Jupiter Zeus Dolichenus

Stone relief dated ca 50-150 AD from Croy Hill, Scotland. It depicts Jupiter Dolichenus (standing on a bull) and his wife and consort Juno Dolichena (standing on a cow). National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, UK...

Juno Regina is the Queen of the Gods and Queen of Heaven and the patron goddess of Rome... 

Jupiter Dolichenus is a mixture between Roman Jupiter and a Anatolian sky god. Carrying a thunderbolt (Jupiter) and a double-headed axe (Teshub)...

Jupiter Dolichenus stands on a bull because the Anatolian thunder god stood on a bull...

Pics of the two stele from Tell Ahmar are from this paper... 

And he stood on a bull because...Officially we don't know, but actually we do know. He stood on a bull because:

This Hittite symbol means storm god. Bottom part (Bull head) means storm, the above part means god...

The thunderstorm season in Anatolia starts in Apr/May, Taurus...Which is why Hittite Thunder God stands on a bull...I talked about this in my post "Bull god from Arslantepe"

Roman Juno was associated with cows and calves...And so was her Greek predecessor Hera.

Which is interesting considering that Apr/May, the start of the thunderstorm season in Anatolia and Southern Europe, is also the start of the calving season of the wild Eurasian cattle...

This is what Taurus, Bull (it really should be Calf), marks. It originally had nothing to do with stars. It was a marker for Apr/May, the beginning of the calving season of the wild Eurasian cattle. Talked about it in many of my posts...

BTW, Jupiter (Zeus) Dolichenus was also known as Jupiter (Zeus) Heliopolitanus. This is because the cult originated from the area between the cities of Doliche and Heliopolis, which both housed important temples of the god...

Between the two cities lies the mount Caisus, the sacred home of Ba‘al Hadad, who was the Ugaritic version of the Hurian storm god Teshub...

It is in this area that we see the local storm god, wearing local clothes...

Become Romanised/Hellenised, and starts wearing Roman military attire, and gets his lightning trident replaced with lightning bolt...

Pics again from this paper...

Here is another relief, this one from Rome, 3rd c. AD, depicting Jupiter Dolichenus and Juno Dolichena. See the eagle killing snake in the top left corner, the symbol of Zeus/Jupiter?

I love this one a lot. A sculpture of an eagle devouring a serpent from Roman London. 

It depicts a snake eagle killing a snake...

Why is this a symbol of Zeus/Jupiter? Because:

Eagle-Snake struggle is a complex animal calendar marker for the thunderstorm season in Europe Apr/May -  Sep/Oct, when migratory snake eagles can be seen in Europe...I talked about this in my post "Eagle snake struggle"... 

Interestingly, main snake mating season, when snakes coil like this, also starts in Apr/May...

And so:

Why is Hermes, the herald of Zeus, carrying a staff with two coiling snakes, given to him as a present by Apollo, the sun god?

Cause snakes (solar animals) mate (coil) in Apr/May, (heralding) the beginning of the thunderstorm season. I talked about this in my post "Lyre of Apollo"...

So...The visual depictions of Jupiter Dolichenus and Juno Dolichena are full of animal calendar markers for Apr/May...

The time of the year when snakes start mating, snake eagles arrive back from Africa to Anatolia/Southern Europe, wild cows start calving, and when the thunderstorms (ThunderGod) arrives riding on a bull...In Taurus...

BTW, If you want to see how Teshub the thunder god is actually symbolically equated with the snake eagle check my post "Teshub killing snake" out. It gives symbolic analysis of this Neo-Hittite basalt stele from the 9th-8th c. BC and explains why is Teshub standing on a bull and why is he holding a snake in his left hand...

To read 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...

Teshub killing snake

Neo-Hittite basalt stele depicting Teshub, the neo-Hittite storm god standing on a bull, 9-8th century BC, Hatay Archaeology Museum, Antakya, Türkiye. Photo: Carole Raddato

Why is Teshub standing on a bull? Why is he holding a snake in his left hand? Animal calendar markers can (again) help us answer these questions🙂:

Snake is a pure solar animal. It is in our world when sun is here (day, hot half of the year) and it is in the underworld when sun is there (night, cold half of the year)...

