Thread: Impression from a cylinder seal from Babylonia, 8th century BC; in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York City themorgan.org/seals-and-tabl… Here is the official description of the scene depicted on the seal:
"A demonic lion faces a winged superhuman hero. The lion's threatening gesture and the tension of his sharp claws suggest his evil power. But the hero will prevail. Taller than the lion, he calmly dominates it, and the bull—the victim of the contest—remains in his power"...🙂
What does this seal really depict?
Well, it depicts Nergal, the Mesopotamian god of death, war, and destruction, who was most often depicted holding a scimitar...
Example: Old Babylonian cylinder seal from Larsa, depicting the underworld (the god of death) Nergal, holding his distinctive scimitar and the double lion headed scepter. The Inscription is a dedication to Nergal by Abisare, perhaps the king of Larsa at that time...
Yeah right. How do we know that the winged dude on the original seal is Nergal?
Because, in his earliest incarnation, in the Early Dynastic Period (c. 2900-2700 BC), this god of death "represented the high summer sun which scorched the earth...which hindered crop production"...
Sooo???
So, the climatic year in Mesopotamia is divide into two halves: cool, wet season (Oct/Nov-Apr/May) and hot, dry season (Apr/May-Oct/Nov)...
The hot dry season spans summer (symbolised by bull) and autumn (symbolised by lion). I talked about the animal symbols of the seasons in this article:
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)...
Which is why, on our original seal, we don't see hero defending the bull from the lion...We see Nergal, deadly sun, standing at the end of summer, symbolised by upside down bull whom he is holding by the hind leg, and the beginning of autumn, symbolised by the attacking lion...
This is the seat of Nergal, the god of death, the destructive sun of the middle of the hot, dry season...In Leo... Which is why Nergal holds double lion headed scepter...
Eeee, what? What about precession? Leo I am talking about has nothing to do with constellations. It is an ancient animal calendar marker, marking the beginning of the main mating season of the Eurasian lions. Which has nothing to do with stars and is not affected by precession...
Nergal, the Burning sun, the Dragon. This cylinder seal from Ur III, is dedicated to Meslamtaea, the earliest name of Nergal. docplayer.hu/47106522-Nerga…
It shows Meslamtaea/Nergal, holding his scimitar, and a "mythical beast", winged lion, both holding onto a scepter which looks very much like the two lion headed scepter of Nergal...
Now the winged lion is the evolution of the "lion with sun rays coming out of his back", which is the symbol for the hot, dry half of the year in Mesopotamia, and particularly the hottest, driest part of the year, Leo... oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/2021/05/nude-w…
So is the scene depicting "Nergal and the dragon fighting over the scepter" a symbolic way of telling us: "Nergal is the dragon"...
Guess who else is standing "between the lions" or "on a lion"? In Leo...The Old Utu/Shamash, the Old Sun of the end of summer...The destructive sun that dries the rivers and canals...And kills people...
The Sumerian poem "Enki and the World Order" exclaims: Young Utu/Shamash (the sun), father of the Great City (the realm of the dead, underworld)...Equating Utu/Shamash with Nergal, the god of the Underworld...
#FolkloreThursday Thread: In Celtic cultures, a bard was a professional story teller, poet, music composer, oral historian and genealogist, employed by a rich patron to commemorate patron's ancestors and to praise the patron's own activities...
Originally "bards" were a specific lower class of poet, contrasting with the higher rank known as "fili" in Ireland and Highland Scotland...
The word "file" (singular of "fili") is thought to derive from the Proto-Celtic *widluios, meaning "seer, one who sees", which is derived ultimately from the verb *widlu-, "to see"...
#FolkloreThursday Thread: The legend about the pozoj (dragon in local dialect) from Čičanjska Jama (jama here meaning marsh, lake, river tributary) near Donji Vidovec, Međimurje, Croatia:
It was long known that there was a pozoj (dragon) in Čičanjska Marsh whose tail was under the Church. [In the legends from the area, dragons were always huge, always lived under ground and always had a tail under some church]
Namely, when the pozoj (dragon) turned over in the marsh, all the candles fell of the altar in the Church. It happened once that a young gentleman dressed in a black suit came to the village. He went to the parish house and talked at length there with the parish priest...
Thread: Large Cycladic krater. On the body of the vase the return of Apollo to Delos from the land of the Hyperboreans. Apollo is welcomed by his sister Artemis, who is holding a deer. 640 BC. National Archaeological Museum in Athens, inv. no. 911....commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:…
Here is the drawing of the complete main scene, which I believe is a complex calendar marker for the end of winter...Well the triumphant arrival of Apollo is a dead giveaway 🙂 He comes back from the "Hyperborea" in the spring...
The pile of birds on the top freeze probably depict migratory birds...So that is another hint...
But I am wandering if the fact that Artemis is offering a deer to Apollo, which she is holding by his antlers, is another symbol for the end of winter...Why? Because of this...
Thread: #FolkloreThursday In South Slavic languages, the phrase used to describe sunrise is "the sun is being born"...
This seems to be a very rare phrase..
It is also found in Albanian, Turkish, Kazakh, Catalan, Portuguese...Any other language??? Why am I interested in this?
I am researching the remnants of the belief in the sun dying in the evening and being born in the morning. We know that it existed in ancient Egypt...
In Serbia the sun was also considered to be a living being which dies and gets reborn. But the life cycle of the sun in the Serbian belief system was one year. The sun dies and gets reborn on winter solstice...
#folklorethursday Thread: Zeleni Jura (Green Yura) walking the earth. Part of Jurjevanje, celebration of the return of Jarilo, Jura, The Young Sun God who brings spring...Today performed on St George's day...Tells you a lot about the true Identity of St George...
This ritual is performed Bela Krajina, area inhabited by descendants of Serbians who migrated here during Turkish invasions of the Balkans. Today split between Croatia/Slovenia...This is the original Green Man...
The Sun God's name Jarilo (pronounced Yareelo) comes from the root "jar" (yar) meaning: young, green (Life giving warm sun of green spring), but also brightly burning and raging, furious (Life destroying burning sun of yellow summer)...