Scorpion under the bed

A drawing of an archaic seal impression from Ur depicting a copulating couple and a scorpion, from "Ur Excavations (Volume 3) Archaic seal impressions".

 

Today I came across this article entitled "Medicine in Ancient Assur..." by Troels Pank Arbøll. And in it, starting from the pate 74, I stumbled across very interesting note about the link between scorpions and snakes and human fertility:

Snakes and scorpions were and still are very common in Mesopotamia. Both animal are normally seen in nature, in fields, gardens, forests, marshes, desert, surrounding the human settlements...

But, the ancient texts and seals also tell us that scorpions could be found under the bed or in store rooms. 

A number of seals with bed scenes display a scorpion underneath the bed. 

I couldn't find any better image of these seals or any info about this seal, so would be grateful if someone could send me a picture of one of them so I can include it here. And, scorpions were referred to as the "wolfs of the storeroom, lions of the larder"...

Snakes were also said to venture into human habitations, usually through drainage pipes and sewers and are said to be sometimes giving birth in people's houses...

According to Troels, scorpions were the symbol of motherhood and were related to fertility and the image of the married woman...And, apparently, one of the symptoms of the scorpion invenomation is priapism (enlarged forced erection)...

Troels then says, "one cannot help but associate the scorpion stings with potency, as well as the various metaphoric relationships inherent in scorpions, such as motherhood and the marriage bed...Scorpion underneath the bed, probably refferrs to the couple's married aspect."

And, "Snakes were used to to describe an infant child coiled up within the mother and coming out slithering like a snake...Snakes may have been related to fertility or youth on the basis of their "renewal" when shedding their skin"...

Interesting...But there is one other, I think, very interesting thing about scorpions and snakes and their link to (human) fertility. This is the climatic year in Mesopotamia. You can see that the cool, wet season starts in Oct/Nov and ends in Apr/May...

Oct/Nov is also when the climate in Mesopotamia gets cool and wet enough for scorpions to start looking either for a hole to hibernate in, or for a dry warm place to live in...Like people's houses...Say under people's beds...

What about snakes? They go to hibernation too, thankfully not inside people's houses...They emerge out of hibernation in the spring, change their skins, and the most common Eurasian snakes, vipers, start mating in Apr/May...

This is why scorpion is an animal calendar marker for Oct/Nov, end of the hot/dry season and the beginning of the cool/wet season. 

This is why snake is an animal calendar marker for Apr/May, end of the cool/wet season and the beginning of the hot/dry season.

Oct/Nov, the time of the year marked by scorpion, was the time of the year when fields were ploughed and grain was sown in Mesopotamia, after the first rains fall (rain was also seen as the heavenly semen, seed of the rain god) that fertilises mother Earth...

Apr/May, the time of the year marked by snake, was the time of the year when the Tigris and Euphrates flood spilled out, and when fertile mother earth gave birth to grain, when grain was harvested in Mesopotamia...

So 

Oct/Nov, scorpion, semen, corn seed, sowing, rain (heavenly seed), fertilisation...

Apr/May, snake, baby, corn ears, sheaves, harvesting, flood (earthly flood is the child of the heavenly seed, spilling of waters), delivery...

Again it seems that in Mesopotamia human and earth fertility was symbolically linked...This time through animal calendar markers: scorpion and snake...

You can find more about the use of scorpion as an animal calendar marker in these posts...

You can find more about the use of snake as an animal calendar marker in these posts...

BTW, I just remembered this drawing of an archaic seal impression from Ur, also from "Ur Excavations (Volume 3) Archaic seal impressions". Self explanatory after what you just read? I think so...

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...

Gisgis relief

The other day @Anatolian2023 alerted me to this amazing artefact: The Gisgis relief, a 2900 years old relief located on a hard-to-reach south facing cliff within the borders of the village of Gisgis in Diyarbakır's Ergani district in Turkey. You can read more about this relief in this article...

The relief depicts a king facing a procession of gods. From left to right: 

Ishtar on a lion.

Moon god Sin, symbolically depicted with the crescent moon standard, on "a complex creature".

Sun god Shamash, symbolically depicted with the winged sun standard, on a bull.

So why is this relief so "amazing"? Cause this is another complex animal calendar, which divides the year into three parts, and confirms what I have stated in my article "Moon god Nana/Sin" about why the god Sin was so important to Mesopotamians. 

In short, for the lazy ones, I postulated that the god Sin was the god of the "Wet moon", the moon of the wet, cool, half of the year in Mesopotamia, Oct/Nov-Apr/May...

And this relief actually confirms this. But to see how, we need to look at the animal mounts of the gods in the procession as animal calendar markers...

Let's start with Lion: Lion marks the period Jul/Aug, which is when the main mating season of Eurasian lions, which once lived in Levant, Mesopotamia and Persia, starts...

