PPN Snake calendar marker

About (one of two) earliest animal calendar markers for the grain harvest season: snake, depicted here on the pillar 22 from enclosure D, found in PPN site Göbekli Tepe, Turkey, and dated to 11th - 10th c. BC...

So where do I start? With a snake of course...

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 on this 3rd - 2nd mill BC decorated standing stone we see Sun god and his favourite pet animals, snakes...

Early Bronze Age Okunev culture which flourished in the Minusinsk Basin on the middle and upper Yenisei, Siberia, Russia. More details can be found in this article...

And why on this 3rd mill BC, Bactrian seal, we see the sun god (see heat rays found on Utu/Shamash depictions emanating from his shoulders) holding snakes, symbols of sun's heat...I talked about this in my post "Nude winged hero dominating snakes"...

The fact that snakes need sun's heat to function and are only out when it's hot, made snakes ideal symbol of sun's heat...Which causes drought...

The Luwian Storm-God kills a Dragon. Or is it a Snake. Knowing that dragon (symbol of extreme sun's heat) is just an old snake (symbol of sun't heat), it really makes no difference. Analysis of the scene depicted on this image can be found in my post "Malatya relief"...

I also talk about snakes and dragons and sun's heat and drought in my post "Letnitsa treasure" about the metal plaques the famous Thracian Letnitsa treasure, dated to the first half of the 4th c. BC, which depict a lot of common motifs from Balkan (and not just Balkan) Slavic fairy tales...Like this one depicting a princess being abducted by a three headed dragon with snake heads...

This is also why 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)...Analysis of this seal dated to 2200 BC can be found in my post "Seven headed dragon"

BTW, the same scene depicted on this Mesopotamian seal is also depicted here: the Woman of the Apocalypse, described in Chapter 12 of the Book of Revelation. I give full symbolic analysis of this text in my post "Apocalypse"...

Anyway, back to the PPN Anatolia and its obsession with snakes. I already talked about snake as an animal calendar marker in PPN Anatolia in my post "Goat and snake from Kortik Tepe" from 2022 about these two objects from the 10,000BC  Pre-Pottery Neolithic B site Körtik Tepe, Turkey... 

Interestingly, the mating season of Goats marks the start of the wet season and the mating season of Snakes marks the start of dry season in the Körtik Tepe area...

What I proposed was that these two plaques depict: 

The start of the mating season of ibex goats (Oct/Nov)

the start of the mating season of viper snakes (Apr/May) 

in Western Asia...

These two events divide the solar year in this part of the world into hot, dry season (Apr/May - Oct/Nov) and cool, wet season (Oct/Nov - Apr/May)...

Symbolically, this wet/dry division of the solar year is depicted as "Eternal struggle between goat and snake"...on this stamp seal from Tepe Giyan, Iran, dated to 5000-4000 BC...I talked about this in my post "Master of animals from Tepe Giyan"...

The wet season could have actually been depicted by this "Mythical animal" found depicted on many tablets found in Körtik Tepe. I talked about this in my post  "Mythical animal from Kortik Tepe"... 

Now, check the Enclosure D, pillar 22 again. See the snake heads triangular shape? That's the shape of viper head...

So we know that PPN people specifically depicted vipers and that these stylised depictions of snakes with "arrow heads" from Tell Qaramel are also vipers...

Also, see how vipers get entangled during their mating "dance"? 

Is this what all the "X crossed snakes" depictions, like this one from a Körtik Tepe stone vessel, mean? Viper mating season? I think so...

So...What does this have to do with grain?

The other day I came across this image: a plaquette "bearing iconographic symbolism from Göbekli Tepe"...With no explanation what this symbolism is...

But I knew straight away what I was looking at: ear of grain between two snakes (meaning during the mating of the snakes)...

Look at this: Left is the Göbekli Tepe symbol, middle is Sumerian symbol for grain and the symbol used with the meaning "grain" since neolithic in the Balkans, Levant, Mesopotamia, Central Asia, Iran...

