Lion (autumn, starts in Leo) killing Bull (summer, starts in Taurus) depicted on the wall of the Great Mosque of Diyarbakir the oldest mosque in Anatolia.

I talk about the meaning of this complex animal calendar marker in my posts "Mystery seal", "Angra Mainyu" "Bull leaping in Syria", "Lion killing bull under date palm", "Butt chewing" and many others....

Or to depict it in Indian way, when the lion of Parvati meets the bull of Shiva

Ardhanarishvara, the union of Shiva and Parvati, is a complex calendar marker for the peak of the monsoon season, Jul/Aug, where bull=summer=May/Jun/Jul  meets  lion=autumn=Aug/Sep/Oct 

Which produces (the tree of) life and the river Ganges. 

I talked about this in my post "Ardhanarishvara"...

More specifically Mithras/Mithra/Mitra was linked to the Sun in Jul/Aug...Interestingly, in India monsoon starts properly around summer solstice and peaks in Jul/Aug...So it is the Monsoon Sun, the ultimate Judge, that determines if people deserve Monsoon rain or not...

It is after all the sun that heats the ocean, evaporates the water and creates the summer wet monsoon...

I talked about this in my post "Vayu, about Vayu, the Hindu god of wind whose name literally means air/wind. But not just any wind. Summer monsoon wind...

And it is the sun that heats the earth, evaporates the water and creates the winter, dry monsoon. I talked about this dual effect (summer vs winter monsoon) of the sun on Indian subcontinent in my post "Surya's wives"...

This very happy looking dude, with two gorgeous babes sitting on his laps, is no other than the Vedic Sun God Surya. He is positively "beaming" with pride...And I guess pretty glad to have few extra hands...But what is really the narrative here?  

But Mitra is not Surya. The same way Apollo is not Helios...But they are still both linked to the sun in Jul/Aug, Leo...

If you are interested in how and why Apollo is linked to the sun in Jul/Aug, check these posts:

1. "Palil". About "Palil" a nickname of Nergal, the terrible, burning, destructive sun of Jul/Aug, Leo...And about the origin of the name Apollo and its meaning...

2. "Lord of the flies". About Nergal and Apollo as "The lords of the flies"...And about Jul/Aug, Leo, being the peak of the fly and fly born diseases season in Northern Hemisphere...

3. "Lions of Delos". About the Lions of Delos, the burning destructive sun in Jul/Aug, Leo, and the fact that both Nergal and Apollo are linked to lions. 

4. "Apollo and dolphins". About Jul/Aug, Leo being the "best time to sail in Eastern Mediterranean", and the link between dolphins and Lions...and Apollo...

5. "Marble throne of Apollo". About snakes (symbols of sun's heat), dragons (symbols of burning sun's heat) and terrible sun gods, Nergal and Apollo who are dragons themselves...

6. "Apollo and Python". About why Python followed Apollo after his birth? Cause snakes are solar animals...According to the Delphian tradition, Apollo was born on the 7th day of the month of Bysios (Jan/Feb)

7. "White raven". About the black and white raven legend which is found in both Nergal and Apollo mythology, Egyptian vultures and the twins that guard the gates of hell. And some other weird stuff...

8. "Threshing floor of Apollo". About the threshing floors as solar observatories/temples, about the threshing floor of Apollo from Delphi, about Jul/Aug, Leo, being the holy month of Apollo, and about solar bonfires...

9. "Apollo the great archer". About why Apollo was the terrible "far shooting" archer...About arrow and bow constellation from Mesopotamia, Ishtar, Sirius, and Jul/Aug, the season of Perseid meteor shower...

10. "Apollo Sminthius". About Apollo his arrows that cause plague and peak infectious diseases season, Jul/Aug

And if you are interested in how Mitra was linked to the sun in Jul/Aug, in Leo, read my post "Mithras"...

Ok...But what about lotus? Well, lotus peak flowering season in India is Jul-Aug (Leo), the peak monsoon season and the peak flood season...

I talked about it in my post "Modesty", in which I explain why is Lajjā Gaurī, a Hindu goddess associated with abundance, fertility and sexuality depicted with Lotus head... 

Now, we don't have any depictions of Mitra at all, so I have no proof that Indian Mitra was associated with lotus. But the god that replaced Mitra/Varuna, Indra, held lotus...Indra with lotus, late 7th–early 8th c. AD, Kālikā Mātā Temple. The pic is from this paper...

Indra holds lotus while riding on an elephant...

