The most famous pyramids are the Egyptian — huge structures built of brick or stone, some of which are among the world’s largest constructions. They are shaped as a reference to the rays of the sun.

Pyramids originated from simple rectangular “mastaba” tombs that were being constructed in Egypt over 5,000 years ago, according to finds made by archaeologist Sir Flinders Petrie. A major advance occurred during the reign of the pharaoh Djoser (reign started around 2630 B.C).

Most pyramids had a polished, highly reflective white limestone surface, to give them a shining appearance when viewed from a distance. The capstone was usually made of hard stone – granite or basalt – and could be plated with gold, silver, or electrum and would also be highly reflective.

After 2700 BC, the ancient Egyptians began building pyramids, until around 1700 BC. The first pyramid was erected during the Third Dynasty by the Pharaoh Djoser and his architect Imhotep. This step pyramid consisted of six stacked mastabas, from the Arabic word maṣṭaba (stone bench”).

A mastaba or pr-djt (meaning “house of eternity” or “eternal house” in Ancient Egyptian) is a type of ancient Egyptian tomb in the form of a flat-roofed, rectangular structure with inward sloping sides, constructed out of mud-bricks.

These edifices marked the burial sites of many eminent Egyptians during Egypt’s Early Dynastic Period and Old Kingdom. In the Old Kingdom epoch, local kings began to be buried in pyramids instead of in mastabas, although non-royal use of mastabas continued for over a thousand years.

The age of the pyramids reached its zenith at Giza in 2575–2150 BC. The largest Egyptian pyramids are those at the Giza pyramid complex, also called the Giza Necropolis, the site on the Giza Plateau in Egypt that includes the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Pyramid of Khafre, and the Pyramid of Menkaure, along with their associated pyramid complexes and the Great Sphinx of Giza.

All were built during the Fourth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom of Ancient Egypt. The site also includes several cemeteries and the remains of a workers’ village.

The initial temples of Pharaonic Egypt were made of “mud bricks” (as in Mesopotamia), whereas building in stone came thereafter, “mimicking” the same style of architectural building previously used for building in mud brick.

This fact led the Egyptologist Walter Emery to conclude that the Pharaonic Egyptian culture traced its origin back to an immigrant people, perhaps from south Mesopotamia.

The Mesopotamians built the earliest pyramidal structures, called ziggurats. In ancient times, these were brightly painted in gold/bronze. Since they were constructed of sun-dried mud-brick, little remains of them.

Ziggurats were built by the Sumerians, Babylonians, Elamites, Akkadians, and Assyrians for local religions. Each ziggurat was part of a temple complex which included other buildings. The earliest ziggurats began near the end of the Early Dynastic Period. The latest Mesopotamian ziggurats date from the 6th century BC.

Built in receding tiers upon a rectangular, oval, or square platform, the ziggurat was a pyramidal structure with a flat top. Sun-baked bricks made up the core of the ziggurat with facings of fired bricks on the outside.

The facings were often glazed in different colors and may have had astrological significance. Kings sometimes had their names engraved on these glazed bricks. The number of tiers ranged from two to seven.

It is assumed that they had shrines at the top, but there is no archaeological evidence for this and the only textual evidence is from Herodotus. Access to the shrine would have been by a series of ramps on one side of the ziggurat or by a spiral ramp from base to summit.

The precursors of the ziggurat were raised platforms that date from the Ubaid period, a prehistoric period of Mesopotamia. In South Mesopotamia it is the earliest period known period on the alluvial plain although it is likely earlier periods exist obscured under the alluvium. In the south it has a very long duration between about 6500 and 3800 BC when it is replaced by the Uruk period.

Located 12 km southwest of Ur, Eridu was the southernmost of a conglomeration of Sumerian cities that grew around temples, almost in sight of one another. These buildings were made of mud brick and built on top of one another. With the temples growing upward and the village growing outward, a larger city was built.

É is the Sumerian word or symbol for house or temple. The Sumerian term É.GAL (“palace”, literally “big house”) denoted a city’s main building. É.LUGAL (“king’s house”) was used synonymously. In the texts of Lagash, the É.GAL is the center of the ensi’s administration of the city, and the site of the city archives.

Sumerian É.GAL “palace” is the probable etymology of Semitic words for “palace, temple”, such as Hebrew heikhal, and Arabic haykal. It has thus been speculated that the word É originated from something akin to *hai or *ˀai, especially since the cuneiform sign È is used for /a/ in Eblaite.

