Combs from Tuva

Combs found in Tuvan burial ground Khemchik-Bom, Russia dated to 5th-4th centuries. BC. From this amazing resource (in Russian) "Язык звериных образов"

The right comb is one of the oldest examples of the so called Composite Animal Style...

The archaeologist who discovered the combs described the one on the right like this: it "...is a complex multi-figured composition, the central figure of which is a hoofed animal with the body of a mountain goat and the horns of a gazelle...

On the back of this animal lies the figure of a mountain goat, smaller in scale. The chest and part of the front leg of the central figure are inscribed in the outline of a rearing mountain goat...

In the composition, one can identify two more heads of mountain goats, one of which is inscribed in the contour of the head of a rearing goat, and the second in the croup of the central figure..."

The animals depicted on the combs are 

Siberian ibex (mountain goat)

Goitered gazelle (gazelle)

The mating season of both animals starts in November, at the beginning of winter, making them interchangeable animal calendar markers for beginning of winter and winter itself...This is what the composition on the right comb is trying to tell us...

In nature, ibex lives in the mountains and gazelle live in plains and steppe. So people who lived in the mountains or near mountains used Ibex as the winter calendar marker more. And people who lived in the plains and steppe used Gazelle as the winter calendar marker more...

But they are often found depicted together and in such a way as to point at their symbolic link. Like on this (I think Assyrian, but would love to know for sure) seal on which a winged goddess standing between two Bezoar goats and holding two Goitered gazelles...

These animal calendar markers originate in the Fertile Crescent. From there they spread with the first farmers all over the area where the climatic year was divided into dry and hot part (summer) and wet and cool part (winter)...

In all these areas, farmers used Ibex goats and Goitered gazelles as symbols not just for the beginning of winter, but for the beginning of the wet season, the most important event in the agricultural year...The marker for the beginning of the dry season being bull, cow & calf...

The reason why Ibex became calendar marker for the start of the wet season is because in East Anatolia, Levant, Cyprus, Crete, Naqada (Egypt), Arabia, Mesopotamia, Iran, Bactria...both the rain season and the mating season of Ibex goats and Goitered gazelles starts in Oct/Nov...

The rain season ends when Wild Eurasian cattle, Aurochs, start calving...In Apr/May, today known as Taurus, Bull, but originally marked with cow and calf...Like on this Mesopotamian seal showing two seasons: goat and bull (cow and calf) season...

In Tuva the climate is different. The main rain season is summer, not winter. 

Interestingly, we can see that snowfall and rainfall seasons are demarcated by Apr/May (Bull) and Oct/Nov (Goat). Because of the average temperature, which is above freezing during summer Bull-Goat and below freezing during winter Goat-Bull

I think this is the reason why Goat and Gazelle feature prominently on Tuvan artifacts. But I believe that the symbolism belongs to an imported ritual (belief) system, which came most likely from BMAC or Iran...

You can read about "The Goat of Rain" (Ibex) and its sidekick (Goitered Gazelle) in Bactria in my post "Fluffy"...

You can read about "The Goat of Rain" (Ibex) in Mesopotamia in my posts "Diadem of queen Puabi", "Pissing gazelles", "Larsa goat", "Assur", "Rain and flood"

You can read about "The Goat of Rain" (Ibex) and its sidekick (Goitered Gazelle) in Iran in my posts "Two headed dragon", "Goat petroglyphs from Iran", "Winged bull with ibex horns", "Strider", "A vessel from Tepe Hissar"

You can read more about "The Goat of Rain" (Ibex) in Crete in my posts "Goat riding thunder god", "Sanctuary rhyton", "Cornucopia"

You can read more about "The Goat of Rain" (Ibex) in Cyprus in my post "Goats and partridges"

You can read more about "The Goat of Rain" (Ibex and Markhor) in Egypt in my post "Markhor goat in Naqada"

You can read more about "The Goat of Rain" (Ibex and Markhor) in Levant in my post "Nahal Mishmar hoard"

You can read more about "The Goat of Rain" (Ibex) in Asia Minor in my post "Griffin killing lizard"

You can read more about "The Goat of Rain" (Ibex and Markhor) in Indus Valley in my posts "Seal with narrative scene", "Kharif and Rabi seasons"

Finally you can read more about "The Goat of Rain (Winter)" (Ibex) in Europe in my post "Goat in European culture" and the posts linked from this post...

