Whore of Babylon

Whore of Babylon on the Seven-Headed Beast, Illustration for Rev. 17:3–8. From the Las Huelgas Apocalypse, ca. 1220

I love this. The Whore of Babylon (aka Sirius, aka Ishtar) riding (in the middle of, in Jul/Aug, in Leo) seven headed beast (seven months of Mesopotamian summer Apr/May - Oct/Nov), just before she starts rising with the sun before dawn (so still invisible in the day, red sky)...

I talked about her in my post "Apocalypse" in which I give full symbolic analysis of the Woman of the Apocalypse, described in Chapter 12 of the Book of Revelation...

The same girl...

The Woman Clothed with the Sun (aka Sirius rising with sun in Leo, aka Ishtar), an illustration from the Rothschild Canticles, c. 1300

The same girl again...

3rd mill BC Mesopotamian dragon has lion body (Jul/Aug, Leo is the hottest time of the year) and seven snake heads (one for each hot month of Mesopotamian summer, Apr/May-Oct/Nov)...Analysis of this seal dated to 2200 BC can be found in my post "Seven headed dragon"...

The "dragon" (summer) is depicted while his 4th head (4th month, Jul/Aug) is being killed (is in progress). To the left we see "The Lady" standing under a star (Ishtar -  Sirius)...

Why is Ishtar depicted standing next to the seven headed dragon? 

For the same reason she is depicted here standing on a lion. Cause she is deified Sirius, which rises with the sun (morning star) in Leo, Jul/Aug, the hottest time of the year. Which is why she is depicted standing on a lion with the sun above lion's head and is known as "The Lioness of heaven"...

For the same reason she is the one who sits on a lion throne...

I gave complete explanation of why Ishtar is Sirius and not Venus in this article containing full symbolic analysis of the Sumerian poem "Inanna and Šukaletuda"...

I talked about Inanna/Ishtar and why it was Sirius that was her original "morning star" 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"...

She of course has many faces and names...

Silver seal from Gonur Tepe, Turkmenistan, late 3rd-early 2nd mill BC. Depicting a winged goddess riding on a lioness...

Who could this be?

Well, of course, a Central Asian version of the "Lioness of heaven", Inanna/Ishtar/Asherah/Artemis.../Sirius in Leo...

I talk about this in my post "Silver seal from Gonur Tepe"

Back to the original Whore of Bablylon painting and why I like it so much. The same "two skies" trick was used here: Does anyone else think that this picture, allegedly showing King John on a stag hunt, looks strange, and may be hiding something in plain sight? No? 

Well I do 🙂 I explain why in my post "King John"...

In short, King John here is symbolic depiction of St John's day, Midsummer day, Summer solstice. 

White horse is a universal solar symbol. On this Celtic coin from Hungary, this is symbolically depicted through "solar rider", an anthropomorphised sun riding a horse. 

I wrote many posts about horse/equid as a solar symbol from Around the world. 

Horse is a solar symbol because horse fertility is governed by sunlight and peaks on Summer solstice. St John (day), Summer solstice is in the middle of the solar horse, going from red sky (increasing sunlight, before summer solstice) to blue sky (decreasing sunlight, after summer solstice)...

John is riding after (towards) a stag, (the symbol of) winter...

Jingle bells, Jingle bells, Jingle all the way...Bronze stag pendant with bell feet, early 1st mill BC, Transcaucasia or Iran. Currently in the Met Museum...

Stag is a symbol of winter because it is through the winter that stags have their full grown antlers. 

I talked about the stag as the symbol of winter in my posts "Winter deer"  and "Deer kills snake" 

What is very interesting is that deer antlers are fully grown in Sep/Oct, right in time for the start of deer mating season and the end of the horse mating season. The old antlers fall off, and the new ones start growing, in Mar/Apr/May right in time for the start of the horse mating season. 

This means that deer and horse are natural animal calendar markers for the opposite halves of the year...Which is why King John on his white horse will (symbolically) never catch the deer... 

So, (never ending) stag hunt..Talked about it in my post "White stag"...

If you are interested in reading more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, which are at the root of all our mythologies, start here…Then check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am way way behind...

PS: Just came across this amazing painting: The woman clothed with the sun and the seven-headed dragon, c. 1360-70 by Giusto di Giovanni de Menabuoi.