The term temen appearing frequently after É in names of ziggurats is translated as “foundation pegs”, apparently the first step in the construction process of a house; compare, for example, verses 551–561 of the account of the construction of E-ninnu:

«He stretched out lines in the most perfect way; he set up (?) a sanctuary in the holy uzga. In the house, Enki drove in the foundation pegs, while Nanshe, the daughter of Eridu, took care of the oracular messages.

The mother of Lagash, holy Gatumdug, gave birth to its bricks amid cries (?), and Bau, the lady, first-born daughter of An, sprinkled them with oil and cedar essence. En and lagar priests were detailed to the house to provide maintenance for it. The Anuna gods stood there full of admiration.»

Temen has been occasionally compared to Greek temenos “holy precinct”, but since the latter has a well established Indo-European etymology in the word temple the comparison is either mistaken, or at best describes a case of popular etymology or convergence.

In E-temen-an-ki, “the temple of the foundation (pegs) of heaven and earth”, temen has been taken to refer to an axis mundi connecting earth to heaven (thus re-enforcing the Tower of Babel connection).

However, the term re-appears in several other temple names, referring to their physical stability rather than, or as well as, to a mythological world axis; compare the Egyptian notion of Djed.

A temenos (Greek: temenē) is a piece of land cut off and assigned as an official domain, especially to kings and chiefs, or a piece of land marked off from common uses and dedicated to a god, a sanctuary, holy grove or holy precinct.

Göbekli Tepe (Turkish for “Potbelly Hill”) is an archaeological site in the Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey approximately 12 km (7 mi) northeast of the city of Şanlıurfa. The tell has a height of 15 m (49 ft) and is about 300 m (980 ft) in diameter. It is approximately 760 m (2,490 ft) above sea level.

The tell includes two phases of use, believed to be of a social or ritual nature by site discoverer and excavator Klaus Schmidt, dating back to the 10th–8th millennium BCE. During the first phase, belonging to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA), circles of massive T-shaped stone pillars were erected – the world’s oldest known megaliths.

At this early stage of the site’s history, circular compounds or temene first appear. They range from 10 to 30 metres in diameter. Their most notable feature is the presence of T-shaped limestone pillars evenly set within thick interior walls composed of unworked stone.

The Leyla-Tepe culture of ancient Caucasian Albania belongs to the Chalcolithic era. It got its name from the site in the Agdam district of modern day Azerbaijan. Its settlements were distributed on the southern slopes of Central Caucasus, from 4350 until 4000 B.C.

The culture has also been linked to the north Ubaid period monuments, in particular, with the settlements in the Eastern Anatolia Region (Arslantepe, Coruchu-tepe, Tepechik, etc.). Other sites belonging to the same culture are in the Armenian held Karabakh valley of the partially recognized state of the Republic of Artsakh.

The settlement is of a typical Western-Asian variety, closely associated with subsequent civilizations found on the Armenian Highlands. This is evident with the dwellings packed closely together and made of mud bricks with smoke outlets, which closely resemble Armenian tonirs.

It has been suggested that the Leyla-Tepe were the founders of the Maykop culture. An expedition to Syria by the Russian Academy of Sciences revealed the similarity of the Maykop and Leyla-Tepe artifacts with those found recently while excavating the ancient city of Tel Khazneh I, from the 4th millennium BC.

Leyla-Tepe pottery is very similar to the ‘Chaff-Faced Ware’ of the northern Syria and Mesopotamia. It is especially well attested at Amuq F phase. Similar pottery is also found at Kultepe, Azerbaijan.

Among the sites associated with this culture, the Soyugbulag kurgans or barrows are of special importance. They were dated to the beginning of the fourth millennium BC, which makes it the oldest kurgan cemetery in Transcaucasia.

The excavation of these kurgans, located in Kaspi Municipality, in central Georgia, demonstrated an unexpectedly early date of such structures on the territory of Azerbaijan. They were dated to the beginning of the 4th millennium BC.

Several other archaeological sites seem to belong to the same ancient cultural tradition as Soyuq Bulaq. They include Berikldeebi, Kavtiskhevi, Leilatepe, Boyuk Kesik, and Poylu, Agstafa, and are characterized by pottery assemblages “mainly or totally in the North Mesopotamian tradition”.

