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oldeuropeanculture Profile picture
@serbiaireland
Aug 31, 2021 • 18 tweets • 7 min read • Read on X
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Thread: The other day Gavin Lee @realgavinlee posted this in a tweet: "...bronze figurine of wild water buffalo... Hunan, middle reaches of Yangtze River...13-11 Cent. BC...

I only today saw what's on buffalo's back: a tiger!

This is very important...Here is why: ImageImage
Both wild and domesticated water buffalos are seasonal breeders in most of their range, with the mating typically peaking in Oct/Nov... ImageImage
This means that they are a very good animal calendar markers for Oct/Nov...

In Mesopotamia, the climatic year is divided into hot/dry summer and cool/wet winter. Oct/Nov is when the winter starts... Image
So buffalos were used on Mesopotamian seals as positive symbols for winter (cool/wet season) linked with water (all the precipitation that feeds the water tables falls during winter season):

Buffalo was used as an animal calendar marker for winter in India too. In India the year is also divided into two seasons, wet and dry...But in India, Oct/Nov is the beginning of the dry season... Image
So buffalo symbol in India acquired a negative meaning and became a "buffalo demon" Mahishasura...The enemy of Devas (Gods, good guys). I talked about this buffalo demon in this post:

oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/2020/07/mahish… Image
This opposite climates resulted in Devas being gods in India and demons in Mesopotamia/Persia...

This is the climate in Hunan, China. You can see that the year is divided into hot and wet summer and cool and dry winter. And the mating season of the buffalos marks the beginning of winter again... Image
So a buffalo could be used as an animal calendar marker for winter in China too...

But was it? Enters the tiger 🙂
That this buffalo is indeed an animal calendar marker for winter, can be seen from the fact that it has a tiger on it's back...

Cause guess who mates right after buffalos, during mid winter, Dec/Jan? Continental Eurasian tigers. Of the kind that also once lived in China... Image
Which is why they are used as a symbol for winter...I already talked about tiger symbol in Chine in this post about the origin of the dragon - tiger symbol

oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/2021/08/tiger-… Image
Here tiger is opposed to the Chinese dragon, a positive symbol of water and prosperity. Remember that dragon is a pretty universal symbol of summer sun's heat...And summer in the area where Chinese culture originated is also the wettest part of the year...
oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/2021/08/chines… Image
So....Crouching tiger on a buffalo's back...Both animals mating in winter, both used as animal calendar markers for winter...Hmmm...
What do you think? Do we here have an example of a Bronze Age Chinese animal calendar marker? I think so...

That is if the animal on the buffalo's back is indeed a tiger. 🙂 I know that the Chinese sources say it's a tiger. But it looks very spotty to me...Just like a leopard... ImageImage
But this changes nothing...Continental Eurasian leopards also mate during the winter, a bit later, at the end of winter, beginning of spring, Jan/Feb...

Which is why they were used as a symbol for winter (and spring)
So weather the cat on this buffalo's back is a tiger or a leopard, this ancient Chinese artifact could be a complex animal calendar marker...For winter...

More about animal calendar markers in China can be found in this thread

So, I think that now we have another, proof that the early Chinese didn't live and develop their culture in limbo. They also used animal calendar markers, just like all the other Eurasian and North African cultures from Neolithic onwards...
More about animal (and plant) calendar markers found in ancient cultures, start here oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/p/animal-solar… then check the rest of the blog posts I still didn't add to this page, and finally check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am 6 months behind now

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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

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