#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...
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...
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)
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
Storm god, who stands on the bull under the winded sun disc? Why?
Well here is why: This is a chart showing yearly temperature and precipitation in Eastern Anatolia...
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
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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Thread: Strap in. This is going to be fun. In this thread I am going to talk about the first raw of panel from the 1st c. AD Roman monument known as the "Pillar of the Boatmen" found in Paris, France... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pillar_of…
I was prompted to look into it by the posts by this great account @Michssspp82096 about this panel which depicts a bull standing under a willow tree, with 3 cranes perched on his back. The inscription reads "TARVOS TRIGARANOS" or "Bull and Three Cranes" in Gaulish...
@Michssspp82096 This is a coloured version of this image. It looks cool, but the colours are wrong...The only cranes native to France are Common Cranes and their feathers are grey not white and their legs are black not orange... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_cr…
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…
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...
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....
Thread: Two Sassanian wall relief slabs dated to the 5th-6th c. AD, depicting rampant ibex goats flanking "the tree of life"...
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:
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?
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)...
Thread: Poseidon, Greek god of the sea was associated with waves (obvious), horses (not so obvious, unless you know about animal calendar markers and the link between the horse mating season and the sailing season in eastern Mediterranean) and earthquakes (???)...
Why earthquakes? Look at this: Map of the Greek region showing the epicenters of the intermediate depth earthquake activity...
Big earthquakes trigger tsunamis. If you lived on these islands, observing this for millennia, you would eventually start believing that it is the god of waves, Poseidon, that is also creating earthquakes, as the big earthquakes are always accompanied with big waves...