The Kurgans provide us with an “earlier” people who buried their dead in a manner which must be regarded as a technological precursor to the later burial mounds of Babylon and Egypt, a people of Europe.

We find a clear correlation between the megaliths of Anatolia and the ones of Western Europe. Dolmens and Menhirs found in eastern Anatolia are similar to the ones found in western France and northern England.

The Caucasian Proignitors of the Megalith, Kurgans and Pyramids

Turkish airstrikes against Kurdish forces have partially destroyed a 3,000-year-old temple in northern Syria located near the village of Ain Dara, in Afrin, according to a monitoring group and the Syrian regime.

It was built in three structural phases in the period from about 1300 BC to 740 BC. This was preceded by the Chalcolithic period during the fourth millennium BC, and the tell remained occupied until the Ottoman period (1517 -1917).

The neo-Hittite temple of Ain Dara was built in around 1300 BC and is famous for its elaborate images of lions and sphinxes, a mythical creature with the head of a human and the body of a lion comparable to the cherubim of the First Temple.

A cherub is one of the unearthly beings who directly attend to God according to Abrahamic religions. The numerous depictions of cherubim assign to them many different roles, such as protecting the entrance of the Garden of Eden.

Ain Dara may have been devoted to Ishtar, goddess of fertility; or dedicated to the female goddess Astarte, or the deity Ba’al Hadad. The temple was at least 60 per cent destroyed by Turkish forces as they attacked the Kurdish-held area of Afrin, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said.

It is an Iron Age Syro-Hittite temple noted for its similarities to Solomon’s Temple, also known as the First Temple, as described in the Hebrew Bible. The temples of Emar, Mumbaqat, and Ebla are also comparable.

According to the excavator Ali Abu Assaf, it was in existence from 1300 BC until 740 BC and remained “basically the same” during the period of the Solomonic Temple’s construction (1000 – 900 BC) as it had been before, so that it predates the Solomonic Temple.

Already the smaller Tell Tayinat temple, discovered during excavations in 1936 and located about 50 miles (80 km) away, had “caused a sensation because of its similarities to Solomon’s Temple.

Tell Tayinat temple is a low-lying ancient tell on the east bank at the bend of the ancient Orontes river, in the Hatay province of southeastern Turkey about 25 kilometers south east of Antakya (ancient Antioch).

It is located along the southwestern edge of the Amuq valley. The site lies some 800 meters from Tell Atchana, the site of the ancient city of Alalakh. It is a possible site of the city of Calneh mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures.

The red-black burnished ware (Karaz ware) is recovered in large quantities from the Early Bronze Age (EBA) II and IIIa levels. It is among the most commonly used pottery on the site. This type of pottery diminishes through the end of the last phase of EBA. This pottery is believed to be influenced by the Kura-Araxes culture, arriving into this area around 3000 BCE.

The site was a major urban centre in two separate phases, during the Early Bronze Age and Early Iron Age. One of the key finds made at the site was a temple reminiscent in plan to the descriptions of King Solomon’s Temple in the Old Testament.

Several large palaces in the style known as Bit-hilani were also excavated. A Bit-hilani (Akkadian: Bīt-Ḫilāni, meaning ‘house of pillars’) is an ancient architectural type of palace. It seems that Bit-hilani have become popular at the end of the 10th and during the 9th century BCE during the early Iron Age in northern Syria although it may have originated as early as the Bronze Age.

Contemporary records call it a Hittite-style palace, probably after the Neo-Hittite kingdoms of northern Syria. This building type has also spread to the Southern Levant, where it has been widely used.

This type of design with a large central space surrounded by a double wall with smaller rooms taking up the space within the walls may be based on designs first used in the late Ubaid period in southern Mesopotamia such as the Ubaid house.

Pillared porticos as gates or grand entrances were used by several cultures of the Bronze Age around the eastern Mediterranean sea. The examples of the Hittites and the Myceneans may be the best known. Through the megarons and propylaea of the mycenaean palaces the style may have lived into classical Greek designs.

The late hilani of the Levant may well be the combination of the old broad-room concept with a Hittite-style portico. In recent traditional architecture it may have a late resemblance in the design of the liwan house.

Liwan (from Persian eyvān) is a word used since ancient times into the present to refer to a long narrow-fronted hall or vaulted portal found in Levantine homes that is often open to the outside. An Arabic loanword to English, it is ultimately derived from the Persian eyvān, which preceded by the article al (“the”), came to be said as Liwan in Arabic and later, English.