I talked about this symbol in my post "The oldest Demeter depiction" about the oldest depiction of Demeter, the Greek Mother of Grain? Which I believe to be this symbol which is 4500-4200 years old.

And which is depicted on one the Early Cycladic "Frying Pans" found on Cycladic islands in Greece and dated to the second half of the 3rd mill BC...

I also talked about the symbol for grain in my post "Mother of grain from Mari" about this alabaster stele [my comment: depicting the Mother of Grain], which was presented in 2012 catalog of the Phoenix Ancient Art, as a cult plaque originating from the Near East and dating from the beginning of the third millennium BC...Which depicts the same vulva surrounded by grain symbol...

I then I came across this paper and in it I saw this: Tell Qaramel shaft-straightener with the depiction of two snakes between two grain symbols. 

Please note that snakes here have X shaped heads. Symbol for "when snakes mate"? I think so...

So my hunch was right. The chevrons symbol was indeed stylised grain symbol.

Ok, but what is the link between viper snakes mating season and the grain harvest season?

Well, In fertile crescent, they both start in Apr/May...

The PPN people were hunter gatherers who by pure fluke were living in the area where wild barley, emmer and einkorn wheat and rye grew in huge quantities, covering sides of hills around their settlements...You can find more info in this paper...

Wild barley

Wild emer

Wild einkorn

Wild rye

These wild grains were all annual winter grains, meaning they all sprouted in Oct/Nov after the first rains, grew over the winter and spring, and ripened during the summer after which they could be harvested...

Harvesting was done by pulling, breaking, cutting the ripe ears with stone blade sickles off the stalks. You can read about it in this paper.

Based on the experimental results, all the above techniques will cause the ears to shatter and a lot of seeds to fall on the ground...

So the authors of this paper suggest that much more efficient way of harvesting wild cereals, and the one most likely used by the PPN people was to wait for the ripe seeds to fall on ground, and then to collect them from the ground...

Both sets of authors say that the wild cereal harvest in the fertile crescent started in Apr/May.

The first to ripen was barley (starting Apr/May) and then wheat and rye (starting Jul/Aug).

So basically grain harvest started "from the time when viper snakes start mating"...

Here is one more interesting thing. In Turkish part of fertile crescent snakes come out of brumation and into our world in Mar/Apr, just before the start of grain harvest and go back to brumation and out of our world in Oct/Nov, just after the end of grain harvest...

So grain seeds were continuously collected "from the time when snakes started mating and all the while snakes were in the grain grass"...Symbolically, you could depict this like this...

This is another Tell Qaramel shaft-straightener depicting on the left two pair of snakes meeting (usual symbolic depiction of mating), while on the right we see ear of grain growing out of the snake mouth...

Remember what I said "Mythology is a result of people being very good at noticing patterns in nature and very bad at distinguishing between correlation and causation"...

Did the PPN people somehow start believing that snakes, which they came across in the wild grain fields during the harvest time, somehow influenced ripening of the wild grains? I could bet they did...

This image is from this paper and depicts grain growing out of snakes. This article also fails to put forward any explanation for this, and fails to even identify the symbol for grain...

This probably lead to some kind of deification of a snake into a snake god of sort, to whom they prayed for good harvest...And for not being bitten and killed by the "guardians of the grain"...

Something like this:

You've got something crawling on the back of your head...Nevalı Çori, south-eastern Turkey, head with snake; limestone. Şanlıurfa Müzesi. Early to Middle PPNB. Photo courtesy of Euphrat-Archiv, Berlin-Heidelberg...

BTW, remember the stacked chevrons symbol meaning grain. The chevron could just be stylised depiction of V shaped einkorn wheat spikes which is what they look like when the ears shatter and the seed spikes fall to the ground...Einkorn was the first grain to be domesticated...

