Minoan dolphins fresco

This is the famous Minoan "dolphins fresco" from Knossos, Crete, dated to 1500BC...

Why is it important do determine what type of dolphins were depicted on this fresco? 

Spoiler: animal calendar markers...🙂

In my post about the strange dolphin attacking ibex goat Minoan seal, I talked about different types of dolphins that live in Mediterranean sea

Here they are again...

So which one of these dolphins was depicted on the above Minoan fresco? I would say that we can pretty much immediately discard the Bottlenose dolphin because of the color...

The other two look quite similar. But if we look at the central line, on the dolphins depicted on the fresco, we can see that the only dolphin that has the same feature is the Stripped dolphin.

Add to that that the Stripped dolphin is the most abundant dolphin species in the Mediterranean, I think that the dolphins depicted on the Minoan fresco are the Stripped dolphins.

Yeeeey! Now what?

Well as I said in my post "Minoan spring fresco" about the Minoan swallows fresco, these animal depictions should be treated as animal calendar markers...

Well, here is a very interesting Minoan sealstone discovered at Akrotiri, Thera, and dated to the 18th c. BC. It depicts a griffin suckling a dolphin...

The pic of the seal is from "Thera, Pompeii of the Ancient Aegean" by Christos Doumas. 

The pic of the seal drawing is from "Minoan Sacrificial Ritual" by Nanno Marinatos.

The author of the "Minoan Sacrificial Ritual" paper says this about this seal: "The dolphin's speed, size and intelligence must have impressed Minoans who attributed special powers to it and made it companion to the divinity in similar manner as the lion and the griffin..."

Hmmmm...Is there anything else that could connect dolphins, lions and griffins...Could these all be animal calendar markers pointing a the same time of the year maybe?

I think so...Animal calendar markers mark the time when the depicted animal either mates, gives birth or rarely, migrates, goes to hibernation...

Let's check our real and imaginary animals mating seasons... 🙂

Have a look at this:

Common bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) May - Aug, peak Jun/Jul

Short-beaked common dolphin (Delphinus delphis) May - Sep, peak Jul/Aug

Striped dolphin (Stenella coeruleoalba) Jul - Oct, peak Sep

So, the striped dolphin mates from beginning to the end of autumn (Jul/Aug - Oct/Nov)...Which means that it could be used as a calendar marker for beginning of autumn, Jul/Aug (beginning of its mating season) or for autumn in general (Jul/Aug - Oct/Nov)...

What about lions? I think we are in luck here...The main mating season of Eurasian lions starts at the beginning of autumn, Jul/Aug and spans the whole of autumn, (Jul/Aug - Oct/Nov)...

Which is why lion is used as an animal calendar marker known as Leo, which marks Jul/Aug. And why lion is the symbol of autumn in general (Jul/Aug - Oct/Nov)...I talked about this in my post "Symbols of the seasons"...

What about griffins? Eeeee, I can hear you say...Griffin!!! Mythical monster!!! Not a real animal...Actually griffin is not a mythical animal, but a complex animal calendar marker for autumn (Jul/Aug - Oct/Nov). Minoan griffin (there are different griffins)🙂

Minoan griffin consists of 

Lion, animal calendar marker known as Leo, marks Jul/Aug, cause the mating season of Eurasian lions starts in Jul/Aug...

Vulture, animal calendar marker known as Eagle, marks Oct/Nov, cause the mating season of Eurasian vultures starts in Oct/Nov

This is an ancient symbol for autumn, and I talked about it in my post "Origin of griffins" which contains symbolic analysis of this Proto-Elamite seal, dated to 3000 BC and depicting a griffin, followed by ibex goat, or goitered gazelle...

So all three of these real or imaginary animals can be used as animal calendar markers for autumn (Jul/Aug - Oct/Nov).

So why would Minoans care about any of this? I think Hesiod can answer this question. Writing in the 8th century BC, he says that:

"Fifty days after the solstice, 

when the season of wearisome heat is come to an end, 

is the right (best) time for men to go sailing"

This is at end of July beginning of August. In Leo...At the beginning of the mating seasons of lions and striped dolphins...And griffins 🙂

This is the time when Romans celebrated the Neptunalia. Apparently the authorities are not sure why Romans celebrated Neptune at exactly that time of the year. I will let authorities ponder this further... 

Here I will propose that maybe Minoans also celebrated sea god in Leo...