During the Early Iron Age, this is thought likely to be the site of ancient Kinalua, the capital of one of the Neo-Hittite/Aramean city-kingdoms of Walistin (Aramaic) or Palistin (neo-Hittite). Among the culturally diverse Syro-Hittite states in the north Syrian river-plain the rulers of Kinalua continued to bear royal Hittite names in the 8th century BCE.

In August of 2017, it was reported that a majestic female statue was discovered at the site, within a monumental gate complex leading to the upper citadel of the city. At that time the city was known as Kunulua, and it was the capital of the Iron Age Neo-Hittite Kingdom of Patina (ca 1000-738 BC).

This may be an image of Kubaba, divine mother of the gods of ancient Anatolia. Or it may be Kupapiyas, who was the wife – or possibly mother – of Taita, the dynastic founder of ancient Tayinat. But it’s also possible that the statue represents the wife of King Suppiluliuma. Archaeologist Timothy Harrison raised the possibility that women played quite a prominent role in the political and religious lives of these early Iron Age communities.

The Kura–Araxes culture or the early trans-Caucasian culture was a civilization that existed from about 4000 BC until about 2000 BC, which has traditionally been regarded as the date of its end.

The earliest evidence for this culture is found on the Ararat plain; it spread northward in Caucasus by 3000 BC. Its territory corresponds to large parts of modern Armenia, Azerbaijan, Chechnya, Dagestan, Georgia, Ingushetia, North Ossetia, and parts of Iran and Turkey.

The name of the culture is derived from the Kura and Araxes river valleys. It is sometimes known as Shengavitian, Karaz (Erzurum), Pulur, and Yanik Tepe (Iranian Azerbaijan, near Lake Urmia) cultures. Hurrian and Urartian language elements are quite probable, as are Northeast Caucasian ones. The presence of Kartvelian languages was also highly probable.

Influences of Semitic languages and Indo-European languages are highly possible, though the presence of the languages on the lands of the Kura–Araxes culture is more controversial. In the Armenian hypothesis of Indo-European origins, this culture (and perhaps that of the Maykop culture) is identified with the speakers of the Anatolian languages.

Rather quickly, elements of Kura–Araxes culture started to proceed westward to the Erzurum plain, southwest to Cilicia, and to the southeast into the area of Lake Van, and below the Urmia basin in Iran, such as to Godin Tepe.

Finally, it proceeded into the present-day Syria (Amuq valley), and as far as Palestine. It gave rise to the later Khirbet Kerak-ware culture found in Syria and Canaan after the fall of the Akkadian Empire.

A theory has been suggested by Stephen Batiuk that the Kura-Araxes folk may have spread Vitis vinifera vine and wine technology to the “Fertile Crescent”—to Mesopotamia and the Eastern Mediterranean.

The spread of wine-goblet form, such as represented by the Khirbet Kerak ware, is clearly associated with these peoples. The same applies to the large ceramic vessels used for grape fermentation.

Khirbet Kerak culture (Arabic: Khirbet al-Karak, “the ruin of the fortress”) or Beth Yerah (Hebrew: House of the Moon (god)”) appears to have been a Levantine version of the Early Transcaucasian Culture.

Khirbet Kerak is a tell located on the southern shore of the Sea of Galilee in modern-day Israel. The tell spans an area of over 50 acres—one of the largest in the Levant. It contains remains dating from the Early Bronze Age (c. 3000 BCE – 2000 BCE) and from the Persian period (c. 450 BCE) through to the Early Islamic period (c. 1000 CE).

Khirbet Kerak ware is a type of Early Bronze Age Syro-Palestinian pottery first discovered at this site. It is also found in other parts of the Levant, including Jericho, Beth Shan, Tell Judeideh, and Ugarit.

Beth Yerah means “House of the Moon (god)”. Though it is not mentioned in the Hebrew Bible or other Bronze or Iron Age sources, the name may preserve, at least in part, the Canaanite toponym of Ablm-bt-Yrh, “the city/fort (qrt) of his-majesty Yarih”.

As Ablm (Heb. Abel), this location is mentioned in the 14th century BCE Epic of Aqhat, and is thought to be a reference to the Early Bronze Age structure extant at Khirbet Kerak. The name Bet Yerah has generally been accepted and applied to the site of Khirbet Kerak, though the evidence for its being located there is circumstantial.

