oldeuropeanculture Profile picture
Aug 10, 2020 7 tweets 3 min read Read on X
Thread: This is truly incredible object. Composite #Lion and Bull, bronze, Iran, 1500-1000 BC. clevelandart.org/art/1969.122 The meaning of this object is unknown. It is presumed that it has served as an object of worship in a temple or shrine...Worship of who? Who else. The beast. 🙂 Image
The beast in this case is the hot, dry season, which in Mesopotamia starts at the beginning of May, beginning of summer and ends at the end of October. Image
It spans summer (symbolised by bull) and autumn (symbolised by lion). I talked about the animal symbols of the seasons in this article:

oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/2019/10/symbol… Image
The dry season in Mesopotamia is the season of drought and death...Completely dominated by the blazing summer and autumn sun....The god of death: Nergal...
And the hottest and driest part of the dry at the moment when bull meets lion. At the end of summer, beginning of autumn. This moment is "marked" by all those "lion killing bull" images, like this one from Persepolis...Lion (autumn) killing (ending) Bull (summer)... Image
This is the lair of the fire breathing dragon... oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/2020/06/is-tha… The seat of the beast... Image
This Iranian two headed figurine is showing us that Bull (summer) and Lion (autumn) are just two phases of the dry season which follow each other...They are just calendar markers...

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with oldeuropeanculture

oldeuropeanculture Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @serbiaireland

Dec 17
Thread: Finnish illustrator Aleksander Lindeberg (1917-2015) Image
Image
Image
Read 8 tweets
Nov 22
Thread: Boreas (1903) by John William Waterhouse...

Boreas is the Greek god of the cold north wind, storms, and winter.

When I saw this picture first, I thought: Why did John William Waterhouse depict Boreas as a young woman wrapped in a black/grey veil? Image
I wondered if he did this because Romans depicted Winter as a woman covered with a black veil...

I talked about Winter here
The problem was that The Roman winter was an Ugly Old Hag...And the woman on John William Waterhouse's painting was young and beautiful. I was sure I was missing something important, but I didn't know what...
Read 9 tweets
Oct 22
Thread: Buckle up, this is going to be quite a ride.

Meet Cetus, Poseidon's pet which he released on people that really pissed him off. Usually kings with beautiful daughters.

3rd c. BC mosaic depicting Cetus, from Ancient Kaulon, Calabria, Italy Image
Two most famous Cetuses 🙂 were so called Æthiopian (Levantine) Cetus and Trojan Cetus. This thread is about them, the two beautiful babes that were supposed to be sacrificed to them to appease them and the two heroes who strongly objected to such arrangements...

Here we go:
Queen Cassiopeia boasted that she and her daughter Andromeda were more beautiful than the Nereids. This angered Poseidon so much that he sent the sea monster Cetus to attack Æthiopia (Levant)...
Read 37 tweets
Sep 27
Thread: Two days ago I wrote this analysis of this Early Mesopotamian bowl. But ever since I wrote it, I can't stop thinking about the "bundle of stylised reeds" and what does it actually look like...Here is why:
This is part of the full object description from the museum page: "...The animals are crouched before a bundle of stylised reeds (not shown), much like the reeds carved into a door at the base of the Ziggurat of Anu..."
Anyone seen this door? Is this what this "bundle of stylised reeds" looked like? Like these two "bundles of stylised reeds" depicted behind Inanna on the Uruk (Wakra) vase ? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warka_VaseImage
Read 14 tweets
Sep 25
Thread: A bowl from southern Mesopotamia c. 3300–2900 BC, Biblical Museum Jerusalem. Lions and calves are depicted lying down peacefully one after the other before a bundle of stylised reeds (not shown). Thanks to Muhammad Asghar for the pic and info.

Meaning? Check this out: Image
Reeds were an important crop in Mesopotamia, as important as grain. Reeds were used as building material for building irrigation canal dams, houses and boats, and for making baskets, mats and furniture...Reeds were also used as animal fodder... Image
You can read about reed 🙂 in Mesopotamian culture in oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/2022/03/scarle… oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/2021/04/canals…
Now: The best time to harvest reeds for animal fodder is between Apr/May, Taurus, and Jul/Aug, Leo...

Ha!!!
Read 6 tweets
Sep 15
Thread:

1st article about the link between Nergal and Apollos:

About "Palil" a nickname of Nergal, the terrible, burning, destructive sun of Jul/Aug, Leo...And about the origin of the name Apollo and its meaning...

oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/2023/01/palil.…Image
Image
Image
2nd article about the link between Nergal and Apollo:

About Nergal and Apollo as "The lords of the flies"...And about Jul/Aug, Leo, being the peak of the fly and fly born diseases season in Northern Hemisphere...

oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/2023/01/lord-o…Image
Image
3rd article about the link between Nergal and Apollo:

About the Lions of Delos, the burning destructive sun in Jul/Aug, Leo, and the fact that both Nergal and Apollo are linked to lions. oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/2024/02/lions-…Image
Read 10 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(