This is why Ishtar stands on a lion:

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 say Inanna/Ishtar is Venus and not Sirius. This article, "Sirius the mother of Venus" and linked articles might be of interest...

Apart from being the symbol for Jul/Aug, lion is also the symbol for Autumn, Jul/Aug-Oct/Nov, the main mating season of the Eurasian lions...

One of many Lion (autumn, starts in Leo) killing Bull (summer, starts in Taurus) scenes found all over Eurasia, this one depicted on the wall of the Great Mosque of Diyarbakir the oldest mosque in Anatolia.

Some articles that analyse artefacts which contain this animal calendar marker and related symbols: "Mystery seal", "Angra mainyu", "Bull leaping in Syria", "Lion killing bull under date palm", "Butt chewing"...

Then we have the "complex creature", which has scorpion tail, hind legs with claws like those of birds of prey, wings and [my suggestion, not clear] feline [leopard] head and front legs. This "complex creature" is of course a complex animal calendar marker...They all are...

Scorpion is an animal calendar marker for Oct/Nov, the beginning of the wet, cool half of the year, because this is when scorpions disappear from the fields and appear in people's homes...

I talked about this in my post "Angra Mainyu". 

The old Sumerian summer, the 7 headed dragon, can be depicted using animal calendar markers like this too: starts in Apr/May, Bull head, Taurus, peaks in Jul/Aug, Lion body, Leo and ends in Oct/Nov, Scorpion tail/Eagle wings and talons, Scorpio/Eagle...

Eagle/Vulture, is the animal calendar marker for the beginning of the vulture mating season, Oct/Nov...

Which is also the beginning of the wet season in Mesopotamia...

I talked about this first in my article "Double headed eagle" about this amazing silver gilt cast shaft-hole axe head, made between 2500-1500 BC in the area along the Oxus and Murghab rivers in modern Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan...

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

And in my post "Kassite seal with Apkallu", aout this mad Kassite seal, where we see two headed eagle spewing water from the sky.  Originally people believed that rains were brought by the rain god, who was in Bronze Age Mesopotamia imagined as huge black eagle...

And in many other articles. So together the eagle and scorpion mark the beginning of winter, Oct/Nov, and winter as a whole, Oct/Nov-Jan/Feb. Hence Eagle-Scorpion dude...

"On this seal, a bird-man with a scorpion tail aims a bow and arrow at a winged lion-griffin standing on a hillock". 

I have to say I love this description. It says that officially they have no idea what this all means...

But "we" actually do. I it winter killing autumn...I talked about this in my article "Scorpion man". BTW, I talked about the origin of Griffin as an animal calendar marker for autumn, in my article "Origin of griffins"...

Now why do I think the front of the "complex creature" is leopard? Because winter is followed by spring, and spring starts in Jan/Feb, when Eurasian leopards mate. I talked about this in my article "Mosaic floor from Sulcis, Sardinia", about this mosaic which depicts leopards drinking from a krater for mixing wine and water with a grapevine growing from the krater...

And in my article "The oldest narrative scene" about this 11,000 years old relief from Anatolian Neolithic that no one can interpret...

And in my article "A vessel from Tepe Hissar", about this neolithic vessel which is a great example of related animal calendar markers used together. Mating Ibex (start of winter) followed by Mating Leopard (start of spring). Both winter and spring are rainy seasons...Semen turns to flowing water... 

And in many other articles. So leopard marks the beginning of spring, Jan/Feb, and spring as a whole, Jan/Feb-Apr/May.

Together Scorpion/Eagle/Leopard, mark the cool, wet season, Winter/Spring, Oct/Nov-Apr/May, the time of the "Wet moon" god Sin...

The Scorpion/Eagle/Leopard is followed by a bull. Bull which is an animal calendar marker for Apr/May.

Silver stater from Korkyra. Circa 510-480 BC. A sun above a cow suckling her calf. Summer sun. Summer starts in Apr/May, in Taurus, when wild Eurasian cows started calving...

I talked about this in many of my posts, like "Cow and calf ivory", "Foundation peg of the goddess Nanshe", "Elamite water bull"...

Apr/May, Taurus, marks the beginning of summer, Apr/May-Jul/Aug. Hence, A Sumerian song exclaims: "Hero emerging from the holy interior of heaven...the great wild bull, youthful Utu [Shamash, the sun god], who like a torch illuminates the Land from the holy heavens..."

And another one says:

In "Enki and the world order" we can reed that: "Enki placed in charge of the whole of heaven and earth the hero, the youth Utu (Shamash), the bull standing triumphantly, audaciously, majestically..."

Triumph, Taurus, Peak of the Flood, Leo, End of the flood. I talked about this in my post "Butt chewing"...