Oh, and remember that the wild grain seeds which fell to the ground after Apr/May after the last rains, or as the PPN dudes would say "after viper snakes start to mate" sprouted in Oct/Nov after the first rains, or as the PPN dudes would say "after ibex goats start to mate"...

So if you were a PPN hunter gatherer who has just figured this out and is starting to plant some of the seeds that he has gathered, the best time for planting these seeds was "when ibex goats start to mate"...

Suddenly you have this...Agricultural animal calendar...

So the PPN first farmers were planting their grain and hoping that "The Goat of Rain" would bring rain and make it germinate...You can read about "The goat of rain" in these posts...

Soooo...Almost done...Remember that Mesopotamian seven headed dragon that represented 7 hot/dry months of summer (Apr/May-Oct/Nov)...

On this depiction, God with grain growing out of his head, had just cut the first of the 7 dragon heads with a sickle. That's Apr/May, the month when grain harvest starts in Fertile Crescent...

Demeter, Greek Goddess of Grain Harvest was also, inexplicably 🙂 linked with snakes. 

Plaque Campana - Initiation to Eleusinian Mysteries. 1st half of the 1st century BC. Terracotta. Campana collection purchase 1861. Louvre museum (Paris, France). 

Well, Orphic dudes knew why. According to them: 

Rhea give birth to Zeus (thunderstorm season in Greece starts in Apr/May).

Rhea then turns to Demeter (grain harvest season in Ancient Greece started in Apr/May).

Zeus and Demeter mate as snakes and make Persephone (Snake mating season starts in Apr/May).

I talked about this in my post "Why are Persephone's parents"...

So Orphic dudes knew, and now we also know why, right?

This is also why Demeter/Ceres, arrives in chariots pulled by two snakes or two dragons...And brings ripe grain and a sickle...Like on this drawing by Pietro de Angelis...

I talked about this in my post "Demeter riding panther"...

PS: If these snakes remind you of something else, where do human seeds come from?

PPS: I would really like the people working on PPN sites who follow me to let me know what they think, apart from "we will never know for sure" 🙂

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...

Goibniu

This map shows surnames in different languages which mean "smith". 

Look at Ireland (Mac Gabhain) and Scotland (Mc Gowan)...

Both the Irish and Scotish surnames mean son of a smith (Gaelic gobha, gabha, pronounced gova which comes from Old Irish gobae, gobann meaning smith, cognate with Middle Welsh gof, Middle Breton goff, Old Cornish gof, Gaulish gobedbi, "Of disputed PIE origin possibly only found in Celtic languages and coming from Proto-Celtic stem *goben-, meaning smith"...

Hmmm...

Now look at all the Slavic countries...

Slavic languages have a whole cluster of words based on the root "kov" meaning metal:

        kov(ina) - metal/iron

        kovati - to forge, to strike hot metal to perform metal work

        nakovanj - anvil, that on which forging is done

        kovačnica, kovnica - forge

        kovanica - something forcefully stack together like being forged

        kovač - smith

From Proto-Slavic "kovati", from Proto-Balto-Slavic "*kauˀ-", from Proto-Indo-European "*kowh₂-", from the root "*kewh₂-" meaning to strike, to hit... 

But for some weird reason, Celtic words for smith can in no way be cognates with Slavic words for metal and smith...God forbid...

Now, in Celtic lands we find several gods, Irish deity Goibniu, Welsh deity Govannon, Gaulish deity Gobannos, whose names have a hypothetical Proto-Celtic root "*goben-", smith...

I will here like to talk about the Irish smithy, Goibniu (pronounced gov-nu), cause he will also help you understand what I am going to say about Lugh...

In Irish mythology Goibniu was the smith of the Tuatha Dé Danann. He is believed to have been a smithing god and was also associated with feasting.

According to Lebor Gabála Érenn, his father was Tuirenn...Who is basically, Taranis, The Celtic Sky/Thunder god in disguise. 

At the same time, in Irish mythology and folklore, his father was also named "Esarg" and "Tuirbe Trágmar".