I talked about snake as the solar symbol in many of my posts...

This is why it is the main symbol of sun's heat. Since Sumerian times...

In Mesopotamia, summer lasted seven (hot) months...Which is why local dragon (dragon = symbol of summer), had seven snake heads (snake = symbols of sun's heat)...Oh, and look, we also have dragon killer(s) and the princess 🙂 I talked about this amazing seal in my post "Seven headed dragon"...

BTW, this is also by the beast of the apocalypse has seven heads...Full symbolic analysis of the Woman of the Apocalypse, described in Chapter 12 of the Book of Revelation can be found in my post "Apocalypse"...

Fire breathing dragon, the symbol of the destructive summer sun's heat which burns everything and brings drought (steals water), is just "an old snake", symbol of old sun's, late summer sun's heat, heat of the hottest time of the year...

This link between snakes and dragons is best preserved in Slavic folklore which help me to decipher snake and dragon mythologies in other parts of the world...They all turned out to have the same underlining solar snake root...

I talked about snake and dragon in Slavic mythology in my post "Scaring off the dragon" in which I talked about the fact that in the past, Bulgarian (and Serbian) farmers believed that droughts were caused by winged fire breathing dragon who "stole and locked up" the waters...

And so, to prevent the dragon from steeling the water, in northwest Bulgaria, on a certain date in Apr/May, Taurus, all the strong and healthy village men would gather at midnight, strip naked and walk the village land in ritual silence brandishing axes or cudgels to scare off the dragon...

It is interesting that they carried axes, just like Perun, the Slavic thunder god, but also like may other Eurasian thunder gods...The dragon slayers...

The main duty of all the thunder gods is to kill the snake/dragon and release the waters the dragon stole...Hence the thunder god Teshub depicted with a raised axe, about to kill the snake/dragon, and release the waters...

Sometimes the thunder gods were armed with spears instead of axes...Like the two dudes fighting the Sumerian dragon or like the Luwian Storm-God depicted on the Malatya relief conquering the dragon called Illuyanka. I talked about this relief in my post "Malatya relief"... 

So this is why Teshub is killing a snake (dragon)...

But why is Teshub standing on a bull? Taurus, Apr/May is the beginning of the thunderstorm season in Anatolia...

Taurus (Apr/May) originally had nothing to do with stars. It originally marked the beginning of the calving season of wild Eurasian cattle...

I talked about bull/calf as animal calendar marker in many of my posts...

Taurus, Apr/May also marks the beginning of summer, the hot half of the year...As depicted on this Neo-Assyrian seal, dated to 900 - 775 BC. Currently in the Morgan Library. I talked about it in my post "Assyrian bull and Pleiades seal"...

But in Turkey, because of its climate, bull is both symbol of the sun and thunder...Because the beginning of summer is also the beginning of the thunderstorm season...

The direct symbolic link between bull and snake/dragon can be seen on my favourite Bactrian seal depicts a snake with two heads: a snake/dragon (left) and a bull (right)...Symbolically equating snake/dragon (summer sun) and bull (summer starts in Taurus) and linking both with the sun's heat, symbolised by a snake body...I talked about this in my post "Bactrian snakes and dragons"...

Snake is an animal calendar marker in its own right too.

God most high...  

Snake: Apr/May, beginning of the main snake mating season, beginning of summer. 

Lion: Jul/Aug, beginning of the main lion mating season, end of summer.  

And in the middle, summer solstice, sun most high. I talked about this in my post "You will trample the great lion and serpent"...

Hence:

Azhi Dahāka? Aždaha? Zahak? Arimanius? Ahriman? Angra Mainiu? Nergal? Dragon? Lion? Sun. Destructive sun of summer, which causes drought and death. Summer which starts in Apr/May, when vipers start to mate...

I talked about this in my post "Snake god from Hatra"...

