Thread: A Phrygian type, late Byzantine helmet, found 3 years ago in Northern Serbia...
This is what the helmet most likely looked like when it was in use...
And here is a depiction of Byzantine soldiers wearing this type of helmet, from the 12 century incensory, most likely made in Constantinople and currently in St Mark’s Cathedral, Venice, Italy...
The helmet was found in the rectangular field called "mali grad" (small city) 🙂 which is where the Byzantine fort once stood...
The field is in the village of Braničevo Once a very important Byzantine border fortress and the centre of a doukaton (duchy). It's name comes from from the Slavic root "bran" (defend)
Byzantines called it Branitzoba (Βρανίτζοβα) or Branitza (Βρανίτζα)...
This Phrygian type helmet is one of 3 such helmets discovered in the Balkans so far, all dated from the same period, 12th century...
Two found in Braničevo, Serbia. Third, this one, was found in Pernik, Bulgaria...
A lot more very interesting information about this archaeological site, the continuity of the use of Phrygian type helmets in the Eastern Roman Empire, and its spread to the west by Normans can be found in this article academia.edu/41423491/THE_P…
Mosaic from the St Mark’s Cathedral, Venice, Italy, second half of the 12th century, "St Peter in front of Herod Antipas". Soldiers wearing the same Phrygian type helmet. They look like Elves from Lord of the rings...🙂
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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...