"Esarg", meaning "striker", is derived Old Irish root esorcon, meaning "smiting," "striking," "beating," or "a blow dealt to a foe in battle". 

So far so normal and expected. Sky/Thunder gods were after all "Mighty Smiters"...

"Tuirbe Trágmar" which means "the axe-thrower" is a character which appears in Irish mythological texts as a warrior ancestor or father of Goibniu. 

In the Metrical Dindshenchas (Lore of Places) he is described as a "man of skill" and the father of Gobbán Saor "a highly skilled smith or architect". The text describes his feat of hurling his magical battle-axe from Tulach Bela (the Hill of the Axe) into the face of the incoming flood-tide to order the sea to stop rising. 

In the Lebor Gabála Érenn (The Book of the Taking of Ireland) Tuirbe Trágmar appears as an alternate name or epithet for Esarg (Striker, The thrower of axes), listing him directly as the father of Goibniu the smith-god. 

In the Oidheadh Chloinne Tuireann (The Tragedy of the Sons of Tuireann) he is mentioned as Tuirenn Tuirbe Trágmar, (Taranis, The thrower of axes) and is identified as the father of the divine smiths.

Tuirenn, Striker, Thrower of Axes, the father of the Smith God...

Remember the PIE root "*kewh₂-" means to strike, to hit. Striking, hitting is an integral part of axe making process since the Palaeolithic. 

Stone axes are made by striking a large flint nodule in such a way that small chips of stone are gradually removed until a sharp axe shaped blade is produced. 

Bronze axes are first cast, then the edge is cold hammered to harden it and then it is wet sand polished to sharpen it. 

Iron axes are first wrought (hot melted bloom, mix of ore and charcoal, folded, hammered, folded, hammered...) and then forged (reheated wrought iron hammered) to desired shape, then the edge is wet stone polished to sharpen it.

So striking = making axes...

That's "Maker of Axes"...This doesn't explain why  Goibniu's father was called "Thrower of Axes"???

Striking, hitting is also what sky gods did a lot. With thunderbolts. Which were imagined by people all over the place as stones...

A 15th-century engraving depicts the town of Ensisheim in present-day France being struck by a thunderbolt (stone)...I talked about this in my post "Jack and magic beans", about giants who lived on a stone sky and who hurled giants rocks down on earth...The original sky (stone) thunder gods...

What is also interesting is that people thought that these thunder stones were actually (shaped like) stone axes...This belief existed in Europe until well into the Middle Ages...Which is why ancient stone axes were believed to be petrified lightnings and were kept as talismans as a protection against lightning strikes...

I talked about this in my posts "Thunder axe" and "Kataibates"...

Which is why a lot of thunder gods wielded axes...Like Hadad...Whose name has no known etymology, possibly from Northwest Semitic root hdd meaning "to thunder," "to crash," "to make a loud noise"...

Now look at the smith surname map again. In Semitic languages we have word for smith "haddad", which apparently comes from the Proto-Semitic root *ḥdd = "to be sharp, pointed" 

So we have:

Hadad → the divine striker (lightnings, thunderbolts which were imagined as being made of stone)

ḥaddād → the one who makes sharp edges by striking metal

But apparently, linguists currently keep ḥdd ("sharp") and the proposed root of Hadad separate because they begin with different Proto-Semitic consonants (ḥ vs. h).

As I already said, in Stone, Bronze and Iron Age, striking was the universal method by which cutting tools were produced or improved, whether in stone, bronze, or iron. That makes "striker" and "maker of sharp edges" naturally adjacent concepts in many ancient cultures, even if they are not always etymologically identical.

As I said already, stone axes are made by striking a large flint nodule in such a way that small chips of stone are gradually removed until a sharp axe shaped blade is produced. 

Now if, while making a stone axe, you strike, hit a flint nodule with a pyrite nodule, cause you just happened to have picked this particular shiny stone to use as knapping stone, you will generate a spark, a mini lightning, strong enough to light combustable dry material and start fire...

