Blinding of Polyphemus

This image shows an ancient Greek Laconian black-figure cup depicting Odysseus and his men blinding the giant Cyclops, Polyphemus. It was Made in Sparta, Greece, around 560–550 BC, and is currently in the Bibliothèque nationale de France (Cabinet des Médailles) in Paris.

Official scene description:

Odysseus and four companions drive a long stake into the eye of the seated Cyclops, who holds a human leg, while a snake arches above them and a large fish is painted beneath the figures. 

Why is there a snake above and tuna below this image?

🙂

I would here like to present my argument that everything depicted on this black-figure cup, is a calendar marker for Apr/May, and that this is when the blinding of the giant Cyclops, Polyphemus took place...

So I will start my symbolic analysis with the snake:

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 from around the world in many of my posts...

Apr/May, the beginning of summer (bright half of the year), is when most common Eurasian snakes, vipers, start mating, and fighting...

I talked about this in many of my posts...

Which is why snake is a common animal calendar marker for Apr/May...

Now, I am not the first to notice that a single eyed giant with a "round eye" sounds very much like a depiction of the Sun (God)...

Wilhelm Grimm in his 1857 "Die Sage von Polyphem" says

"If these indications establish a deeper meaning of the Polyphemus saga, then perhaps we can come still closer to its original form. What else do the mythical songs of ancient times sing about than the origin and destruction of the world, and, for as long as it endures, the never-resting movements of mighty but hostile forces? They are the struggles of the elements with one another, of heaven and the underworld, of summer and winter, of day and night, which are reflected again in moral oppositions of blessing and destruction, love and hatred, joy and sorrow. The opposition between the external, terrifying forces of nature and those that work quietly in secret, or, in moral terms, between brute force and cunning agility, is expressed in the myths of giants and dwarfs. In this I find the original content and meaning of the Polyphemus saga."

The paper is referenced in the 1860's "Der ursprung der mythologie, dargelegt an griechischer und deutscher sage"...

where the author states:

"He [Grimm] too understands the eye of Polyphemus, on p. 27, as the world-eye of the Sun itself."

In Ovid's Metamorphosis, Polyphemus, when talking to Galathea, says himself: 

"Upon my brow I have one single eye, but it is huge, like some vast shield. What then? Does not the mighty sun see from the sky all things on earth? Yet the sun's orb is one."

As I said, snake is a solar animal. And because it is in our world when the sun is war, it is also a symbol of sun's heat. 

BTW, do you see how the snake is crawling towards Poliphemus's eye (The Sun???) basically mimicking the movement of the spear that is blinding him? There is a Slavic belief that snakes "can bite Sun's eye and blind it"...

I talked about this in my post "The enemy of the sun"...

I wonder if such belief existed among Ancient Greeks, at the time when this cup was made?

So, next, let's have a look at tuna. 

The tuna fishing season in Mediterranean, is from Apr/May to Oct/Nov...With the peak in Jul/Aug...I talked about this in many of my posts. You can start here, my post "Tuna boats", about Early Cycladic "frying pan" (a type of artifact made in the Aegean Islands between c. 2700 and c. 2200 BC) depicting a boat and a tuna fish...

So we have Polyphemus (The Sun???), the son of Poseidon, being blinded in Apr/May, the beginning of bright hot half of the year, and the beginning of the tuna fishing season in Mediterranean...And the beginning of the sailing season in the Eastern Mediterranean, where Poseidon originated in Early Bronze Age...

I talk about the sailing season in Eastern Mediterranean and animal calendar markers for for its start, its peak and its end in many of my posts...

For instance, there is a reason why horse was the sacred animal of Poseidon (Greek) and Yamm (Phoenician) sea gods. Horse mating season, marked by vicious stallion fights over mares, overlaps with the sailing season in Eastern Mediterranean.  I talk about this in my posts Trojan horse, Three sacrifices...

Anyway, finally we come to sheep...and lambs...

Natural lambing season of both wild and domestic sheep spans which spans the whole of spring (Feb/Mar/Apr) ands in Apr/May, when the milking season begins...

I talked about this in many of my posts...

What does this have to do with Polyphemus?

Well Polyphemus was a shepherd, and his flock definitely contained lambs, and Homer is quite explicit about this.

When Odysseus and his men first enter Polyphemus' cave, they find:

"pens crowded with lambs...firstlings, later ones, and newborn separated..."