Indian elephants mate during Indian monsoon season...

Which is why Indra, the thunder and rain god, rides not just on any elephant, but on a white (cloud) elephant...

Articles about elephant calendar marker, India: "Musth", "Samantabhadra", "Modesty", "Ganesha"...

Oh, and btw, Indra, replacement for Indian Mitra also wielded Vajra (Sanskrit for club/mace)...Which is cognate with Vazra (Avestan for club/mace), main weapon of Iranian Mithra...

And this is important because Leo, Jul/Aug is also the peak Rudra season...When stone clubs/maces fall from the sky together with rain...I talked about it in my post "Rudra"...

I think that the fact that lotus, as plant calendar marker, makes a lot of sense being linked to Mitra in India, but very little sense being linked to Mitra in Iran, indicates that this is another proof that Iranian Mithra is actually imported Indian Mitra...

In Iran, due to the climate being the opposite to Indian climate, imported Indian deities lost a lot of their original symbolic meaning. A lot of symbols were kept, like lotus, but the meaning was lost...

I talked about this in my post "Daevas vs Devas". 

Zoroaster said that "daevas" were "wrong" or "false" gods that should be rejected...Were Iranian "daevas" actually Indian "devas"? And if so, what could have turned devas (good guys) into daevas (bad guys)??? Well, the opposite climate of course...

In India, Jul/Aug is the wettest time of the year, the time of flood, while in Iran, Jul/Aug is the driest time of the year, the time of drought. Yet, Iranians still celebrate lotus festival, linked to Anahita, goddess of water, in Jul.

I will talk about Anahita and lotus soon...

But this link between lotus and Iranian water goddess and Jul/Aug, just confirms that my interpretation of the link between lotus and Iranian Mithra was correct...I think...🙂

What do you think?

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...

Winged Artemis

Shard of a late 7th c. BC amphora, found on the island of Paros, showing a winged Artemis holding a lion by its tail and ear, surrounding by what looks like sun symbols, swastikas and crosses...

What does this all mean?

Well, if we want to figure this out we have to start in Mesopotamia, with Nergal. 

Nergal, the deified destructive "burning" sun, was depicted as a lion man, because Jul/Aug, Leo, is the hottest and driest part of the year in Mesopotamia...

Talked abut him for the first time in my post "Winged superhuman hero"...

BTW, Leo (Jul/Aug), originally had nothing to do with stars either. It is the ancient animal calendar marker marking the beginning of the main mating season of the Eurasian lions. 

Talked about lion as an animal calendar marker in many of my posts...

This is why "Behind a lion", "On a lion", "Between lions" means in Jul/Aug, in Leo. I talked about this in many of my posts, like this one for instance, about this interesting shard from a Hittite vessel with a depiction of a god (?) standing on a lion with a plant above lion's head. Currently Museum of Anatolian Civilisations, Ankara, Turkey. 

Anyway, in Greece, the "terrible" sun god, Nergal, became The "terrible" sun god Apollo...

I explained this in detail in this series of post about the link between Nergal and Apollo:

1. "Palil". About "Palil" a nickname of Nergal, the terrible, burning, destructive sun of Jul/Aug, Leo...And about the origin of the name Apollo and its meaning...

2. "Lord of the flies". About Nergal and Apollo as "The lords of the flies"...And about Jul/Aug, Leo, being the peak of the fly and fly born diseases season in Northern Hemisphere...

3. "Lions of Delos". About the Lions of Delos, the burning destructive sun in Jul/Aug, Leo, and the fact that both Nergal and Apollo are linked to lions. 

4. "Apollo and dolphins". About Jul/Aug, Leo being the "best time to sail in Eastern Mediterranean", and the link between dolphins and Lions...and Apollo...

5. "Marble throne of Apollo". About snakes (symbols of sun's heat), dragons (symbols of burning sun's heat) and terrible sun gods, Nergal and Apollo who are dragons themselves...

6. "Apollo and Python". About why Python followed Apollo after his birth? Cause snakes are solar animals...According to the Delphian tradition, Apollo was born on the 7th day of the month of Bysios (Jan/Feb)

7. "White raven". About the black and white raven legend which is found in both Nergal and Apollo mythology, Egyptian vultures and the twins that guard the gates of hell. And some other weird stuff...

8. "Threshing floor of Apollo". About the threshing floors as solar observatories/temples, about the threshing floor of Apollo from Delphi, about Jul/Aug, Leo, being the holy month of Apollo, and about solar bonfires...