There is another interesting thing about snakes and thunder gods

Why is Hermes, the herald (voice) of Zeus, carrying a staff with two coiling snakes, given to him as a present by Apollo, the sun god?

Cause, as I already said above, snakes (solar animals) mate (coil) in Apr/May, (heralding) the beginning of the thunderstorm season...I talked about this in my post "Lyre of Apollo"...

So in Turkey, because of its climate, both snake and bull are animal calendar markers for the beginning of the hot season, and the beginning of the thunderstorm season...

Hence Thunder God Teshub, standing on a bull, about to strike a snake/dragon of drought with his thunder axe...I talked about the association between thunder and (stone) axes in my post "Thunder axe"...

To read 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...

Kataibates

Zeus, the god of lightning, had a nickname "Kataibates" (he who descends). This basically equated Zeus with Thunder/Lightning...

Pic: Antikenabteilung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin—Preussischer Kulturbesitz

Remember this article about what came first: Thunder/Lightning or Thunder God? Thunder gods of course...

The piece of ground hit by lightning cannot be walked on, is consecrated to Zeus and is marked by a monument or an altar. These altars were then used to make offerings to Zeus in exchange for protection from lightning...

Same altars dedicated to Zeus Kataibates were also built in front of houses, and there too offerings were made in order to protect the house from lightning. This custom seems to have been fairly common in Greece. 

You can read more about this in "Greek Popular Religion" by Martin P. Nilsson...

Interestingly, Zeus's thunderbolt was imagined to be a stone or a stone axe. Like this one. 

Which is interesting considering that Zeus didn't wield an axe...Well that's not exactly true. Late Roman god Jupiter Dolichenus, whose mystery cult was widespread in the Roman Empire from the early-2nd to mid-3rd centuries AD, wielded an axe. And rode on a bull... Here is an altar from Vindolanda dedicated to Jupiter Dolichenus...

It is believed that he came from the east...And in the east, in Anatolia, we find Hittite thunder god(s) wielding an axe...

Pic: www.mesopotamiangods.com

And even further east we find Adad, Mesopotamian storm god, who also loved axes...

Pic: History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia and Assyria, Vol. III

How far East and how far back in time should we go?

Stone axes or adzes, originally shaped and polished in Neolithic times, sometimes turn up in later archaeological sites or graves from the Bronze Age down to the medieval period...

Because they were apparently thought to have some kind of magical power to protect buildings and people, especially from lightning and violent storms...

We know something about these beliefs thanks to a string of testimonia in technical treatises on stones, beginning with a third-century BCE Greek author named Sotacus and ending with a twelfth-century bishop of Rennes. And thanks to European folklore...

It is important to understand that there is no evidence that the Greeks or Romans realized that these axe-heads were manufactured by previous stone-age cultures. They were believed to be “natural” stones which, like amber, jet or coral, had special protective powers...

Sotacus, the Hellenistic author of a lost treatise on stones maintained (according to Pliny’s abridged account) that "cerauniae are similar to axes" except they are not axes but magic thunderstones...

Latin lapidary (natural history) attributed to Damigeron-Evax, devotes an entire chapter (12) to the "lapis ceraunius" (thunderstone), which is found in places where lightning has struck...

Timotheos of Gaza, a 5th c. CE author tells us that "you will have an amulet against a thunderblast (keraunon), if you inscribe a thunderstone (lithon keraunion) with the letters αφια αφρυξ and keep it in your house"

In his Etymologies Isidore, the early 7th c. CE bishop of Seville, also notes that "ceraunia" (thunderstones), were found in places struck by lightening and could avert lightening...

In the 12th c. AD, Marbodaeus, the bishop of Rennes, preserves a similar account in his own Liber lapidum.

And in the 11th century the Byzantine emperor sent to the Holy Roman emperor a "heaven axe" as a present...

Ethnographers and folklorists have also established the existence of similar long-standing and widespread beliefs throughout Europe.

For instance, in modern Greece, astropelékia ("lightening axes") are sought out at places where "lightning has fallen" and are kept in houses to ward off lightning and fire...