Which is, I think, much better viewed like this...

The Woman clothed with the sun - Sirius rising with the sun in Jul/Aug, the middle, the hottest part of the Mesopotamian summer which lasts seven months...

The Dragon - Nergal, The Destructive Sun (God) Shamash...The God whose seat is in Jul/Aug, the middle, the hottest part of the Mesopotamian summer which lasts seven months...Whose main head is the middle head of the seven headed dragon...

This guy...

Slavic pyramids

"As the Sunday dawned in the early morning after the service of the Mass had been completed, Otto, the servant of God, having put on his episcopal headdress and with the standard of the cross borne in front of him, went forth to the multitude of the people in order to preach to them. He took with him Udalricus, who wore a dalmatic, as a deacon, and Adalbert who served as a sub-deacon and others to assist in preaching. There were there some large pyramids surrounded by walls to a considerable height in pagan fashion. The good preacher ascended one of these pyramids with his companions, and through his interpreter Adalbert began to explain the way of truth to those who had gone wrong and to threaten them with eternal destruction if they did not turn from their apostasy."
This is the description of Otto's missionary work among the Slavs of Stettin, from "The life of Otto, apostle of Pomerania, 1060-1139"
Were those "large pyramids built to considerable height in pagan fashion" which Otto saw in the 12th century among the Baltic Slavs, the same pyramids Slavs all over Slavdom still make on St John's day (Summer solstice)
Like this one on the picture:

He must increase and I must decrease

In John's Testimony about Jesus, St John the baptist says this about Jesus:

"He must increase and I must decrease."

What does this statement mean?

John the Baptist was an itinerant preacher in the early first century AD. Most scholars agree that John baptized Jesus. Scholars generally believe Jesus was a follower or disciple of John and several New Testament accounts report that some of Jesus' early followers had previously been followers of John. Some scholars maintain that John was influenced by the semi-ascetic Essenes...

But the connection between John the Baptist and Jesus is much much deeper: They were cousins born exactly six months apart. 

At the Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary to inform her that she would conceive of the Holy Ghost, he also informed her that Elizabeth, her cousin, was already six months pregnant with John the Baptist (Luke 1:36). 

Considering that Jesus was born on Christmas day, the 25th of December, John the Baptist, who was conceived six months earlier was born six months earlier, on the 24th of June, which is celebrated as the Nativity of John the Baptist. 

The Nativity of John the Baptist is one of the oldest festivals of the Christian church, being listed as a principal festival in 506 when it was celebrated in the same way as the Nativity of Jesus: it was a day of rest and was celebrated with three Masses: a vigil, at dawn, and at midday.

Now Christ was born on the 25th of December. At the time of the birth of Jesus, 25th of December was known as Brumalia. Brumalia was an ancient Roman, winter solstice festival. The name Brumalia comes from "brvma", [ˈbruːma] meaning "Winter solstice".

Brumalia was always celebrated on VIII Kal. Ian. (Servius A. 7.720). The eighth day before the Kalends of January was always December 25th in the Julian calendar, because December always had 31 days.

John the Baptist, being born exactly six months earlier, was born on the 24th of June. If at the time of the birth of Jesus, 25th of December was the winter solstice day, 24th of June, the date exactly six months away must have been the day of the summer solstice. So John the Baptist was born on the day of the summer solstice. 

So Christ was born on the day of the Winter solstice, the shortest day, after which days start getting longer. And John the Baptist was born on the day of the Summer solstice, the longest day, after which days start getting shorter. 

And so finally here is my proposed explanation for John's statement about Jesus: "He must increase and I must decrease". It is the light of the sun, the duration of the day that increases from winter solstice (birth of Jesus) to summer solstice, and decreases from summer solstice (birth of John the baptist) to winter solstice. 

Is this solar symbolism a coincidence?

King John

Does anyone else think that this picture, allegedly showing king John on a stag hunt, looks strange, and may be hiding something in plain sight?

Well I checked and officially there is nothing special about this picture. It is simply a picture depictint the king who liked hunting chasing a stag day and night.

But maybe, just maybe, there is more in this image than meets the eye.

In Europe, St John's day, (Ivandan, Jovandan in Slavic languages) is Christianized Midsummer, Summer solstice celebration.