9. "Apollo the great archer". About why Apollo was the terrible "far shooting" archer...About arrow and bow constellation from Mesopotamia, Ishtar, Sirius, and Jul/Aug, the season of Perseid meteor shower...

10. "Apollo Sminthius". About Apollo his arrows that cause plague and peak infectious diseases season, Jul/Aug

This transformation of Nergal into Apollo went through an an intermediary, Syrian god Resheph...I talked about this in my article "Apollo - Resheph"...

Now Artemis, the Twin Sister of Apollos, is holding the ear and tail of the lion deliberately, to indicate that she is standing in Jul/Aug, in Leo...Lion here is symbolic depiction of the sun in Leo...Apollo...Nergal...

So if Apollo is Nergal, Sun god Shamash in Leo, Jul/Aug, who is Artemis, Apollo's twin sister? Well, who is the twin sister of the sun god Shamash?

She is this girl

For those who will say "Ishtar was the morning star", yes she was, in Leo (Jul/Aug), when Sirius rose in the morning with the sun...Which is why Ishtar stands on a lion (with sun above the lion) and why Ishtar is known as "The Lioness of heaven"...

For those who will still say Ishtar is Venus and not Sirius. This post, "Sirius the mother of Venus", and linked articles might be of interest: You know how everyone thinks that Inanna/Ishtar (Morning Star) is Venus and how I think that it was originally Sirius, and only later became Venus? 

Well, it seems that Ancient Egyptians preserved the proof of this switch in their mythology. 

Meet Sopdet...

Sopdet, the personification of Sirius, was the consort of Sah, the personification of Orion. And their child was Sopdu, the personification of Venus, "Lord of the East" (Venus as morning star)....

Ta Ta Taaaaaaa!!!!

Identification of Artemis as Greek version of Ishtar is not that difficult really when you think about it...I talked about the identity of Artemis in Detail in my post "Artemis Orthia", about this drawing of an archaic carving of a chariot on ivory plaque from the Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia in Sparta. The chariot is pulled by winged (solar) horses and is driven by a female (goddess?) charioteer. A lion is depicted lying behind the horses...Again, in Leo...

Finally, about suns, crosses and swastikas. Check this post, "Boeotian solar pyxis", about this late 7th c. BC Boeotian clay pyxis depicting the "(Mysterious) Mistress of the Animals and some animals" 🙂 that explains the reason why cross and swastika are solar symbols, just like horses and serpents...

I also talked about solar cross in my post "Ponte Sodo fibula" about this amazing Etruscan gold disc fibula, from the Necropolis of Ponte Sodo, Vulci, Etruria, Italy. 650 BC 

And I talked about solar cross in my post "Alexamenos graffito" in which I explain why this graffito depicting Christ with a donkey head is not actually a mockery of Christ...

Christ is born on Winter Solstice, (re)birth day of the sun (god), he enters Jerusalem on a donkey, "animal of the (sun) gods and kings", and gets put on a cross, symbol of the sun (god)...

BTW, cross was originally symbol of Mesopotamia Sun god Shamash...

You know Shamash, the solar deity of the early Hebrews, to whom they dedicated their first temple (according to their own scriptures)...

I talked about this in my posts "The cross of Shamash" and "Sun god tablet" and "Temple of Isis on Philae Island"...

Shamash, whose destructive aspect is Nergal, Shamash in Leo...

Anyway, I think that all of this makes it pretty clear who is depicted on the Paros amphora. What do you think? 

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...

Temple of Isis on Philae Island

This painting by the 19th century French painter Théodore Frère depicts the Philae Island, located near the First Cataract of the Nile in Upper Egypt, with the central structure being the oldest temple, temple of Isis, built by Psamtik II (595 BC – 589 BC)...

The temple was the last temple built in the classical Egyptian style. It was also the place where the last known Egyptian hieroglyphic inscription (394 AD), and the last known Demotic inscription (452 AD) were found...

Finally, it was the last functioning pagan temple in Egypt (the temple was closed down in AD 537).

The temple of Isis was Christianised by carving lots of Coptic crosses into its walls and columns...

My favourite being this one. Why? Cause Christians also carved a star just above the cross...And this is actually an astonishing find. Why? Here's why:

Christ as the sun-god Helios/Sol, 3rd c. AD, Vatican. Christ is born on Winter Solstice, (re)birth day of the sun (god), he enters Jerusalem on a donkey, "animal of the (sun) gods and kings", and gets put on a cross, symbol of the sun (god). Interesting...I talked about this in my post "Alexamenos graffito"...