Perun, Slavic thunder god, also wielded an axe...According to Slavic folk beliefs, prehistoric stone axes found in the ground were remains of these weapons...

Thor wielded a hammer...And we know that in Scandinavia thunderstones were frequently worshiped as family totems which kept off spells and witchcraft...

Both Slavs and Scandinavians wore axe (hammer) amulets...

Thor's hammer amulet

Pic: Sveriges hednatid, samt medeltid, förra skedet, från år 1060 till år 1350

Perun's axe amulet

Pic: Древнерусские амулеты-топорики

I always thought that Thor's hammer looked like a stylized axe

That Thor's "hammer" was originally an axe, can be seen from this next artifact. A museum in Utrecht has a relic called "the hammer of St. Martin of Tours". 

Pic: Museum Catharijneconvent

The "hammer" was made in the 13th or 14th c. from a Bronze Age stone axe dated to 1,000 - 700 BC...

What does this have to do with Thunder gods? Well, St Martin is another "saint" who is nothing more than the thunder god in disguise. I talked about this in my post The "The axe of Martin"...

Another indication that Thor's hammer was originally an axe, can be seen from the etymology of the the Thor's axe name: Mjǫllnir. The etymology of the hammer's name is disputed among historical linguists.

Here are proposed etymologies. You tell me which one is most plausible:

1. Old Norse Mjǫllnir developed from Proto-Norse *melluniaR and one proposed derivation connects this form to Old Church Slavonic mlunuji and Russian molnija meaning 'lightning' (either borrowed from a Slavic source or both stemming from a common source) and subsequently yielding the meaning 'lightning-maker'. 

2. Another proposal connects Mjǫllnir to Old Norse mjǫll meaning 'new snow' and modern Icelandic mjalli meaning 'the color white', rendering Mjǫllnir as 'shining lightning weapon'. 

3. Finally, another proposal connects Old Norse Mjǫllnir to Old Norse mala meaning 'to grind' and Gothic malwjan 'to grind', yielding Mjǫllnir as meaning 'the grinder'.

Considering the amount of mixing between Slavs and Norse and mutual cultural influences...

Also, The word "mo(ld)nya" (lightning) exists in all Slavic languages. It's cognates, apart from Norse Mjǫllnir are: Latvian "milna" (hammer of the thunderer 🙂), Old Prussian "mealde" (lightning), Middle Welsh "mellt, myllt" (lightning)...So...

Archaeological evidence confirms, that this belief in the link between Thunder Gods and stone axes, and the belief in their protective power was already widespread all over early Roman Empire.

For instance, in a survey of pre-historic axe-heads found in Roman sites in Britain, of the forty known examples, twenty nine were found in or closely associated with buildings...Some in temples...

You can read more about this in "Inscribed Greek Thunderstones as House- and Body-Amulets in Roman Imperial Times". 

The generally accepted belief was that a thunderstone fallen from the sky will in future protect against thunderstorms and lightning strikes. It's power will be greatly increased if inscribed with a magic spell...Like this roman example with Greek inscription...

Pic: www.nat.museum-digital.de

Or like this Roman stone axe amulet worn as a protection against evil...Lightning too...

Pic: Inscribed Greek Thunderstones as House- and Body-Amulets in Roman Imperial Times

So...

Are European folk beliefs related to the thunderstones Roman in origin?

Are Roman beliefs related to thunderstones Greek in origin?

Are Greek beliefs related to thunderstones Hittite in origin?

Are Hittite beliefs in thunder gods armed with an axe Mesopotamian in origin?

Where and when does the link between the stone axe and thunder god originate?

I would suggest that this link between a stone, more specifically flint axe, and thunder gods, already existed in the 4th millennium BC Europe...Enter exploding flint axes dudes from Southern Baltic... 

Pic: www.naturstyrelsen.dk

Poppies

I came across this interesting artefact recently.

The artefact turns out to be from Urartu and is forehead part of the horse head gear. It is currently kept in Karlsruhe, Badisches Landesmuseum.