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...

Goat petroglyphs from Iran

Petroglyphs from Southern Iran. Dating:  Second millennium BC (??? - estimate, no real data)...

The Petroglyphs are from a site near Dehtel village, Hormozgan province... 

As you can see, the predominant motif on the Dehtel petroglyphs is Ibex goat...Which is not surprising when we know that almost 90 percent of Iran's rock art consists of the ibex depictions!!! 

The first ancient petroglyphs in Iran were discovered (recorded) in 2002 by Mohammed Naserifard in the hills outside the town of Khomein in central Iran.

He estimates that since the initial discovery in 2002 he travelled more than 700000 kilometres across two dozen Iranian provinces, unearthing some 50000 ancient paintings and engravings...Ibex after ibex after ibex...And few other things...

On the Bradshaw foundation site about Iran rock art we can read a short piece about Iranian ibex petroglyphs with a comment from Dr Mohammed Naserifard about their meaning...A very interesting comment indeed...About Ibex being linked to water...

Archaeological evidence shows that Ibex was hunted in Iran from the Middle Paleolithic period onwards. So pre people in the area knew the behavior and the lifecycle of this animal in detail...

They knew that the mating of Ibex goats happens every year at the same time...When the first rains arrive...In Oct/Nov...This is climatic chart for Western Iran...

So once the agriculture started in the region, the first farmers knew that the rains, needed for ploughing and sowing, arrive when Ibex goats start to mate...In Late Oct - Early Nov...

Which is why Ibex, with its curving horns and characteristic beard, went on to be incorporated into "decorative" friezes on painted pottery and they also appear on many stamp and cylinder seals from Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age Iran...

Except these were anything but decorative motifs...These were religious symbols, "magic" animal calendar markers....For the most important annual event, the beginning of the rain season...

I talked about this in my post "Iranian goat of rain" Tepe Hissar pottery, "Strider", "Winged bull with Ibex horns", "Goat in a tree", "Jumping goat"...And many more...

Did people believe that it was the goat which brought the rain? I thinks so...Otherwise we would not see things like these:

Ibex-headed figure, possibly a human wearing the horns of an ibex, appears "in the guise of the master of animals" 🙂 in Iran from 4000BC...(Spoiler: there is no such thing as master of animals)

Well they also appear in Syria and Iraq around that same time...

These two stamps, one from Arslan Tepe and one from Tepe Gawra, are very interesting. They both show Ibex, which we know was associated with the arrival of first autumn rains. But who is depicted with the Ibex goats? A man with an Ibex mask...Priest playing Ibex? Ibex god? Master of the animals?  🙂

Of course we know that this is not any "master of the animals". There is no such a thing...Just a deified Ibex (Goat of Rain) transitioning 🙂 into the Rain god whose sacred animal is Ibex...

Here is an Elamite figurine from around 3000BC, depicting a man with goat horns (or a goat horns helmet, cap)...

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

Here is the interesting bit from Dr Mohammad Naserifard's text. He says that

...the symbolic and/or religious significance of the ibex in pre-Islamic Iran is unclear, although some argue that it was integral to a pre-Islamic creation narrative...

According to the Zoroastrian cosmogony, Mashya and Mashyana were the first man and woman whose procreation gave rise to the human race. According to Mohammad Naserifard, it was the ibex that was chosen as the symbol of divine assistance....

Where Ibex "may have represented an over-riding belief in, and request for, the provision of water, the guarantee of fertility and birth, and a Divine Hu, blessing and protection"...

Ha! Of course no explanation why would Ibex symbolize "provision of water"...

Ibex goat mating season starts Oct/Nov, with Ibex males, which are normally solitary, gather to fight for females...And then the rains arrive, provided by the Divine The Goat of Rain...

Pic: Elamite (South Iranian) seal with two male Ibex goats and a cross...

Is this what this cross under the Ibex horn means? IMPORTANT!!!

Anyway, if anyone knows Dr Mohammad Naserifard, can they ask him why he thought that Ibex was the symbol of Divine provision of water?

Finally, here are two seals from Susa Iran, dated to 4000BC and depicting a "goat-man" holding snakes.

Here is another one, this one is from Tell Brak, dated to 3800-3600BC...