The 2009 discovery at the tell of a stone palette with Egyptian motifs, including an ankh, points to trade/political relations with the First dynasty of Egypt, at approximately 3000 BCE. Archaeologists use the terms Khabur ware and Nuzi ware for two types of wheel-made pottery used by the Hurrians.

The Hurrians occupied a broad arc of fertile farmland stretching from the Khabur River valley in the west to the foothills of the Zagros Mountains in the east. By the Early Iron Age, the Hurrians had been assimilated with other peoples. Their remnants were subdued by a related people that formed the state of Urartu. The present-day Armenians are an amalgam of the Indo-European groups with the Hurrians and Urartians.

The largest and most influential Hurrian nation was the kingdom of Mitanni, the Mitanni perhaps being Indo-Iranian speakers who formed a ruling class over the Hurrians. The population of the Indo-European-speaking Hittite Empire in Anatolia included a large population of Hurrians, and there is significant Hurrian influence in Hittite mythology.

Khabur ware is a specific type of pottery named after the Khabur River region, in northeastern Syria, where large quantities of it were found by the archaeologist Max Mallowan at the site of Chagar Bazar.

The pottery’s distribution is not confined to the Khabur region, but spreads across northern Iraq and is also found at a few sites in Turkey and Iran. Archaeologists associate the pottery with the cuneiform texts dated to the reign of Shamshi-Adad I, although it is not clear how much earlier it was manufactured.

Four main Khabur ware phases are established, 1-4. While the starting date for phase 1 is inconclusive, a tentative date of ca. 1900 BC is suggested based on evidence from Tell Brak. The beginning of the second, and the main, phase of Khabur ware is dated to the reign of Shamshi-Adad I (ca. 1813 BC), based on evidence from Chagar Bazar, Tell al-Rimah, Tell Taya and Tell Leilan.

The third phase of Khabur ware is dated to ca. 1750, and lasts until ca. 1550. The fourth and last phase, is a period shared between Khabur ware and Nuzi ware, and ends with the its disappearance ca. 1400 BC.

The Hurrians were masterful ceramists. Their pottery is commonly found in Mesopotamia and in the lands west of the Euphrates; it was highly valued in distant Egypt, by the time of the New Kingdom.

Nuzi (or Nuzu; Akkadian Gasur; modern Yorghan Tepe, Iraq) was an ancient Mesopotamian city southwest of the city of Arrapha (Karka modern Kirkuk in modern Al Ta’amim Governorate of Iraq), located near the Tigris river.

The Nuzi texts are ancient documents found during an excavation of Nuzi, an ancient Mesopotamian city southwest of Kirkuk in modern Al Ta’amim Governorate of Iraq, located near the Tigris river. The site consists of one medium-sized multiperiod tell and two small single period mounds.

An archive contemporary to the Hurrian archive at Nuzi has been excavated from the “Green Palace” at the site of Tell al-Fakhar, 35 kilometres (22 mi) southwest of Nuzi. The texts are mainly legal and business documents.

They have been viewed as evidence for the age and veracity of certain parts of the Old Testament, especially of the Patriarchal age. These tablets have been described as showing parallels between the Bible and Hurrian culture such as making a slave an heir and using a surrogate for a barren wife.

In Norse mythology, Fimbulvetr (or fimbulvinter), commonly rendered in English as Fimbulwinter, is the immediate prelude to the events of Ragnarök. Fimbulvetr comes from Old Norse, meaning “awful, great winter”. The prefix “fimbul” means “the great/big” so the correct interpretation of the word is “the great winter”.

“Fenrisulven sluker Sola. Klimakatastrofen som begynte året 536 var ganske sikkert den mest dramatiske nedkjølingen mennesker, dyr og planter har opplevd de siste to tusen årene. Antakelig inntraff to store vulkaneksplosjoner, som med noen års mellomrom sendte enorme mengder fint støv høyt opp i atmosfæren. Der ble støvet i flere år. Sola forsvant. I menneskenes fantasi og mytedannelser ble historien en annen.”

Fimbulvinteren er ikke en myte

Archaeologists have unearthed a Neolithic-era temple with three almost-intact stelae similar in form to the famous and controversial Göbekli Tepe. The ancient temple was unearthed in the Ilısu neighborhood of Dargeçit in southeastern Turkey’s Mardin province and archaeologists estimate that it was built 11,300 years-old.