It was dated to c. 800BC

Urartu is a geographical region commonly used as the exonym for the Iron Age kingdom also known by the modern rendition of its endonym, the Kingdom of Van, centered around Lake Van in the historic Armenian Highlands (present-day eastern Anatolia).

The symbols depicted on this artefacts are very interesting indeed.

The "god", I presume it's a god, is riding on a bull. He is standing in the middle of (wearing) a flying winged disc, usually symbol for the sun and he has what looks like sun disc on his crown. And the whole metal thingy is shaped like a sun with rays pointing upward...

But he couldn't be a sun god.

Because there is only one god in Urartian pantheon which rides on a bull: Theispas the thunder god. He is basically the same god as the Hurian Teshub and Luwian Tarhunz...

And all these gods "ride on a bull" and cary a trident (symbol of lightning)...

And so does the guy on the above artefact. He rides on a bull and holds a trident in each hand...

Or does he?

Here is the close up of one of the "tridents":

To me this looks very very vey much like this: opium poppies...

But why would a storm god cary opium poppies?

Have a look at this:

The planting of poppies throughout the poppy growing regions of the Balkans, Asia Minor and Middle East takes place in the autumn, from September to December, depending on the locality...

If the plant survives the winter, it requires ample rain in between March and May.

The rainfall pattern in the Anatolian (Armenian) plateau

Here is the average precipitation in eastern Anatolian plateau, lake Van region, the land of Urartians and Hurians. The rain peaks in April.

In the rest of the Anatolian plateau, the land of the Hittites, the rain peaks in May.

Taurus Taurus (20 April – 21 May) covers the maximum rain, maximum thunderstorm season in both of these areas.

Which is why, I believe, Urartian Theispas, Hurrian Teshub, Luwian Tarhunz...All ride on a bull...

And cary tridents

Hmmm...Trident's you say...Why tridents? 

But Taurus doesn't only bring rain to Anatolian (Armenian) plateau. It also brings summer. 

As you can see in the above precipitation tables, the May-June is when the rains stop and the hot weather starts. Exactly what opium poppies need to flower and ripen:

I already wrote in my posts "Ram and bull" and "Symbols of the seasons", about the bull being the symbol of the summer.

The summer starts at the beginning of May, during wild Eurasian cattle calving season and ends at the beginning of August, during wild Eurasian cattle mating season...

Bull is the true symbol of summer...

And summer is the main opium poppy harvesting season:

In Turkey, opium poppy harvest season starts in May...
In Afghanistan, the opium poppy harvest season starts in late April early May...
In Iraq, the opium poppy harvest season starts in late April early May...
In Iran, the opium poppy harvest season starts in later April early May...

In the Balkans, the opium poppy harvest season starts in May...

These are stills from an amazing Macedonian documentary from 1955 called Rhythm And Sound. Showing poppy harvesting. 

You can find video here: part 1, part 2

Basically opium poppies are harvested during the summer, symbolised by the bull. The bull, or more precisely the guy on the bull, the pusher, brings the poppies...

So here are some questions:

1. Is the guy on the Urartian artefact the thunder god? I presume he is a god and not a stoned acrobat...
2. Is he carrying poppies to announce the beginning of the opium harvest season? Sort of: The pusher's here!!! The Thunder dude!!! It's party time!!!
3. Did the trident, the symbol of thunder gods, develop from poppies? 

What do you think?

Great source of information about the cultivation of poppies in the Balkans, Asia Minor and Middle East is this article entitled "Some Observations on the Cultivation of Opium Poppy (Papaver somniferum L.) for Its Latex" by A. D. Krikorian and Myron C. Ledbetter

What is very interesting as well is that apparently, opium poppies were "...most likely first cultivated for human use in Asia Minor or in the Balkans..." according to "Troubling Fields: The Opium Poppy in Egypt" by Joseph J. Hobbs

So the link between the poppies harvest, which starts right after the Thunder gods bring thunderstorms in Taurus, during the calving of the wild cattle, was very strong in the area from the beginning...