Here is a video showing how this is done

In several of my posts I asked the question: How old is the connection between stone axes and thunder gods?

In my 2019 post "Sun stones", about ceremonies with exploding flint axes performed in Late Neolithic Vasagård site located on the southern side of the island of Bornholm, Denmark, I suggested that this link between a stone, more specifically flint axes, and thunder gods, already existed in the 4th millennium BC Europe...

In my post "Oldest symbolic monument" which I wrote last year, I suggested that the link between flint axes and lightning could be 40,000 to 160,000 old. At least based on "the oldest symbolic monument, that is to say, one with no obvious practical use and probably responding to a belief", which, according to this article is this pile of stones piled up next to a spring at El Guettar (Southern Tunisia) which has flint nodules placed on top of a pile of other round stones...

Round stones (like sling stones), falling (being thrown) from the sky...Where did I hear about this before? All over the place actually. I talked about this in my post "Cetus",  "Mithras", "Rudra"...

In Ireland, that was the speciality of Lugh...

But the latest archaeological discovery indicates that it is possible that this link already existed 400,000 years ago. According to this paper Neandertals struck chunks of iron pyrite against flint to light campfires - the oldest evidence of humans intentionally making fire. And the flint pieces found were actually flint axes...

Did Neanderthals link stone axes with lightning? Anyway...

Remember this:

A blacksmith has to strike his anvil with his hammer on every Christmas morning before sunrise. If he doesn't do it, his hammer and anvil should be broken and he and his family should be expelled from the tribe (medieval Vasojevići tribe law cannon, Montenegro)...

Striking anvil with hammer produces sparks and sparks create fire. And Christmas Day is the day when the fire of the sun gets rekindled (the old winter solstice, the rebirth of the sun and solar year)...

This is what Yule log rituals are all about...

A toast to yule log, Dalmatia, 1893. South Slavs believed that yule log was the earthly seat of god,  addressed it with utmost respect and made sacrifices to it, during cutting, bringing in, burning...

I talked about this in my posts "Badnjak", about Yule log customs in the Balkans, "La buche de Noel", about Yule log customs in France and "Yule log in English tradition", about Yule log customs in England. 

BTW, you need an axe to cut a Yule log...

Everything indicates that the Yule log ceremonies are solar ceremonies. But why was Oak, the holy tree of Perun, The Thunder God, used as Badnyak (Yule Log)? 

To understand the link between the heart fire, yule log, thunder god and the sun, you need to check this out:

"It is a great secret how Svarog (heavenly and earthly fire) is at the same time Perun (thunder) and Svetovid (Sun)"...

Mathis (Matthias) Gerung, The Mighty Angel with the Little Book (Revelation 10), illuminated miniature on parchment in the Ottheinrich Bible, vol. 8, fol. 293r, c. 1530–1532 AD. Collection: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich...

Apparently, no one knows what this image really represents. I think it represents this:

Modern science has confirmed that it is indeed (heavenly) fire of the Sun which through Lightning descends to earth and becomes (earthly) Fire. I talked about this in my post "Sun Thunder Fire"...

So this is why the Yule Log is an Oak Log.

An Oak Yule Log (The Holy Tree of the Thunder Gods) is placed in the house hearth, the seat of the Earthly Fire on Christmas (Winter Solstice) eve to (symbolically) link it to the Sun's Fire...As long the Yule Log is burning, these two fires are (symbolically) connected and on Christmas (Winter Solstice) morning, the earth fire will (symbolically) ascend from the hearth to the sun and will restart the sun's fire...

BTW, this is how Ancient Greeks symbolically depicted the same thing:

"Hestia, you who tend the holy house of the lord Apollo...come now into this house...having one mind with Zeus the all-wise..." (Homeric Hymn To Hestia)...  

What does this mean? Sun (Apollo, Helios) creates Fire (Hestia) through lightning (Zeus)...