Dr. Ergül Kodaş of Mardin Artuklu University’s Archaeology Department is the scientific counselor to the excavations at the Boncuklu Tarla (Beaded Field) site, which is the earliest known human settlement in the city. He told press that this ancient spiritual center was active in the same era as the famous Göbekli Tepe which is considered the birthplace of early civilization and the oldest temple on earth.

This 861 square foot (80 square meter) temple shares certain features with Göbekli Tepe and a Hürriyet report says “intense work” has been carried out in a large area which also includes the site known as Boncuklu Tarla (Beaded Field), the earliest known human settlement in Mardin which was discovered in 2008 during a field survey.

A 2017 Daily Sabah article says archaeological excavations conducted by Mardin Museum Director Nihat Erdoğan and his team in the Boncuklu Tarla settlement uncovered the buildings, cultures, social lives, and burial traditions of the people who lived in northern Mesopotamia during the Aceramic Neolithic period between 10,000 BC to 7,000 BC. And just like this new discovery, their buildings had “rubble stone walls with foundations hardened by clay”.

A study is throwing new light on the population and history of Neolithic Britain. It provides evidence that Stonehenge’s builders were the descendants of farmers who had temporarily settled in modern-day Iberia but originated in what is now Turkey. The research involving the examination of DNA samples indicates that migrant farmers almost completely displaced the native hunter-gatherers, who had roamed the island for thousands of years.

A team of researchers from the Natural History Museum of London carried out the study that examined the DNA of 53 individuals who lived in Britain between 4500 and 12,000 years ago. According to the Independent, the experts examined “47 Neolithic farmer skeletons dating from 6,000 to 4,500 years ago and six Mesolithic hunter-gatherer skeletons.”

The results of the DNA analysis allowed the team to compare the genetic makeup of populations from two very different epochs. Then the DNA from the sample of Neolithic farmers was compared to other populations who lived in the same era in continental Europe.

The researchers were taken aback by what they found after studying all the data. Based on the evidence, the Neolithic people who were responsible for Stonehenge originated in the region of modern-day Turkey. The BBC reports that they were probably part of a “massive expansion of people out of Anatolia in 6,000 BC that introduced farming to Europe.” They were probably looking for more arable land to feed their growing population.

11,300 Year-Old Mini Göbekli Tepe Unearthed In Turkey

11,300-year-old temple found in historical Armenia

Little Armenia is a neighborhood in Central Los Angeles, California. The name comes from the large number of Armenian-Americans who live in the area and also from the large number of Armenian stores and businesses that had already opened in the neighborhood by the early 1970s.

The Los Angeles metropolitan area has the highest concentration of Armenian institutions and cultural programs in the United States. These institutions include businesses, restaurants, Armenian food stores, voluntary associations, clubs, radio programs, newspapers, television programs, nursing homes, churches, and Armenian American schools.

St. Garabed Armenian Apostolic Church is an Armenian church that is located inside Little Armenia. St. Garabed church is the place of worship for the vast majority of Armenians living in Hollywood. It is located on Alexandria Avenue and it was built in 1978.

On October 6, 2000, the Los Angeles City Council designated a portion of east Hollywood as “Little Armenia” in an effort to recognize the community’s vast “presence and voice in Los Angeles.” The area is served by the Metro Red Line at the Hollywood/Western, Vermont/Sunset and Vermont/Santa Monica stations.

It is named after the Armenians who escaped genocide and made their way to Los Angeles during the early part of the 20th century. On April 24 each year, Armenians gather in Hollywood to commemorate the Armenian Genocide. An Armenian genocide memorial opened in Grand Park in September 2016.

The 2015 Armenian March for Justice saw over 130,000 people march from the Little Armenia neighborhood of Hollywood to the Turkish Consulate of Los Angeles to demand recognition and justice for the Armenian Genocide on the centennial anniversary of the tragedy.

In June 2018, the City Council voted 4-0 to rename a two-block section of Maryland Avenue, between Wilson Avenue and Harvard Street, to Artsakh Avenue. During the decision-making process, Councilman Ara Najarian said it was overdue to have a street referencing the city’s large Armenian-American community.

Two blocks of Artsakh Avenue, the heart of Glendale’s art and entertainment district, will be turned into a one-way street with an extended sidewalk for public use. It is expected to be completed by spring 2021. The hope is that this project will finally breathe life into what the city designated as its art and entertainment district in 2012.