There is also this

Maran (Lord) Shamash (Sun) with bull horns, the main god of Hatra, an ancient city in Mesopotamia, whose full name was Hatra (Temple) Shamash (Sun)...

Maran...Like Maran-Atha (Our Lord - has come) from the bible? Which lord? Golden calf. Sun in Taurus. 

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

And this

This is one of the most interesting seals I have ever seen. It was found in the 3rd mil. BC layers of the scribal quarters of Nippur. And it depicts Shamash, The Sun God (the central light of the Menorah) between two bulls (means in Taurus, Apr/May). 

I talked about this in my post "Menorah from Nipur"...

And I talked about this in many other articles...

So bull marks the beginning of summer, Apr/May, and the summer as a whole, Apr/May-Jul/Aug...

And so...It seems that the symbols representing Ishtar (left), Sin (centre) and Shamash (right), as depicted on the upper half of a kudurru of Meli-Shipak II and many other artefacts, are not ordered randomly after all...

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...

Angra Mainyu

Middle Assyrian Cylinder Seal with a "Lion-Dragon", 1300-1200 BC. 

This seal is AMAZING! It depicts a tiny flying dude facing an advancing giant winged monster with lion body, bull horns and scorpion tail...Above the monster are some "heavenly objects", namely 7 stars, most likely Pleiades, a large star, most likely Sirius, and a crescent moon...

Why is this seal so special? 

Cause this seal is an amazing example of a complex animal calendar marker. 

It is also an amazing example of the mapping of these ancient animal calendar markers to "heavenly objects".

It is also a proof that the symbolism we find in Achaemenid Iran is already present in Assyria almost a millennium earlier...I am talking about the "flying dude" and the so called "dragon-lion"...

Finally, this seal allows us to determine the actual meaning of these "religious" symbols...The old, original meanings, before their meaning was obscured by the various religious interpretations...

So I will start by reminding you of this recent article, "Achaemenid lion boar seal", in which I explained why I thought that the flying dude is Ninurta, the old rain (and war) god, who was originally imagined as a huge black bird (eagle) with outstretched wings. The rain bird....

At the end of the above article, I said that I also believe that this symbol was later appropriated to represent Ahura Mazda...And in this article I would like to first explain why I think so.

I will start by reminding you of this article, "The King killing Angra Mainyu", in which I talked about the obsession of Achaemenid kings with killing lions, and why I thought that this was a ritual act.

The discription of this scene is very important: "The King killing Angra Mainyu", the main adversary of Ahura Mazda, the highest deity of Zoroastrianism...Angra Mainyu is depicted as a "mythical beast", a winged lion with eagle talons and bull horns...

Now in the rest of "The King killing Angra Mainyu " article,  I went on to explain that this "mythical beast", is the symbolic depiction of the hot dry half of the year, which starts in Apr/May (Taurus), is the hottest and driest in Jul/Aug (Leo) and ends in Oct/Nov (Eagle)...

Wait the second. Eagle? Oh yeah...Did you know that Scorpio is the only zodiac sign which has a double. Eagle...I talked about this in my post about "Four living creatures"...

So if we replace eagle with scorpion, we get...The mythical beast from the Assyrian cylinder seal we are talking about in this article. We still have a winged lion with bull horns. But this time instead of eagle talons it has lion paws...The monster however has a scorpion tail...

And again this represents the hot dry half of the year, which starts in Apr/May (Taurus), is the hottest and driest in Jul/Aug (Leo) and ends in Oct/Nov (Scorpio)...

But these are not zodiac constellations...

The zodiac with Taurus, Leo, Scorpio...was not invented before 300BC at the earliest,  and most likely originated in Europe, where the oldest astrologer circular board was found...I talked about this in my post "Nakovana cave"...

The bull, lion, eagle, scorpion we are talking about are animal calendar markers. Ancient symbols which predate constellations by millenniums...And which were derived from the easily observable behaviour of the animals in question, which happened every year at the same time...And are not affected by precession...🙂

Usually these symbols mark either mating or birthing of the animal in question. 

For instance Taurus marks the beginning of the calving season of the wild Eurasian cattle (Apr/May). 

I talked about it in many of my articles, for instance "Cow and calf ivory", "Dairy farming seal", "Bull leaping in Syria"...and many others...

Leo marks the beginning of the main mating season of the Eurasian lions (Jul/Aug). 

I talked about it in many of my articles, for instance "Sacred hunt", "Lion killing bull under date palm"...and many others...

Eagle (Vulture) marks the beginning of the mating season of the Old World Vultures (Oct/Nov). 

I talked about it in many of my articles, for instance "Eagle dance", "Eagle dude from Alepo", "Double headed eagle"...and many others...