I talked about this in my post "Having one mind with Zeus"...

Back to sparks:

In Serbia, one of the most important part of the Yule log ceremony was the sparks divination performed by the first footer, the luck bringer...I talked about this in my post "First Footer"...

The First Footer repeatedly "strikes" the fire to produce sparks. After each strike, he exclaims:

As many sparks, as much luck!

As many sparks, as much love!

As many sparks, as much health!

As many sparks, as much money!

This "creation of sparks by striking burning Oak (the sacred tree of the thunder gods) Yule log" seems to me to be symbolic enactment of the creation of lightning by the thunder god...

Smith "creating sparks by striking hot iron with a hammer" seems to me to have the same symbolic meaning and directly links smiths with thunder gods...

Which is why, I suppose, Thor wields a hammer...Like here on the 11th century Altuna Runestone...

But is Thor holding a hammer or a double axe?

You might find my post "Axe or hammer" interesting. It explors the origin of Thor's hammer (axe?) Mjǫllnir and its relation with Perun's axe: 

Anyway, this is all important to know if you want to understand the following:

So the father of the Irish smith god Goibniu was the sky god, Tuirenn, the Thrower of Axes (thunderbolts)...

Guess whose father was Goibniu? Lugh's...

According to an Irish legend, Balor hears a prophecy that he would be killed by his grandson. 

To avoid his fate, he locks his only daughter, Ethnea (Eithne), in a tower to keep her from becoming pregnant. 

Balor goes to the mainland and steals the magical cow of abundance Glas Gaibhnenn belonging to Cian. 

Cian learns he can only get the cow back when Balor is dead, so he manages to secretly enter the tower, finds Ethnea and impregnates her. 

When she gives birth to three sons, Balor orders the three to be drowned, but one survives without Balor's knowledge. 

The kid, Lugh, is fostered by a smith who is also Lugh's uncle. 

Balor eventually encounters his grandson by chance and is killed by him.

That magical cow of abundance Glas Gaibhnenn, was in other Irish legends said to have belonged to one of several figures variously named Gavida, Gavigan, Gaibhlen, identified as smiths, and believed to be Goibniu in disguise and who were in some way involved in the conception of Lugh.

BTW, the name of the magic cow Glas Gaibhnenn means "grey cow of the smith (god)", basically a rain cloud of the sky god...

Heavenly cows (rain clouds) are a common mythological image found all over Eurasia. 

In Indian mythology we find story about Indra's cows (rain clouds) being stolen by Panis demons who also steal sunlight (it is the sun that creates the wet summer monsoon) and hidden "inside the mountain" (Himalayas create up-drift which pulls the moist air from the sea). 

I talked about the Indian monsoon mechanism in these posts: "Vayu", "Maruts", "Mahishasuramardini"...

The cows are found by Indra's hound (the wet summer monsoon peaks during the Dog Days, Jul/Aug)...

Why are dog days in Jul/Aug?

When our mythologies were made out of animal calendar markers, Sirius, the Dog Star rose with the sun in Jul/Aug, when mating season of the old dog breeds began...

We find this embedded into myths in:

Egypt: Article about "Dog days"...

Mesopotamia: Article about "Tishtrya"...

India: Article about "The bitch of the gods"...

Anyway...

In Slavic mythology we find Perun (thunder) who every year fights Veles (dragon, burning sun) who steals heavenly cows (rain clouds) from Perun...And every year Perun triumphs over Veles and rescues his heavenly cows... 

In Ireland we find Balor (dragon, burning sun) who steals "grey cow of the smith (god)", from a smith or someone related to a smith (god) so the smith (god) impregnates Balor's daughter, whose son, Balor's grandson, eventually kills Balor by striking his burning eye with a shiny (sling) stone, after which the cow of abundance is returned to the smith (god)...And this also happens in...Jul/Aug...Which is the peak thunderstorm season in Ireland... 

Soo....

What do you think, cool?