The first significant wave of Armenian immigration to Los Angeles occurred from Western Armenia – a territory located in modern-day eastern Turkey – due to the Armenian Genocide during the violent disruption and break-up of the Ottoman Empire – however, most Armenians ended up dispersed in countries such as Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt.

The Armenian population is subdivided according to their countries of birth, where groups had developed distinctly different cultures. In addition to those born in Armenia, these include those born in the United States, Iranian Armenians, Lebanese Armenians, and Turkish Armenians, as well as those from elsewhere in the former Soviet Union and the Middle East.

The Los Angeles metropolitan area has a significant Armenian American population. As of 1990 this single area holds the largest population of Armenians in the world outside of Armenia. On February 23, 2007, Los Angeles became the sister city of Yerevan, the capital of Armenia.

Though Hollywood was once home to the biggest Armenian community in the region, Glendale surpassed Hollywood in both the total number and proportion of Armenians in population, while Burbank, Pasadena, Montebello, and La Crescenta also have large Armenian communities but with no special designation.

Anny P. Bakalian, author of Armenian-Americans: From Being to Feeling Armenian, wrote that “Los Angeles has become a sort of Mecca for traditional Armenianness.” In the Los Angeles area Armenians have frequent contact with Hispanics and Latinos, including those of Mexican and Salvadoran origin.

Urartu is a geographical region commonly used as the exonym for the Iron Age kingdom also known by the modern rendition of its endonym, the Kingdom of Van, centered around Lake Van in the historic Armenian Highlands (present-day eastern Anatolia).

There is linguistic evidence of contact between the proto-Armenian language and the Urartian language at an early date (sometime between the 3rd—2nd millennium BC), occurring prior to the formation of Urartu as a kingdom. Being heirs to the Urartian realm, the earliest identifiable ancestors of the Armenians are the peoples of Urartu.

Ḫaldi (d,Ḫaldi, also known as Khaldi) was one of the three chief deities of Urartu. He was a warrior god to whom the kings of Urartu would pray for victories in battle. Ḫaldi was portrayed as a man with or without wings, standing on a lion. His wife was the goddess Arubani and/or the goddess Bagvarti.

Some sources claim that the legendary patriarch and founder of the Armenians, Hayk, is derived from Ḫaldi. Haldi could be etymologically related to the Hurrian word “heldi”, meaning “high”. An alternate theory postulates that the name could be of Indo-European (possibly Helleno-Armenian) or Old Armenian origin, meaning “sun god” (compare with Greek Helios and Latin Sol).

Hayk the Great or The Great Hayk, also known as Hayk Nahapet (Hayk the “head of family” or patriarch), is the legendary patriarch and founder of the Armenian nation. His story is told in the History of Armenia attributed to the Armenian historian Moses of Chorene (or Movses Khorenatsi, c. 410 – c. 490).

Armen Petroyan believes that the name Hayk can “very plausibly” be derived from the Indo-European *poti- ‘master, lord, master of the house, husband’. Mayr and hayr are the formal words for “mother” and “father” in Armenian.

Çavuştepe (Armenian: Հայկաբերդ; Haykaberd, meaning “Fortress of Hayk”; Kurdish: Aspeşîn‎) or Sardurihinilli is an ancient fortified site in the Gürpınar district of Van Province in Turkey’s Eastern Anatolia region.

It is located approximately 25 kilometers southeast of Van along the road leading to the city of Hakkâri, in a valley once known as Hayots Dzor (Armenian: Հայոց Ձոր; “Valley of the Armenians”) in historic Armenia. It was used by the Urartian kings as a fortress during the 8th century BC.

Sarduri I (ruled: 834 BC – 828 BC), also known as Sarduris, was a king of Urartu in Asia Minor. He was the son of Lutipri, the second monarch of Urartu. The title Sarduri used was ‘King of the Four Quarters’. The name Sarduri has been connected to the Armenian name Zardur (“star-given”).

Sarduri I is most known for moving the capital of the Urartu kingdom to Tushpa (Van). This proved to be significant as Tushpa became the focal point of politics in the Near East. He was succeeded by his son, Ishpuini of Urartu, who then expanded the kingdom.

Ayn Rand (born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum; 1905 – 1982) was a Russian-American writer and philosopher. She was born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum to a Russian-Jewish bourgeois family living in Saint Petersburg.