Here is another amazing Minoan fresco. It is known as "Minoan Admirals Flotilla Fresco", and was found Akrotiri, Thera (Santorini) and was dated to c. 1613 BC. It shows a flotilla sailing out of the harbor as part of some kind of celebration...

This is a restored detail of this fresco showing the admiral's ship. You can see that the hull of the ship is decorated with lions and striped dolphins...Why? 

In "Minoan Sacrificial Ritual", professor Nanno Marinatos tries to explain this decoration like this:

"Let us now look at some representations where the dolphin can be designated as an aggressor by virtue of analogy, because it is shown together with other predatory animals. On the major ship of the fleet...there appear emblems of aggression: lions and dolphins."

"The association of the two would be problematic, were it not for the observation made above, that the dolphin is itself a hunter which makes it equivalent to a lion. Thus, the two animals represent aggression in two domains, the land and sea."

Hmmmmm, well you could argue that...But maybe these two animals are depicted together because this flotilla is part of the Minoan version of Neptunalia...Celebration of the Minoan sea god, whatever his name was...

Which takes place in Leo, at the beginning of autumn, at the beginning of the mating season of both Eurasian lions and striped dolphins...And griffins 🙂 At the best time to sail the Mediterranean sea...

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...

Origin of griffins

Proto-Elamite seal, 3000 BC. A griffin, followed by ibex goat, or goitered gazelle...

From "The Elamite Cylinder Seal Corpus, c.3500 - 1000 BC" volume II part I

Finally a proof (at least to me 🙂) that griffin is a complex animal calendar marker...

If you look up "griffin", this is what you get: "The griffin, griffon, or gryphon is a legendary creature with the body, tail, and back legs of a lion; the head and wings of an eagle; and sometimes an eagle's talons as its front feet"...

Legendary creature? Nah...It's a complex animal calendar marker for autumn (Jul/Aug - Oct/Nov)...

Eeee, why, how?

If you wanted to depict this time period, using animal calendar markers how would you do it?

Well you could find an animal whose mating or birthing takes place in Jul/Aug and mark the beginning of autumn. And then you could find an animal whose mating or birthing takes place in Oct/Nov and mark the end of autumn...

Like for instance, you could take eurasian lions, whose main mating season starts in Jul/Aug...

In the "THE ASIATIC LION: A study of ecology and behaviour" by Paul Joslin we can read that based on the observation of the large number of wild lions, the mating season of the Asiatic lions starts in August and lasts until October. 

Which is why lion is the symbol of the hottest, driest part (Jul/Aug) of the hot, dry half of the year (Apr/May - Oct/Nov)...I talked about this in many of my posts. For instance in my post "Angra Mainyu", about this amazing Middle Assyrian Cylinder Seal with a "Lion-Dragon", 1300-1200 BC. 

Eurasian lion main mating season marks the beginning of autumn and spans the whole of autumn (Aug,Sep,Oct)...

Which is why lion is also the symbol for autumn. I talked about this in my post "Symbols of the seasons"... 

Oh by the way, the symbol for summer (Apr/May - Jul/Aug) is bull, because summer starts with the calving of wild Eurasian cattle. Which is why "lion killing bull" symbol found all over the place means "the end of summer, BEGINNING OF AUTUMN"

I talked about this in many of my posts. For instance "Cypriot stamp seal with cow and calf", about this amazing conoid stamp seal, Late Cypriot III. Cyprus (?), ca. 13th–12th c. BC. 

So, I guess, you could use lion as the symbol marking the beginning of autumn...What about the symbol for the end of autumn?

Well, you could take old world vultures, whose mating season starts in Oct/Nov, with synchronized flying mating dances...

Which is why Vulture (Eagle) is the symbol of for the END OF AUTUMN, beginning of winter...

I talked about this in many of my posts. For instance "Eagle dance", about this interesting cylinder seal from North Mesopotamia-Syria, 1800–1500 BC, from the Leroy Golf collection.

So now put these two symbols together, lion-eagle...And you get griffin...Symbol of autumn...Here they are on another amazing Proto Elamite seal from "The Elamite Cylinder Seal Corpus, c.3500 - 1000 BC" volume II part I

That I am right about the meaning of the griffin, can be seen from the fact that on the original seal griffin, symbol of autumn is followed by ibex goat (or goitered gazelle), both symbols of winter...

