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Jun 22, 2020 9 tweets 3 min read Read on X
#mythologymonday Thread: In 2007 two stelae, each bearing figures of the Storm-god leading a ruler and a duplicate Hieroglyphic Luwian text, were discovered at Uluçinar (formerly Arsuz), on the Turkish coast south of İskenderun... Image
The inscription is the work of a Suppiluliuma, son of Manana, king of the land of Walastin, now understood as the Luwian designation of the Amuq plain with its capital at the Iron Age site of Tell Tayinat... Image
The stelae, probably dating to the later tenth century BC, record the successful reign of the ruler who "achieved things his father or grandfather could not" like conquer the city of Adana and the land of Hiyawa (most likely Ahhiyawa, the Hittite designation of Greeks) Image
All his military victories and the abundance of grain and wine in his kingdom, the king attributes to the mighty Storm god. On both stelae, the king is depicted holding grapes in his right hand and grain in his left, while being led by the hand by the Storm god, his patron deity Image
Storm god, who stands on the bull under the winded sun disc? Why? Image
Well here is why: This is a chart showing yearly temperature and precipitation in Eastern Anatolia... Image
The late April early May (Taurus) is the time of maximum precipitation and maximum thunderstorms. The time when Thunder god arrives to the land of the Hittites...Hence the bull...This is also start of summer...Hence the winded sun disc...
The inscriptions are from the article "Two new inscribed Storm-god stelae from Arsuz (İskenderun): ARSUZ 1 and 2" by Belkis Dinçol, Ali Dinçol, J.D. Hawkins, Hasan Peker and Aliye Öztan

jstor.org/stable/24878378
One more thing: In Eastern Anatolian plateau, grain and grape harvest started late jul early Aug. In Leo which marks the end of summer, season symbolised by a bull, and beginning of Autumn, season symbolised by a lion. Lion kills Bull. Killing of the bull = Beginning of Harvest

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More from @serbiaireland

Aug 11
Thread: Late Sassanian depiction of a deity on a column capital now held in Taqe Bostan , which @persiaantiqua identified as Mehr (Mithra) based on the fact that he is surrounded by blooming lotuses... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taq-e_Bos…Image
Mithra was directly associated with lotus, to the point where on the most famous relief of Mithra, the one from Taqe Bostan, he is actually depicted standing on a lotus flower, radiating light, while witnessing Ahura Mazda giving ring of power to king Ardashir II... Image
Why Lotus? Mitra originates in India. Where he was, in the earliest times, directly associated with Varuna, the old Monsoon good whose Vahana was a crocodile, an animal calendar marker for the monsoon season in India....

Read 28 tweets
Aug 6
Thread: Two Sassanian wall relief slabs dated to the 5th-6th c. AD, depicting rampant ibex goats flanking "the tree of life"... Image
Image
This is an ancient symbol found throughout Iran, Mesopotamia, Central Asia, Levant, Crete. The reason for that is that in all these regions, year is divided into two halves:

hot, dry half, roughly Apr/May - Oct/Nov
wet, cool half, roughly Oct/Nov - Apr/May Image
And the wet, cool half begins when ibex goats start their mating fights...see, "flanking"... Image
Image
Read 11 tweets
Aug 1
Thread: 900-700 BC Syro-Hittite relief from Carchemish which everyone believes depicts the ancient Sumerian Hero Gilgamesh as master of animals, holding the horn of a bull and the leg of a lion. Museum of Anatolian Civilizations (Ankara, Turkey). Who is this dude really? Image
If we interpret the animals as animal calendar markers, which they always are in compositions like this, The Dude (with big D) stands in the moment when bull (summer) ends and lion (autumn) begins (end of Jul start of Aug)...

The moment usually depicted like this
Read 11 tweets
Jun 9
Thread: Silver Stater from Mallos, Cilicia, C. 425-385 BC. Depicting (???)

Obv: Winged male deity advancing right, holding solar disc; Aramaic legend.
Rev: MAΛP , swan standing to left, flapping its wings. Rare.

I would suggest that this is (a local version of) Apollo... Image
An anthropomorphised, Hellenised, version of the winged sun disc...Like this one depicted on Stele to Assurnasiripal II at Nimrud (9th c. BC)... Image
BTW, do you see the Sun Cross (Cross of Shamash) inside the winged Sun Disc? I talked about Sun Cross (of Shamash) here
Read 9 tweets
Apr 30
Thread: Illustration by Bernard Zuber for Maurice Garçon’s La Vie Execrable de Guillemette Babin, Sorciere, 1926.

May Day Eve (April 30) is across Northern and Central Europe known as Walpurgis Night, the night when everyone is trying to "ward off, scare, witches"...

Why? Image
Maybe this has something to do with the old Celtic calendar which divided the year into two halves:

Winter (Samhain, 1st of Nov - Beltane, 1st of May)
Summer (Beltane, 1st of May - Samhain, 1st of Nov)

oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/2016/07/two-cr…Image
This division of the year, is btw based on the old transhumance shepherd calendar:

Lowland grazing and lambing Oct/Nov - Apr/May
Highland grazing and milking Apr/May - Oct/Nov

Check this whole thread:

Read 17 tweets
Apr 27
Thread: Goats flanking the tree of life. Ritual vessels from Gonur-depe, the administrative and ritual center of Ancient Margina, the Northern regions of the Oxus civilization, dated to 2300˗1600 BC. Pic from researchgate.net/profile/Nadezh…Image
The reason why we find goat flanking the tree of life in Iran, Mesopotamia, Central Asia, Levant, Crete is because in this part of the world, the climatic year is divided (roughly) into hot/dry summer (Apr/May - Oct/Nov) and cool/wet winter (Oct/Nov - Apr/May)... Image
Image
Image
Image
Oct/Nov is also the time when male ibex goats start their ferocious mating fights...And because the wet season in these parts of the world starts when ibex goats start mating, ibex goat became an animal calendar marker for the beginning of the rain season... Image
Image
Read 27 tweets

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