So the flock contains lambs of different ages, including newborns.

Homer then says:

"He [Polyphemus] drove his well-fed flocks into the wide cave, the ones he milked, leaving the rams…and then he milks the ewes and puts their young with them..."

This means that Polyphemus also milks the ewes, putting their young to them, which confirms that the lambs are actively suckling.

After Odysseus blinds Polyphemus, Homer says:

"The males of the flock hastened forth to pasture and the females bleated unmilked about the pens, for their udders were bursting..."

All of this, together with no mention of pregnant ewes, points at Polyphemus being blinded in Apr/May, the end of lambing and the beginning of the milking season...

So we have 

snake, animal calendar marker for Apr/May.

suckling lambs, animal calendar markers for Apr/May.

tuna, animal calendar marker for Apr/May.

So I will ask my question again: Why is there a snake above and tuna below this 560–550 BC depiction of the blinding of Polyphemus by Odysseus?  

🙂

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...

Dancing sun god

😂😂😂 Wow!!! Animation made by overlying two Celtic Silver Quinarius coins from Central Europe (Rhineland), minted between 65 BC - 1 AD, both featuring slightly different version of the same scenes:

Obv: dancing mannikin right, head turned left, holding snake in right hand [me: which is biting his nose], torque in left hand. 

Rev: horse standing right, head turned left [me: wandering WTF is going on on the other side of the coin]; around, zig zag border. 

Animation and data from this great page...

What I think is that the "dancing mannikin" is actually The Sun God. His spiky hair symbolising the sun rays. Just like here, on this coin of Alexander the Great depicting the face of Helios. 350-331 BC - British Museum, London...

That this is indeed The Sun God is indicated by the fact that he is holding a snake. 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 from around the world in many of my posts...

BTW, because snake also spends half of the time in the underworld, snake is also a chthonic animal. So no contradiction here...

Just like the Sun God who also spends half of the time in the underworld, making the Sun God also a chthonic deity...

Think about this for now, will talk about this more soon...

Also, Apr/May, the beginning of summer, is when most common Eurasian snakes, vipers, start mating, and fighting...

I talked about this in many of my posts...

BTW, Hermes/Mercury, who features prominently in Celtic mythology, carries caduceus (staff with two intertwined snakes) because he himself was a deified calendar marker for Apr/May...Every single plant and animal that features prominently in his mythology is a calendar marker for Apr/May...I talk about Hermes/Mercury in these posts...

And remember the dual, solar/chthonic aspect of snakes? Which links them to both the land of living and the land of the dead, and makes them the messengers of the dead, the carriers of their will (prophecies)? This is why Apollo, who also features prominently in Celtic mythology, is associated with a (is basically a deified) snake...

I talk about the link between Apollo and Python (snake) in several posts: Apollo and Python, Marble throne of Apollo, Kassandra

Pic: Marble Throne of Apollo, Roman, late 1st c. AD. Currently in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Whoever made this, knew who Apollo really was and wanted to show Apollo in his true shape (serpent, dragon), sitting on his throne...

One last thing about snakes, solar animals number one, the symbols of sun's heat.

3rd millennium BC, Bactrian seal depicting the sun god (see heat rays emanating from his shoulders) holding snakes, symbols of sun's heat...

I talk about it in my post Nude winged hero dominating snakes...

Vipera Pythia, c. 1651, by Marco Aurelio Severino. Some people still knew what snakes were until recently. But for some reason this was a secret...

What about the horse? Horse (actually equid in general) is another animal calendar marker for summer. The fertility of equids is linked to sunlight. Which is why the mating of equids starts in Apr/May, lasts until Sep/Oct and peaks on Summer Solstice, and is characterised by wild stallion fights for mares...

I talked about this first in my post Trojan Horse...

This is why horse (actually equid in general) is together with snake one of the most widespread solar symbols. 

Here it is, sun above the midle of the horse (on summer solstice) depicted on a 

Roman coin

Celtic coin 

This is even better. Another Celtic coin, this time with the sun depicted as solar rider. See the spiky hair symbolising sun rays? With the sun god Apollo depicted on the other side...Eastern Europe. Hungary. 

BTW, this is another Celtic copy of a Macedonian coin...

This is why horse (actually equid in general) was the preferred ride of the sun gods (and kings who worshiped them) from Mesopotamia onwards...

