oldeuropeanculture Profile picture
Jun 20, 2021 10 tweets 5 min read Read on X
Thread: Fragment of a vessel with wheat stalks and a procession of bulls in relief, Late Uruk–Jemdet Nasr, 3300–2900 BC, Southern Mesopotamia. Why bulls and grain? metmuseum.org/art/collection…
Sumerian limestone bull cup with wheat stalks. Late Uruk–Jemdet Nasr, 3100–2900 BC, Southern Mesopotamia. Why bulls and grain? christies.com/lot/lot-a-sume…
Steatite bowl with bulls in relief (5 cm. high). Found in a house of much later (Persian) times; dated stylistically to the Jemdet-Nasr period, 3100–2900 BC, Southern Mesopotamia. Why bulls and grain? classics.unc.edu
Why bulls and grain? For the same reason sun god Shamash/Utu was depicted as a bull with a tail made of wheat...
Because it is in Taurus (Apr/May), that the grain harvest begins in Mesopotamia...
But this is the old Taurus, which has nothing to do with stars...It is an ancient animal calendar marker which marks the beginning of the calving of the wild Eurasian cattle. I talked about it in this thread:

If you look at the Mesopotamian agricultural calendar, you will notice that that in Mesopotamia summer (Apr/May-Jul/Aug) started with grain harvest and ended with grain threshing and storage...

oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/2018/08/sickle…
oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/2020/03/seven-…
The grain collecting season, summer, which starts in Taurus, is symbolised by a bull, because both calving (begins in Apr/May) and mating (begins in Jul/Aug) of Wild Eurasian cattle takes place during the summer, May to August...
oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/2016/05/ram-an…
oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/2019/10/symbol…
Which is why on the Late Uruk–Jemdet Nasr vessels we see bulls depicted with ripe grain...

Now check Hesiod and what his agricultural calendar has to say about grain...

oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/2020/06/hesiod…
A thread about threshing floors that you might find interesting if you have actually read this thread to the end 🙂

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More from @serbiaireland

Dec 29, 2024
Thread: Another interesting detail from this Daunian globular pottery askos, made in Canosa di Puglia and dated to 350BC-325BC, "painted with bands of decoration. This consists of flora and fauna, geometric patterns and swastikas"... metmuseum.org/art/collection…Image
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Is this the symbol? Christmas cake from Serbia with the sun and "the hands of god" cross. The hands of god cross by itself in the next picture. The hands of god represent 4 seasons with 3 months each, which means that the god whose hands these are is the Sun Image
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Dec 28, 2024
Thread: Daunian globular pottery askos, made in Canosa di Puglia and dated to 350BC-325BC, "perhaps for funerary use, painted with bands of decoration. This consists of flora and fauna, geometric patterns and swastikas"...

That's it? metmuseum.org/art/collection…Image
What about this detail? A curly swastika with each arm connected to a sun. Two of which are red and two of which are black. Image
That this is not a one off squiggle, can be seen from the fact that we find the same motif on this Daunian askos from the Heinz Weisz collection christies.com/en/lot/lot-572…Image
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Dec 17, 2024
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Nov 22, 2024
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, 2024
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, 2024
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

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