I wrote many posts about ibex goat as symbol of winter, because ibex mating season coincides with the beginning of winter (Oct/Nov). For instance "Goats with tree of life from Alalakh", about "rampant goats flanking tree of life" images discovered in Bronze Age city of Alalakh/Tell Atchana, located 20 km from Antakya (Antioch) in what is now Turkey's Hatay Province. 

I wrote many posts about about gazelle as symbol of winter, because gazelle mating season coincides with the beginning of winter (Oct/Nov). For instance "Mysterious creature", about this Akkadian Cylinder Seal dated to 2300-2200 BC. 

Oh, by the way, do you see the green branch between the griffin and the goat/gazelle? 

In Elam, the climatic year is divided into hot, dry half (Apr/May - Oct/Nov) and cool, wet half (Oct/Nov - Apr/May)...

It is the rain that arrives in Oct/Nov, at the end of autumn (griffin), beginning of winter (goat/gazelle) that made life in Elam possible...

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...

Griffin vs Black Grouse

This amazing Scythian artefact, dated to the period 4th–3rd c. BC is a perfect illustration of everything I hate about the way artefacts with the depictions of animals are treated by (most) archaeologists and pretty much everyone else...

Here comes the rant: 🙂

When I first saw this artefact, it had this English description: "A reconstruction of a leather flask found in one of the Pazyryk burials. Based on excavations by S. I. Rudenko...It is decorated with two identical images showing a griffin fighting a black grouse"...

"a griffin fighting a black grouse"???

I spent good few minutes eyeballing the photographs, trying to see either 

a Scythian griffin 

or 

a black grouse

After I failed to see either, I decided to see if I can find original Russian description of the image...

Sure enough I found one here. In Russian, the description says "фигуры грифов, схвативших когтями тетеревов" meaning "depictions of vultures grabbing black grouses with their talons" 🙂 Russian word "гриф" meaning vulture, not griffin... 🤦‍♂️

Ok...Hmmmm...Again...Eyeballing, eyeballing...The image on the Pazyryk flask clearly depicts two raptors with huge beaks and talons fighting each other...But are they really "гриф", vulture though? Possibly...But there is no effing way one of the birds is a black grouse...

I mean, don't get me wrong. Black grouses are not pacifist, at least when it comes to getting laid...They fight viciously to determine who gets the girls  https://forestryandland.gov.scot/blog/black-grouse-mating

But neither one of the two depicted fighting birds looks like any either a 

Black grouse

or 

Western grouse

the two big grouses from Central Asia...

Seriously, WTF is wrong with people writing these artefact descriptions...

And so, I started searching for raptors of Central Asia...The three biggest raptor species found in Souther Siberia are in order of size Steppe Eagle, Golden Eagle and Cinereous Vulture...

Steppe eagles fight all the time...

Golden eagles fight all the time...

Cinereous Vultures fight all the time...

So are both fighting birds depicted on the Scythian flask of the same species? Hmmm...The bottom bird has some lumpy thing on its neck...

None of the eagles have anything like that...But the vulture has tufts of feathers on its neck that look just like that lump...

So is one of the birds depicted on the Pazyryk flask a Cinereous Vulture and the other one an eagle? And if so which eagle? The two birds depicted on the flask look similar in size, with the top one (eagle) slightly smaller then the bottom one (Vulture)...

Of the above two eagle species, only Golden eagle is similar in size with the Cinereous Vulture...And a fight between a Golden eagle and a Cinereous Vulture was actually captured on a film...An in this film, Vulture wins...You can see the video here...

Oh and here is a still image from the video where we can see the vulture "tuft" that looks like a lump...

So have we determined the actual identity of the two fighting birds depicted on the Pazyryk flask? Well...As I was finishing this article I came across this article which says that until recently, White tailed eagles also lived in Southern Siberia...

And White tailed eagles fight all the time...And are known to steal food from other birds...So...🙂

And, White tailed eagles are even bigger than Golden eagles...

So they would be perfectly capable of taking on a Cinereous Vulture...

So...Anyway, do you know what was found in this Scythian flask? Hemp seeds. According to Herodotus, the Scythians threw hemp seeds on hot stones, inhaled narcotic smoke and "rejoiced loudly" 🙂 

And so let's all rejoice at the end of this article which, I hope, was fun...

Golden eagles from Costa Rica

Article about animal calendar markers from Central America. Today @dalaygiz posted a very interesting tweet (which unfortunately I'm not allowed to retweet) with pics of Gold "Double Headed Eagles", made in Costa Rica between 700 and 1530 AD by people of Diquis culture...

