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oldeuropeanculture Profile picture
@serbiaireland
Mar 13, 2022 • 21 tweets • 9 min read • Read on X
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Thread: Gold plaque depicting a naked goddess on a horse. According to imj.org.il/en/collections… probably Astarte or Anat. Late Canaan period, 13th c. BC, Found in Levant, but made under strong Egyptian influence.

What is the meaning of this image??? And who is the naked goddess?
Have you ever heard of the "Mother-of-Horses"? (jstor.org/stable/44088926) A goddess found in texts from Bronze Age Ugarit (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugarit)?
Is this goddess standing on a horse the "Mother-of-Horses"?

Well, apparently, we still don't know if she was a goddess or "a symbolic entity representing a human’s concern for their horses"...
Cause the mentions of the "Mother-of-Horses" were apparently found "primarily in incantations against snakebites"...What does horse goddess have to do with snakes?

Well, interestingly both Snakes and Horses are solar animals, Solar symbols...
And so I would here like to propose that the "Mother-of-Horses" was just an epithet...Epithet of whom? Of the alleged Mother of the "Mother-of-Horses": the sun goddess Shapash (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapash), female equivalent of the sun god Shamash...
Snake is a pure solar animal. It is in our world when sun is here (day, hot half of the year) and it is in the underworld when sun is there (night, cold half of the year)...I talked about it in this post:

oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/2022/01/letnit…
This is why snake is one of the oldest solar symbols found in Eurasia

What about horses? The natural breeding season of horses typically begins around mid-April and finishes around mid September...It is marked by wild stallion fights for mares...

oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/2020/06/trojan…
oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/2020/09/unicor…
Horses sexual drive is governed by the sun and it peaks on summer solstice...I heard summer solstice was a big thing for sun worshipers...Hence horse twins marking the midsummer...

I talked about this here
It is not just horses whose mating season is governed by the sun. It's all the equids...Asiatic wild asses have the same mating season as wild horses, which also starts in Apr/May...I talked about this here oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/2020/11/onager…
BTW Equine gestation period is 11-12 months...Which means that the equine mating season (Apr-Sep) is also the equine birthing season...
And that season corresponds to hot dry half of the year in Middle East and Levant...Apr/May - Oct/Nov...The season dominated by the sun...

And the season which starts with the mating season of most common snakes in Eurasia, vipers...
Hence the link between equids and snakes...

Remember this thread about how old is the symbolic link between equids and snakes?

So, I guess, if you knew that the sun god(dess), the one that controls the mating season of horses (hence The Mother of Horses) was the one that controls the appearance and disappearance of snakes, you would logically pray to her for protection from snakes...I guess...
But the guys from the Israel Museum, Jerusalem say it's "Astarte or Anat". Well, It is definitely not Anat...Anat is the one that kills Mot (the hot dry season, season of the horse), and helps Baal (the cool wet season) get the throne...oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/2021/08/anat.h…
She could be Astarte, cause this lady is linked with the grain harvest and storage season, which overlaps with the horse mating season...

oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/2021/10/sacred…
oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/2022/02/jerusa…
oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/2021/10/tishtr…
Now how can I be certain that the horse on our plaque is an animal calendar marker for the horse mating season? Because of what the goddess standing on the horse is holding in each hand: a papyrus and a lotus flower...
And these are very important plant calendar markers...From Egypt...

The water level of the Nile starts to rise when the papyrus starts flowering (Apr/May/Jun...) and it peaks when lotus starts flowering (Jul/Aug/Sep), during the flood...

The flowering seasons of papyrus and lotus demarcate the flood season in Egypt (Apr-Oct), the fertile season...Which is also the fertile season of the horses (Apr-Sep)...

Hence the goddess on the horse holding papyrus and lotus flowers represents period Apr-Sep...
BTW, I just noticed something...The Papyrus - Lotus bunch often depicted on Egyptian wall paintings resembles Ankh, the symbol for Life...Life made possible in Egypt by the flood...

You might like this article... oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/2019/10/an-ki-…
That's it...More about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, 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 9 months behind now...

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More from @serbiaireland

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
oldeuropeanculture Profile picture
Jun 3
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)... Image
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...
Read 64 tweets
oldeuropeanculture Profile picture
May 27
Thread: The žirgeliai (little horses), are common motifs on Lithuanian rooftops, placed there for protection of the house... Image
They are a symbolic depiction of the Ašvieniai (), Baltic counterparts of Vedic Ashvins, who are said to pull the chariot of Saulė (the Sun Goddess) through the sky. As depicted on this rooftop of a house in Nida... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%C5%A1vi…
Image
Both names, Lithuanian ašva and Sanskrit ashva, mean "horse" and are derive from the same Proto-Indo-European root for the horse – *ek'w-...

I talked about Ashvins here
Read 10 tweets
oldeuropeanculture Profile picture
May 14
Ok, buckle up, this is going to be quite a ride🙂

Thread:

Maruts came (to earth) along with Agni (fire) from above...

The other day I read a very interesting paper "Comets and meteoritic showers in the Rigveda and their significance" by R.N. Iyengar () academia.edu/7324390/COMETS…
Image
Most Vedas interpreters agree that Maruts are deified moisture laden monsoon storm winds, turned into rain bringing deities armed with thunder and lightning. Even I agree with that and I even wrote a thread talking about this:
But, the Mysore Palace edition of the Rigveda, which gives in 36 volumes an exhaustive introduction, the text, traditional meaning, ritual application, grammatical explanation, and the Sanskrit commentary of Sâyan says that: Vâyu (winds) and Maruts are distinctly different...
Read 49 tweets

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