Share this page!

Enter URL or ID to Unroll

You can paste full URL like: https://x.com/threadreaderapp/status/1644127596119195649
or just the ID like: 1644127596119195649

How to get URL link on X (Twitter) App

  1. On the Twitter thread, click on or icon on the bottom
  2. Click again on or Share Via icon
  3. Click on Copy Link to Tweet
  4. Paste it above and click "Unroll Thread"!
  5. More info at Twitter Help
oldeuropeanculture Profile picture
@serbiaireland
Apr 4, 2021 • 12 tweets • 5 min read • Read on X
Scrolly
Thread: Why did Assyrian kings like lion hunt so much? According to the Assyrian reliefs, the favorite occupation of the Assyrian kings in peace was a lion hunt...The earliest depictions show the king hunting lions from a chariot using bow and arrows... Image
The later depictions show the king fighting lions on foot. On some of these depictions the king still used bow and arrows to kill the lion... Image
But on most of the reliefs, the king was depicted killing a lion with a spear... Image
Or killing a lion with a sword... Image
I wonder if this was just a sport or was there some religious reason for this lion hunt? This image depicts the Assyrian king pouring libation in a temple on 4 dead lions...Why? As a thanks to the gods for helping him kill the lions? Or are the lions an offering to the gods? Image
You know how lion is the animal calendar marker which represents the hottest and driest part of the year in Mesopotamia and Levant...The time of death caused by drought...Because beginning of August, middle of Leo, is the beginning of the main mating season of Eurasian lions... ImageImage
This is why we find lion depicted with the same heat rays radiating from his back also depicted radiating from the back of the sun god Utu/Shamash oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/2020/12/lion-r… Image
This is also why in the oldest Mesopotamian depictions, dragons, symbols of the Mesopotamian summer (Apr/May - Oct/Nov) and destructive sun's heat, have lion's bodies oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/2020/07/seven-… Image
And you know how it is "the killing of the lion dragon by the thunder god", which signals the end of the hot dry half of the year...And the beginning of the cool wet part of the year, when rain and abundance return to Mesopotamia and Levant...
Was the Assyrian king slaying the lion a symbolic reenactment of the Sky, Rain, Thunder god, slaying the lion dragon? Did Assyrian kings actually have to kill lions to prove that they are indeed divinely ordained to rule?
Any Assyriologists with nothing better to do, who can contribute to this thread?

Images are from "The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World Volume II" by George Rawlinson. English scholar, historian, and Christian theologian (1812-1902)" gutenberg.org/files/16162/16…
There is already one very interesting contribution. Thank you @GOTtheJs

• • •

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

oldeuropeanculture Profile picture
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
oldeuropeanculture Profile picture
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
oldeuropeanculture Profile picture
Aug 26
Thread: Few posts about the Bronze Age bull leaping ritual...
Map of the distribution of bull leaping motifs found on seals and amulets, mid 3rd millennium BC to mid 2nd millennium BC. Eagle headed dudes and bull leaping dudes 🙂 From: "Myths of ancient Bactria and Margiana on its seals and amulets" scribd.com/document/47027…
Image
Read 7 tweets
oldeuropeanculture Profile picture
Aug 20
Thread: The other day I posted this article and it went completely unnoticed??? In this thread I want to present the full analysis of all 4 sides of this sarcophagus. Honestly this is as cool an example of symbolic religious calendar art as they come.

First, I definitely don't think that these panels depict funerary rituals, which is the most common interpretation of the scene ancientworldmagazine.com/articles/agia-…
I think that they could be depicting religious rituals related to Proto Demeter, Persephone and Poseidon. The "two queens and the king" mentioned In the Mycenean Greek tablets dated 1400–1200 BC.

They are also a religious calendar closely linked to the climatic calendar.
Read 36 tweets
oldeuropeanculture Profile picture
Aug 4
Thread: Years ago, anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked by a student what she considered to be the first sign of civilisation in a culture. The student expected Mead to talk about fishhooks or clay pots or grinding stones.

But no... Image
...Mead said that the first sign of civilisation in an ancient culture was a femur (thighbone) that had been broken and then healed. Mead explained that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die...
...You cannot run from danger, get to the river for a drink or hunt for food. You are meat for prowling beasts. No animal survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal...
Read 5 tweets
oldeuropeanculture Profile picture
Jul 3
Thread: Have you ever heard of shepherd's stick calendars? Here's one from Bulgaria...

In the mountains of the Balkans, up until the end of the 20th century, shepherds carried with them calendar sticks... Image
It was a stick with a notch cut into it for every day of the year and a cross or some other symbol for major holy days, which in Serbia are all linked to major agricultural events and major solar cycle events...
At the end of every day a piece of the stick up to the first notch, representing the previous day, was cut off from the stick. When the last piece was cut, the year was over...
Read 8 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!

Send Email!

:(