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oldeuropeanculture Profile picture
@serbiaireland
Mar 3, 2022 • 7 tweets • 4 min read • Read on X
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Thread: Sirens were formerly handmaidens of the goddess Persephone, and they were with her when she was abducted by Hades and was taken to the Underworld... Image
Demeter then gave them bird bodies to help find her. Why? Based on all the animal and plant calendar markers contained in the legend about the Abduction of Persephone, she was abducted at the beginning of winter, Oct/Nov... oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/2020/04/abduct… Image
Ever heard of the belief that migratory birds depart with the sun to the Underworld in autumn and come back with the sun from the Underworld in spring? oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/2017/01/leto.h… ImageImage
Which is why Apollo rides on the chariots pulled by migratory "singing" swans...
oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/2021/11/singer… Image
Ever heard of "Soul birds", Ancient Greek depictions of human souls as birds with human heads? oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/2022/02/soul-b… Image
Or about the belief that souls travel between the land of the living and the land of the dead as birds...

Is this why Demeter turned her daughter's handmaidens into birds with human heads, when she sent them to look for her daughter, who was taken by Hades to the underworld? oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/2022/02/sirens…

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More from @serbiaireland

oldeuropeanculture Profile picture
Jun 22
Thread: Which started as a one line comment on this interesting depiction of a two-headed serpent, with a tree growing from its tail, from the Greco-Roman (2nd c. BC - 2nd c. AD) period Egyptian temple in Esna. Which led to 3 days of research which led to: Nehebkau... Image
First, what snake is this? I checked the most common Egyptian snakes for spots, and there is one that has exactly this colour and spot pattern: "Sahara Horned Viper" (Cerastes cerastes)... Image
But why two heads? I think this could mean mating. Most Egyptian snakes, including Sahara Horned Viper have this reproductive cycle:

Mar–May Mating season, Peak mating season Apr/May (two heads)
May–Jul Females lay eggs
Jul–Sep Eggs incubate and hatch
Read 61 tweets
oldeuropeanculture Profile picture
Apr 18
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…Image
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... Image
@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…Image
Image
Read 45 tweets
oldeuropeanculture Profile picture
Aug 11, 2025
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…Image
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... Image
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....

Read 28 tweets
oldeuropeanculture Profile picture
Aug 6, 2025
Thread: Two Sassanian wall relief slabs dated to the 5th-6th c. AD, depicting rampant ibex goats flanking "the tree of life"... Image
Image
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:

hot, dry half, roughly Apr/May - Oct/Nov
wet, cool half, roughly Oct/Nov - Apr/May Image
And the wet, cool half begins when ibex goats start their mating fights...see, "flanking"... Image
Image
Read 11 tweets
oldeuropeanculture Profile picture
Aug 1, 2025
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? Image
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)...

The moment usually depicted like this
Read 11 tweets
oldeuropeanculture Profile picture
Jun 23, 2025
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 (???)... Image
Why earthquakes? Look at this: Map of the Greek region showing the epicenters of the intermediate depth earthquake activity...

researchgate.net/publication/25…Image
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...
Read 8 tweets

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