Diquis culture is best known for their stone spheres, which are littering Cost Rican landscape...But I will leave the discussion about these artefacts to others...I have nothing really to contribute to it... 🙂

Instead I will concentrate on their gold eagle pendants...Cause I think I can shed some light on their meaning 🙂...By the way they also made single headed eagle pendants too...

So what's all this about? Well remember my article about the "Double Headed Eagle" axe head, made between 2500-1500 BC in Bactria? I talked about it in my post "Double headed eagle"...

In this post I explained the emergence of a "Vulture" animal calendar marker in the area of Mesopotamia, Iran and and Central Asia...It's all to do with the local climate and the mating behaviour of old world vultures...

The climatic year in the region is divided into hot, dry half of the year (Apr/May-Oct/Nov), and cool, wet half of the year (Oct/Nov-Apr/May). And right at the beginning of the wet season, Vultures begin to mate...

During their mating season, which spans winter months (Nov, Dec, Jan), they perform courtship aerial displays, where the pairs fly together over one another with outstretched wings...

Which look like this from the ground...

Hence eagles dance

Syria, 1800BC. Eagle (vulture) couples dance above the mountains at the beginning of their mating season, which coincides with the beginning of the rain season in Fertile Crescent...

Montenegro 1963AD. Newly married couple dance Oro, Eagle Dance

I talked about this in my post about the "Eagle dance"...

And why we find that in Mesopotamia the Rain God was originally imagined as a "great black bird with outstretched wings". 

I talked about it in my post "Mysterious creature". BTW, Gazelles, the animals depicted around the tree (of life) also begin mating in Oct/Nov...

This is also why we find Eagle Dudes all over this area. Left Aleppo. Right Nimrud...Why are they hiding the same bags and pine cones? Pine cone harvest season starts when vultures begin to mate and when grain sowing takes place...I talked about this in my post "Eagle dude from Aleppo"...

And in general why we find eagle dudes all over this area...I talked about this in my post "Eagle calendar marker"...

Different climate, different eagle, marking different time of the year, the same meaning: Eagle = Thunderstorm season...

Eagle-Snake struggle mosaic from the palace of the Emperor Justinian I  (527-565), Istambul...This is actually 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 abut this in my post "Eagle snake struggle"...

This is also why (most likely) Slavic Thunder God is called Perun...My article "Pero" is about feathers, ferns, lightning, feather/fern like lightning scars and thunder gods...Also about "pero" (feather) being the root of the name of the Slavic thunder god "Perun" which would make him "The Feathered Dude" or "The Eagle Dude"... 

Ok...This is all very cool...But what does this have to do with Costa Rican eagle pendants? How are they related? Well, this morning, when I saw original tweet by @dalaygiz I had no idea if these two eagle symbols are in any way related...Now I know.

They are both animal calendar markers for the beginning of the rain season in the area where they were made...I already explained why this is true in Eurasia...Let me explain why this is true in Costa Rica...

Let's start with saying that there are two main vulture types living in Costa Rica:

Black vulture 

Turkey vulture

And it seems that both of these vulture species start mating in their northern ranges in March...Costa Rica falls into "northern ranges"...

At the beginning of their mating season, both species perform courtship aerial displays. And they also dance on the ground, with their wings spread wide... 🙂 You can see a video showing it here...

And this is climatic year in Costa Rica...The rain season starts right after the vultures start dancing...

Oh and guess what. During the whole rain season, you can see this: vultures standing with their wings spread to dry them, before soaring into the air...

So if you wanted to symbolically depict "rain season" in Costa Rica, you could use a vulture with spread wings...Right?

Well, that's that...My first application of the animal calendar marker theory to American artefacts and mythology, and bingo...

It shows that this is a natural was to make calendar symbols. Using annually reoccurring events from local animal and plant life (mating, birthing, migration, flowering, fruiting) to map significant climatic and agricultural events (rain, drought, sowing, harvest)...

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...

PS: I mean, knowing when the rain is going to come means nothing, unless you actually need it...For instance for farming maize...

And we know that maize has been farmed in Costa Rica and surrounding areas since at least 2nd millennium BC...You can read more about it in "Pre-Columbian agriculture, fire, and Spanish contact: A 4200-year record from Laguna Los Mangos, Costa Rica"...

Now in Central America, the main crop growing season, called "The Primera" season, starts in Mar with corn planting taking place between Apr and Jun...Just after vultures start dancing...

Which is kind of very important...