Thread: "In the beginning, Agni burned all things, but at the insistence of Shiva, Brahma withdrew Agni, and instead created Yama, the god of death" from: "Encyclopaedia of the Hindu World, Volume 1" By Gaṅgā Rām Garg...
Very interesting...Because of this: Nergal, the Mesopotamian god of death, who "represented the high summer sun which scorched the earth...which hindered crop production"...
In Mesopotamia, Nergal is associated with lions (is actually depicted as a lion). Why? Because in Mesopotamia, Jul/Aug, Leo, is the hottest and driest part of the year. The time of drought. The time of death...
Why Leo? Cause the end of Jul, beginning of Aug marks the beginning of the Eurasian lions main mating season...
But in Indian subcontinent, Leo is the peak of Monsoon season...The wettest time of the year...
The climate in Leo in India is the opposite to the climate in Leo in Mesopotamia...Which is why lion is a negative symbol in Mesopotamia and a positive symbol in India...
So when is the hottest and driest time of the year in India? As you can see on the previous chart, the temperatures start rising during Jan/Feb, beginning of spring, and peak during Apr/May, the end of spring...This is also when we have minimum precipitation...
And the hottest/driest time of the hot and dry season, the time of drought, the time of death, is during Aries...Which is why, I think, Agni rides on a ram...
This is the time of the burning sun, sun's fire, Agni, "which destroys all things"...Remember, in Hindu mythology, Agni (fire) was believed to have three manifestations: Sun, Lightning, Fire...Which is why he had three heads...
So, Agni, in his "burning sun" form, gets replaced by Yama, the god of death, who is in the Rigveda, the son of Surya, the Sun God...Now that makes sense I think...🙂And Yama is also closely associated with Agni, who is both Yama's friend and priest...That too now makes sense...
All very interesting...BTW, Aries this is when Slavs celebrate Jarilo, Sun god whose name means Brightly burning one...I wrote about Jarilo in this thread
Jarilo, the dragon (symbol of the destructive sun's heat)...Like this Mesopotamian dragon, with 7 snake heads...Snake, symbol of sun's heat, one for each summer hot dry summer month...
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
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)...
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…
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.
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...
...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...
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...
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...
Thread (a quite long one, sorry, but I think worth reading to the end): A while back @another_barbara posted this 1865 beehive panel image with this description: An interesting Shrovetide tradition from Slovenija "babo žagajo" (sawing of an old woman)...
The other day wanted to write an article about this custom, and while looking around the net for more info on the subject, I came across 1960 paper by Niko Kuret "BABO ŽAGAJO, Slovenske oblike pozabljenega obredja in njegove Evropske paralele" etno-muzej.si/sl/etnolog/slo…
In which he presents all the different versions (he knew of) of the "SAWING OF THE OLD WOMAN" ritual found in Slovenian lands, and its European parallels...
Here I will translate the most interesting bits from this paper, and will then give my interpretation of the ritual...