Pic: Helios on a chariot pulled by 4 white horses. Apulian vase dated to 350BC

I talked about Horse (Equid) as a solar symbol in many of my posts. Here are just a few: 

Mesopotamia 

Shamash playing with solar horse

Sun god from Tell Brak 

Seven heads

Iran

Water carrier equid

Dioscuri plate from Iran

India 

Hayagriva

China 

Longma

Mythical beast from Xian

Europe 

Curlew

White stag

Archaic rider

Beotian solar Pyxis

Pegasus and Chimera

King John

Svetovid

Poseidon pursuing Demeter

Anatolia

Cilician Nergal

Levant 

Sun god from the first temple

Alexamenos graffito

Goddess on a horse

This is also why we find horse animal calendar marker disguised in our western Zodiac as Dioskuri, divine twin horsemen, marking the Summer Solstice. The guys who wanted to marry "the daughters of the white horse". 

I talked about the horse twins in my post Little horses

O yeah, almost forgot. Unicorn is also a solar symbol, symbol of summer. 

I talked about this in several of my posts:

Reem

Unicorn

Stag and unicorn

BTW, Unicorn horn is described as "being cubit and a half (28 inches) in length". Erect horse's penis length 🙂 is max 28 inches...

Oh and guess when the horse (equid) mating season ends? In Virgo...

The virgin, which calms the unicorn 🙂...

So, what is depicted on this funny coin is the dancing sun god with his pet snake and his pet horse...Is dancing here supposed to represent some king of celebration? Beltane (Apr/May), beginning of summer and the beginning of Celtic White Half of the year, celebration? Marked by the beginning of mating seasons of snakes and horses? 

Here is a post Horse and boar about the series of Celtic coins which depict horse as animal calendar marker for (the beginning of) the Celtic White Half of the year (Mating of horses starts in Apr/May)...And boar as animal calendar marker for (the beginning of) the Celtic Black Half of the year (Mating of boars starts in Oct/Nov)... 

That's it for today. If you are interested in reading 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...

Hand of god

Two thousand years ago, someone carried a sheet of Appalachian mica more than 400 miles into Ohio, cut it into a human hand nearly a foot tall, then buried it inside a mound. I want to thank @MoundLore, an amazing account well worth following, for alerting me to this amazing object.

Why would someone make an object like this?

Ever heard of The Hand of God constellation?

Engraved shell gorget with hands and spider, from Spiro mounds, Oklahoma. AD 1250-1400...

What is symbolically depicted here? Apparently no one knows...So let's see what happens if we use animal calendar markers...

Spider: Oklahoma's main "spider season" is late summer through fall (Jul/Aug-Oct/Nov). This is because this is the brown tarantula mating season, when these giant spiders roam around looking for mates...

So spider as an animal calendar marker points at Jul/Aug...

So???

Spider is depicted in the middle of the sun. Jul/Aug is the hottest time of the year in Oklahoma...

Ok...What about the hands...Well that is very very interesting...and supper cool...

This is the so called "Hand Eye Symbol", the most famous symbol of the Mississippian culture. And the symbol whose meaning "is obscure, its true meaning has been lost in the midst of time"...

Let me again try to apply animal calendar markers to this symbol and see what "jumps out at us"...

This is te Moundville Disc - engraved circular palette with hand-and-eye motif and intertwined rattlesnakes with red tongues. Moundville, Alabama, A.D. 1300 - 1450...

Why rattlesnakes? In Oklahoma and Alabama, the rattlesnake mating season starts in Jul/Aug and lasts until Oct/Nov...Overlapping with brown tarantula mating season...And during that time rattlesnakes get intertwined (males fight for females)...

So I would propose that the hands circling around the tarantula on the Oklahoma gorget, are the same hands from "Hand Eye Symbol" on the Alabama disc, and that these hands are linked to something that happens in Jul/Aug...

Jul/Aug, the hottest time of the year. Hence fiery red snake tongues...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 from around the world in many of my posts...

Also I already talked about rattlesnakes as animal calendar marker for Jul/Aug used by Native Americans in my post "Snake dance" where I talk about the symbolic meaning of the Hopi ritual snake dance. Snakes as animal calendar markers for monsoon season in SW US...

Now, "there seems to be a common belief by people from different Oklahoma tribes descended from the Cississippian culture (ancestral to the Creek, Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole), that the Hand Eye symbol is (somehow) related to the ascend to the Otherworld (Heaven)"...