I often wondered if early (Hebrew) Christians did know that cross represented sun god Shamash? 

I talked about this in my posts "The cross of Shamash" and "Sun god tablet"...

You know Shamash, the solar deity of the early Hebrews, to whom they dedicated their first temple (according to their own scriptures)...

Zodiac, with Helios in its center. 6th c. synagogue at Beit Alpha, Israel. Why? Well:

"Josiah removed from the entrance of the LORD's Temple the horse statues...and burned the chariots...which...kings of Judah dedicated to the sun..." 

I talked about this in my post "Sun god from the first temple"...

The First (solar) Temple was built on a threshing floor. Threshing floors were used in the past as solar observatories. Now if you wanted to make a (solar) temple on a solar observatory, and "orient" it (make it to face east), if you wanted to make a "House of God" to face the "House of (Sun) God", how would you do it? Like this:

The two little sticks could then be deified and called Boaz and Jachin...I talked about this in my post "Boaz and Jachin"...

Solar temple dedicated to a Sun god in a chariot pulled by 4 horses...I originally thought that this god was some kind of local Helios...But since then I learned that Shamash also traveled in a chariot pulled by four equids...

I talked about this in my posts "Sun god from Tell Brak" and "Shamash playing with solar horse"... 

So the Sun God that Josiah says the Jews worshiped in the First Temple was most likely Shamash...They still do worship him BTW...

Remember this post, "The tree of life, light", about the origin of the Hanukah (Winter Solstice) celebration? And the link between Yahweh and Shamash, the old Semitic (Akkadian) sun god...

Now in this post, "Menorah from Nipur", about this 3rd mill. BC seal from Nipur, I postulated, based on the fact that Shamash is depicted sitting between two bulls, that the Shamash worshipped through Menorah was Sun in Taurus, Apr/May. The good sun, the sun of life...

But I completely missed the fact that the two bulls have erections, which means they symbolised Jul/Aug, the start of the beginning of the mating season of wild cattle...I talked about this important "detail" in my post "Tree huggers", about this strange moulded plaque, Babylonian, ca. 2000–1600 BC. 

And I also, for some weird reason, ignored the fact that Shamash is holding the reed cutting knife. I talked about the importance of the reed cutting knife in my post "Canals", where I explain why Shamash holds reed cutting knife when he is depicted standing in an empty canal/river bed. About Jul/Aug being the best time to cut reed in Mesopotamia if you want to make long lasting reed boats, houses and canal dams...BTW, see how he is standing between two lions, in Leo...

Both pointing to the fact that the Shamash of the Menorah is Shamash in Jul/Aug...See how Shamash has (mostly) 3 heat waves coming from each shoulder? Togehter whith his head, that is 7...7 months of the Sumerian summer...With the head in Jul/Aug, the hottest part of the year...

Sun in Jul/Aug. Nergal...The deified destructive "burning" sun, which was depicted as a lion man

because Jul/Aug, Leo, is the hottest and driest part of the year in Mesopotamia...

Talked abut Nergal in my post "Winged superhuman hero"...

Nergal the god of death...Is Jahveh?

As I said, I often wondered if the early Christians did know that cross represented sun god, and I had a feeling that they did. And this particular cross with the star above it proves that at least some of them did know...

Cause carving this cross with the star above it into the column of the temple of Isis only makes sense if they knew that the cross represented Sun. And that the star represented Sirius. And that together, sun and star represented Isis, Sirius rising with the sun in Leo (Jul/Aug).

So what did the person who carved this cross and star really want to tell the world? A lot...

EGYPT. Drachm. Antoninus Pius. AD 138-161. Zodiac series. Lion springing right; above, star and radiate and draped bust of Helios right...

The star is of course Sirius, which rises before the sun in Jul/Aug, Leo. 

This is the same as:

Sirius in Leo, also known as Ishtar...For those who will say "Ishtar was the morning star", yes she was, in Leo (Jul/Aug), when Sirius rose in the morning with the sun...Which is why Ishtar stands on a lion (with sun above the lion) and why Ishtar is known as "The Lioness of heaven"...

I talked about deified Sirius in many of my posts...

You can start here: You know how everyone thinks that Inanna/Ishtar (Morning Star) is Venus and how I think that it was originally Sirius, and only later became Venus?

Well, it seems that Ancient Egyptians preserved the proof of this switch in their myths about Sopdet...

I talked about this in my post "Sirius mother of Venus"...

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...