In Serbia Midsummer, Summer, Summer solstice day is also known as Vidovdan, day dedicated to Svetovid, sun god. The sacred animal of Svetovid is white horse. This is an image of the solar rider on a white horse is also found on (medieval???) standing stones from Bosnia.

I already wrote about this in my post "The horseman".

The same solar rider and horse are found on many Celtic coins:

The rider of the solar horse on Celtic coins often had solar head, a head with hair sticking out like sun rays. The rider was the sun, sun god. We can see this from the fact that the rider is sometimes the sun disc. John has the ray crown which actually represents the sun rays. The same crown was worn by Sun god in later Roman period of Sol Invictus worship and by emperors who worshiped the sun god. This is Aurelian in his radiate crown on the left with Sol Invictus on the right.

The crown that John is wearing is the same radiate crown, the solar crown.

The line between the light (red) and dark (blue) part of the picture can be interpreted in two ways. Firstly this  could be the line between the day and night, so the evening. Secondly this could be the line between the period of the year when the days are getting longer and the period of the year when the days are getting shorter, so the summer solstice. Regardless of which one of these two interpretations we take, it seems that the painter went through considerable pain to make it obvious that this change from light to darkness is important. King John is depicted right on the line between light and darkness and his clothes are also made of the same light and darkness. Meaning he is related to light, he is light. He is the sun. I believe that the line between the "light" and "dark" part of the picture is the summer solstice, because this fits with St John's day being the midsummer, summer solstice celebration.

King John is chasing the stag.

The same stag hunt scene is represented on many Bosnian medieval standing stones, like this one from Crljivica:

But just like King Arthur and his knights, who are unsuccessfully trying to catch the white stag, King John and the unknown deer hunter from Bosnia will never catch his stag...Why?

Cause stallion is the symbol of summer, while stag is the symbol of winter...Why?

Cause mating season of horses, marked by vicious stallion fights, starts in Apr/May, beginning of summer, and mating season of deer, marked by vicious stag fights, starts in Sep/Oct/Nov, beginning of winter...

This makes Stallion an animal calendar marker for summer, the light half of the year...and Stag an animal calendar marker for winter, the dark half of the year...

King John is also holding his hand in a very strange way, with the palm pointing up, towards the sky, towards the sun. The reason why palm up means salvation is because sun god and heaven is "up". The reason why palm down means damnation is because earth, devil and hell is "down".  And he is pointing up...Towards the sun on the St John's day, the day of the summer solstice. The day when the sun, the king of heaven is on his throne, the highest point the sun reaches in the sky on the northern hemisphere...

Lastly, the corners of the picture are very interesting. They all have the same symbol, "the hands of god" which represent the solar year, divided into four seasons around solstices and equinoxes with three months each...The god whose hands these are is the sun. 

This symbol is found on Serbian Christmas cakes. Christmas is the Christianized winter solstice celebration, the celebration of the birth of the new sun, new solar year. This is why there is so much solar imagery on Serbian Christmas cakes which are votive offerings to the sun god.

You can read more about these cakes and their ritual use in my post "Can you see me".

No what about the lanterns? Well officially they are not lanterns at all, but just "patterns"...In Serbia midsummer celebrations and customs have been during Christian time spread through the summer and associated with several summer saints. One of these is St Peter's day which used to be celebrated on the is celebrated on the 28th of June according to Julian calendar but is today celebrated on the 12th of July according to the Gregorian calendar. During St Peter's day celebrations in Serbia people light up special votive torches called "lile".

I believe that these were once lite up on the eve of the summer solstice.  In Southern Europe (including Angevin domains in southern France) this is the time when grain ripens and the time when fireflies light up the night.

South Slavic words for firefly are "svitac", "svitnjak", "svijetnjak", "svitaljka", "cvitnjak", "kris", "krijes", "kres", "kresnica"...These are also words used for fire and torches which are lit up on the shortest night of the year, as part of the Slavic summer solstice celebrations...

Are the "lantern" like "patterns" on the picture fireflies or votive toches? 

So that's it.

Interesting? 
Possible? 

Well yes and yes. 

Overanalyzing of a pretty but otherwise meaningless painting? 

That is possible too.

We will never know :)