Thread: This Çatalhöyük mural is thought to depict a nearby volcanic eruption. New scientific evidence confirms a contemporaneous eruption at nearby Hasan Dağ volcano which actually looks very similar. Cool right?
But what I find really interesting about this mural is the depictions of the Çatalhöyük itself underneath the volcano.
Çatalhöyük was a very large settlement in southern Anatolia, which existed from approximately 7100 BC to 5700 BC. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Çatalhöyük
Now Çatalhöyük houses were built in a very unusual way. They had no doors. So people entered houses through roof hatches which also served as chimneys.
Also houses were built right next to each other. The town had no streets and people used roofs to move around the city...
Why?
This is a beehive honeycomb...
Any possible link?
Did people get the idea to built Çatalhöyük the way they did from bees?
Anything in Anatolian mythology that talks about bees = civilisation, society, culture???
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Thread: 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. Let me explain: collections.lacma.org/node/230211
Official description of the throne: "Despite its elaborate decoration, the artfully decorated legs terminating in lion's paw feet...[this throne] could hardly have been sat upon..."
Of course. Apollo is already depicted sitting on it. In a shape of a serpent/dragon...
"...A snake weaves its way in and out of an archer's bow, below which is a quiver full of arrows...The bow and quiver are associated with the god Apollo and the snake might refer to the fearful serpent Python, guardian of the oracle at Delphi, which Apollo slew in his youth..."
Thread: Etruscan gold disc fibula, from the Necropolis of Ponte Sodo, Vulci, Etruria, Italy. 650 BC, from the "Orientalizing period". Currently in the Antikensammlungen, Munich, Bavaria, Germany.
WTH is all this stuff depicted on it? Here is the official description:
"Around a central cross, above, are several birds in flight and, at the sides, two lions with a pendent tongue and serpentine tail; in the centre, two helmeted warriors, with short sword and shield, fight surrounded by a bird respectively." That's it?
Thread: "Motanka", elaborately decorated but always faceless cloth doll was once a common feature in every Ukrainian peasant home. These dolls weren't just toys. They were magic talismans...
The name "motanka" comes from the word "motaty" (to wind) ie to make a knotted doll out of fabric, without using a needle and scissors. The winding of the doll was to be carried out only clockwise...
The fact that the doll had to be wound clockwise (sunwise) is very important as this direction was by our ancestors considered "positive, natural" and the opposite direction was considered "negative, unnatural"...
Two Assyrian soldiers forcing Elamite captive to grind bones of his family, 7th - 6th c. BC. This wasn't like most people think an act of random cruelty...Making someone destroy the bones of their ancestors was a deliberate forced act of sacrilege...
Assyrian culture, like all the other Mesopotamian cultures, was built around the cult of the dead. Assyrians, often buried their dead under house floors. They also practiced "kispu", regular, ritual feeding and watering of the deceased after their burial...
Based on this, in the Petra M. Creamer concludes that "Socially, this indicates deep linkages to familial practices and ancestral memory".asor.org/anetoday/2024/…
Thread: This 2,800 year old ivory was recently discovered in the old Hittite capital Hattusa, Turkey. According to excavation director Prof. Dr. Andreas Schachner, the engraving depicts "a Sphinx, a Lion, and two Trees of Life" and is a unique find.
That's it. That's it?
We don't know:
1. Where was this piece made? 2. What is the meaning of the depicted scene?
So...Let me try to propose the answers to these questions...
I never actually thought about the sphinx symbol before. Crazy I know. But better ever than never 🙂
The oldest, largest and most famous sphinx is the Great Sphinx of Giza, situated on the Giza Plateau adjacent to the Great Pyramids of Giza on the west bank of the Nile River.