But in case of scorpion, this animal calendar marker marks the time when scorpions disappear from nature and appear in people's homes because the weather outside gets too cold and wet...

I first talked about it in many of my articles, for instance "Dilmun goat and scorpion seal", "Queen Puabi cylinder seal", "Bird man", "Scorpion king"...

When we look at the complex combination of the animal calendar markers present on these seals, they all place scorpion at the end on hot dry season and the beginning of the cool wet season (Oct/Nov)...

Knowing this, this Assyrian "mythical animal" is a much better animal calendar marker for the hot and dry season than Achaemenid one. The head (bull) body (lion) and tail (scorpion) correspond exactly to the beginning (Apr/May) middle (Jul/Aug) and end (Oct/Nov) of the hot, dry season...

But this is basically the same complex animal calendar marker...With the same meaning...Hot dry season...Otherwise known as Nergal, the god of death, who was depicted as a lion...Remember, Leo marks the beginning of droughts... 

I talked about this my article "Winged super human hero"...

Or a "dragon with lion body and seven snake heads"...Cause the old Mesopotamian summer lasted seven lunar months...Apr/May, May/Jun, Jun/Jul, Jul/Aug, Aug/Sep, Sep/Oct, Oct/Nov...So Lion-Dragon 🙂 

I talked about this in my article "Seven headed dragon"...

The Mesopotamian dragon has snake heads because snakes are the symbol of sun's heat...The only true solar animals, which are in our world when sun is in our world and in the underworld when sun is in the underworld...

I talked a lot about this in many of my articles, for instance "Goat and snake from Kortik Tepe", "Bactrian snakes and dragons", "Who are Persephone's parents", "Eagle snake struggle", "Wolf vs snake"...and many others...

There is another symbol that represents the hot dry season. Angra Mainiu...In the earliest Zoroastian texts, Angra ("destructive", "chaotic", "disorderly", "inhibitive", "malign") Mainyu ("Energy", "Force", "Sprit", "Mind")...

Angra Mainiu was the antithesis of Spenta ("Holy", "Creative", "Bounteous") Mainyu ("Energy", "Force", "Sprit", "Mind")...

Now think about what brings order and disorder to an agricultural society? Which is why I believe that originally Angra Mainyu and Spenta Mainyu were, just two opposing natural forces: sun (Nergal) and rain (Ninurta)...Which later became Ahriman (devil) and Ahura Mazda (god)...

And so if the monster is the symbol of Angra Mainiu, the hot dry season, this means that the flying dude is the symbol of Spenta Mainiu, rain...Or more precisely, of the guy who brings rain and stops the monster of drought...Ninurta, the rain god...Or Ahura Mazda...

Soooo...That's that...

Actually there is more...

First, I need to get better glasses...The beast on the depiction of "The King killing Angra Mainyu" actually has a scorpion tail...🙂

Second, do you see the three "heavenly objects" above the monster of the hot dry season? They are not there as a random decoration. The choice and the position of these "heavenly objects" is very deliberate. 

Look at this:

Pleiades above the bull horns. Pleiades used to rise with the sun during Taurus (Apr/May). 

Sirius above the lion body. Sirius used to rise with the sun during Leo (Jul/Aug). 

Winter Moon over scorpion tail. Winter moon points upwards in the northern hemisphere starting from (Oct/Nov).

So these three "heavenly objects" basically mark the beginning, the middle and the end of the same half of the year marked by the beginning, the middle and the end of the mythical beast that they are placed above...

I think this is really cool, right?

But believe or not there is another explanation for these three "heavenly objects" which also fits perfectly with the total meaning of the rest of this image: the end of hot dry half of the year.

Remember, Ninurta stops the monster of drought...

As I said, the crescent moon pointing upwards is the symbol of winter. But also the symbol of night...And winter is the time when both Pleiades and Sirius become visible in the night sky with the moon...

So taken like this, the three symbols mean "winter", more specifically beginning of the "cool wet half of the year" which brings the end to the "hot dry half of the year"...

When the storm bird kills the drought dragon lion...When Ninurta kills Nergal...When Spenta Mainyu overpowers Angra Mainiu...When Ahura Mazda overpowers Ahriman...

I talked about this meaning of these three symbols in my article about this seal, "Seven stars of scorpion"...

In it I proposed that the meaning means: "plow your field and sow your grain when the moon, pleiades and Sirius are visible in the night sky"...And when scorpions disappear...

PS. For those doubting the authenticity of the original seal (there are some who do that), here is another seal with identical "mythical beast". Seal impression from Tell Sabi Abyad (Syria). Most likely from the 2nd mill BC, not specified. Pic from this page about the excavations on Tell Sabi Abyad done by Leiden University...

So...This is it...As I said, the seal is amazing...

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...