Snake is the symbol of sun, more precisely sun's heat. And dragon, the old snake, is the symbol of the destructive heat of the late summer sun...I talked about this in several of my articles, like "Enemy of the sun", "The chthonic animal", "Dragon who stole rain", "Bactrian snakes and dragons", "Seven headed dragon","Nude winged hero dominating snakes"...

Knowing this, on the above Susa seals we have goat, the symbol of rain, subduing snakes, symbols of sun's heat...Rains, brought by the goat of rain, end the drought, brought by the snake of the sun...

BTW, something just occurred to me. You know how in Levant, Mot, the god of death was equated with the sun, which is symbolised by a snake, dragon...And how Devil is all about fire...And has a pet snake...And likes dressing up as a dragon... 

Fun...

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...

Goat in European culture

Ibex head, Iran, 5th-4th c. BC. I want to thank Gabriella Brusa-Zappellini for posting the pic...Posts about Ibex, the "Goat of Rain": 

For those wondering why is "oldeuropeanculture" account writing about Neolithic-Bronze Age goat worship in Western Asia in articles like these 

"Goat Petroglyphs from Iran", "Problems with Abzu", "Goatfish", "Goat carrier", "Iranian goat of rain", "Strider", "Dancing goat men from Luristan", "A vessel from Tepe Hissar"

Here is why:

Meet Tanngnjostr and Tanngrisnir, the magic goats of Thor, the thunder god...I talked about Thor's goats in my post "Tanngnjostr and Tanngrisnir"...  

Why are Norse, Slavic and Baltic thunder gods riding on chariots pulled by goats? And why were goats sacred to Minoans? And Mycenaeans? And Greeks? I talked about this in my post "Goat riding thunder gods"...

Don't forget Pan, the "Old God", the goat, pardon me, the god 🙂 of vegetation who was obsessed with water nymphs...I talked about him in my post "Pan"...

Oh hey, don't forget about cornucopia, the horn of plenty. Originally cornucopia was an actual horn and was not called cornucopia. It was called Keras Amaltheias (Horn of Amalthea)...Who was Amalthea? Remember the Ibex goat that suckled infant Zeus on Crete...I talked about it in my post "Cornucopia"... 

Also meet Krampus, the Evil Goat Demon of Christmas. Why are people dressing up as ibex goats and prancing around Central Europe at the beginning of the mating season of Alpine ibexes? I talked about this in my post "Krampus"...

Why is goat obligatory mask in Christmas (Winter solstice) celebrations in Europe? Cause like all the other Winter Masks it is symbolically linked to death (of nature) during the winter and resurrection (of nature) in the spring...I talked about this in my post "Party"...

Also why is Capricorn where it is on the zodiac circle? Well because, just like all the other animal zodiac symbols, it is derived from a calendar marker for mating or birthing of the animal depicted...I talked about this in my posts "Goat" and "Zodiac"...

This zodiac was supposed to have been invented in Ptolemaic Egypt. But the oldest version of the Zodiac circle was discovered in Croatia and it predates the oldest example from Egypt. I talked about this in my post "Nakovana"...

And because animal zodiac symbols are all derived from animal calendar markers specific to Europe, European animals, European climate, this zodiac must have been developed in Europe...

But the idea to use animal lifecycle events as calendar markers is much much older...It probably existed before agriculture became the thing, but it became very important to early farmers...

So the idea for codified animal calendar markers probably dates to the Fertile Crescent and could be 15,000 years old...You need a way to pass agricultural knowledge to others. When do I sow seeds father? When Ibex goats start mating and rain starts to fall...

From here, these first farmers spread this idea as far as they had spread...Western Asia, Central Asia, North Africa, Arabia, Europe...

You can find a lot of articles about this animal calendar markers in various cultures on my blog...

I think that the idea for the animal calendar markers was also brought to Indian sub continent and China...The latest archaeological data confirms long distance contacts across Asia during Neolithic, in all directions...

So...Why am I writing about "non European cultures"? Everyone thinks they are special, but they are actually not. In order to understand Our European Culture, we need to realize that it is just a part of much wider cultural continuum...Both in time and space...

By the way the same goes for the "non European cultures"...They are not that special and unique either...

There I just offended everyone...Sorry...

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...