According to their belief, to reach the Otherworld the soul had to undertake a journey along the Path of Souls, the Milky Way...

This is really interesting. I only the other day talked about the exact same "Highway to Heaven" from Egyptian mythology in my post "Nut":

During Jul/Aug/Sep Milky Way can be seen in the south/southwest, as towering vertical "river" in the sky...

Running parallel to the Nile and touching it far down south/southwest, at it's source...

Which is very interesting because Jul/Aug/Sep is the time of the annual Nile flood, and this is the same time when the Milky Way, the Heavenly Nile truly becomes the reflection of the Terrestrial Nile. Or is it the other way round? As above so below? At the same time the southward bird migration starts from Duat into Egypt...And Egyptians believed that birds were the carriers of the souls between this and the other world...

Cool? I think so...

Also, remember this?

One of Serbian names for Milky Way is "Jov's river". And in Serbian tradition, it is this river that a soul needs to cross to reach "The other world"...

And who do the souls meet on the bank of this heavenly river? Nikola, "patron saint" of boatmen...

I talk about this in my post "Jovanova struga"...

The Native Americans believed that the gate through which the soul had to go through to reach the Path of Souls (Milky Way) was in the constellation Hand...

This constellation is known to us in the West as Orion...

Guess what happens in the Oklahoma sky in Jul/Aug, when rattlesnakes and giant tarantulas start mating:

Orion rises just before the sun...

Here is the same sky but with Mississippian constellations. Hand constellation rising before the sun...

I think this is the reason why we have an eye in the hand. It means: "constellation Hand visible just before the sun, rising with the sun, Heliacal rising of the constellation Hand (of god)"...

I talked about the link between Eye and Sun symbolism first in my post "Svetovid" about the meaning of the name of the Slavic sun god Svetovid...

Utu, Sun: 𒀭𒌓

According to this table, this means god, heaven + day = sun...

Did the god sign originally mean shiny thing? Did the day sign originally mean "eye"? 

If so: shiny thing + eye = to see = sun? 

Like Slavic Svetovid = light + to see  

And then I talked about it in my post "Sun eyes"

Skull with amber discs on clay in eye-sockets. Dated to the 4th mill BC. Latvia. 

One of many amber "sun" disc (obverse (sun cross), reverse (sun rays) and cross-section) made by the same culture...And Sumerian symbol for sun...

Sun + Eye = Sight

So in Jul/Aug, during the hottest time of the year, when tarantulas start wandering around and rattlesnakes dance, the Hand constellation rises with the sun. So far so interesting. But what does any of this have to do with the "ascent to the Otherworld (Heaven)"???

By "pure coincidence", this is also the time of the year when Milky Way, the "Path of the Souls", is in vertical position above Oklahoma, creating literal "Path from Earth to Heaven" which souls can use to "ascent to the Otherworld (Heaven)"...

Super cool, right?

So thank's to animal calendar markers we were (I think) able to decipher one of the most intriguing Native American symbols...

What a surprise...Again...Not...

PS: Why Hand of God? 

What happens in Jul/Aug is the peak of the Perseid meteor shower, which originates from the area of the Perseus Constellation...See raised hand towards the source of Perseids?

Today, what Perseus throws down on earth is bunch of shooting stars, small stone particles which burn out in the Earth's atmosphere before they reach the Earth surface...And look like shining arrows being shot at earth from the sky...

But in the past, Perseid meteors were much much bigger...

If big rocks are falling from the sky, there must be a giant living in the sky throwing them down...With a big hand?

An early, logical, attempt to explain meteorites, from the time when Sky Gods were real scary motherf*ckers and thunderbolts were (often) made of stone. I talked about this in my post "Jack and the giant bean"...

BTW, There are actually two Great Stone Throwing Giants up in the sky. BTW, they are also Great Archers...

One that throws his stones down towards Earth in Jul/Aug (Heracles, Apollo, Rudra, Nergal... - Perseid meteor shower) I talk about Perseid mythology in many of my posts...

One that throws his stones down towards Earth in Oct/Nov (Orion - Orionid meteor shower) I talk about Orionid mythology in many of my posts...

I talk about them in my post "Red archer"...

But I wonder if the Ancient Americans actually distinguished between these two stone throwing giants, or did they just imagine one giant hurling stones down on earth with his giant hand starting from Jul/Aug (Perseids) and ending in Oct/Nov (Orionids)?

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...