Her Objectivism rejects primitivism and tribalism, while arguing that they are symptomatic of an “anti-industrial” mentality. She believed that the indigenous Native Americans, who in her estimation exhibited these “savage” traits, thus forfeited their property rights in doing so.

According to Sam Anderson of New York magazine, Rand also contended that Native Americans, “having failed for millennia to create a heroically productive capitalist society, deserved to be stripped of their land.”

When Rand addressed West Point Military Academy cadets in 1974 and was asked about the dispossession and “cultural genocide” of Native Americans which occurred en route to forming the United States, she replied that …

indigenous people “had no right to a country merely because they were born here and then acted like savages …. Since the Indians did not have the concept of property or property rights – they didn’t have a settled society, they had predominantly nomadic tribal “cultures” – they didn’t have rights to the land, and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights that they had not conceived of and were not using.”

Rand went on to opine that “in opposing the white man” Native Americans wished to “continue a primitive existence” and “live like animals or cavemen”, surmising that “any European who brought with him an element of civilization had the right to take over this continent.”

On Columbus Day of 1992, Michael Berliner, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, reiterated this philosophical position and hailed the European conquest of North America, describing the indigenous culture as “a way of life dominated by fatalism, passivity, and magic.”

Western civilization, Berliner claimed, brought “reason, science, self-reliance, individualism, ambition, and productive achievement” to a people who were based in “primitivism, mysticism, and collectivism”, and to a land that was “sparsely inhabited, unused, and underdeveloped.”

In a 1999 follow up editorial for Capitalism Magazine, Berliner, who was also senior adviser to the Ayn Rand Archives, expressed objectivism’s “reverence” for Western Civilization which he referred to as an “objectively superior culture” that “stands for man at his best.”

In response to Michael Berliner’s critiques of Native American society, Robert McGhee, an archaeologist with the Canadian Museum of Civilization, stated that the United States Constitution and its concept of democracy “may owe much, to the political concepts of the Iroquois and other Native peoples.”

Harvard Law Professor Alison L. Lacroix counters in her work The Ideological Origins of American Federalism that the case consists of purely circumstantial evidence that does not actually support any hypothesis that suggests Native American influence on the Founding Fathers.

Additionally, in 2005, the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights rejected a proposal by the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs to formally apologize to Native Americans, stating that the proper response from “Indians” instead should be “gratitude.”

The Ayn Rand Center’s remarks went on to decree the transfer of Western civilization to the Americas as “one of the great cultural gifts in recorded history, affording Indians almost effortless access to centuries of European accomplishments in philosophy, science, technology, and government”, remarking that “before Europeans arrived, the scattered tribes occupying North America lived in abject poverty, ignorance, and superstition”.

Rand’s rejection of what she deemed to be “primitivism” also extended to the Arab–Israeli conflict. Following the Arab-Israeli War of 1973, Rand denounced Arabs as “primitive” and “one of the least developed cultures” who “are typically nomads.”

Consequently, Rand contended Arab resentment for Israel was a result of the Jewish state being “the sole beachhead of modern science and civilization on their (Arabs) continent”, while decreeing that “when you have civilized men fighting savages, you support the civilized men, no matter who they are.”

When asked about the topic during a May 1979 episode of The Phil Donahue Show, Ayn Rand repeated her support for Israel against the Arabs under the reasoning that they were “the advanced, technological, civilized country amidst a group of almost totally primitive savages […] who resent Israel because it’s bringing industry, intelligence, and modern technology into their stagnation.”

A study published in Nature on August 22 analyzed the piece of bone and discovered that the ancient girl that the fragment belonged to was a never-before-discovered hybrid of two ancient human relatives: a Neanderthal and a Denisovan.

Neanderthals and Denisovans inhabited Eurasia for thousands of years until around 40,000 years ago when they were replaced by modern humans. The Neanderthals primarily occupied the west and the Denisovans were found in the east.

Scientists Have Uncovered The 90,000-Year-Old Hybrid Of Two Extinct Human Species

The Spanish Supreme Court has recently delivered a historic verdict banning all activities relates to bull torture at the “Toro de la Vega” festival, thus saving countless animals from great suffering.

Haplogroup J2 is thought to have appeared somewhere in the Middle East towards the end of the last glaciation, between 15,000 and 22,000 years ago. There is a distinct association of ancient J2 civilisations with bull worship.

Bullfighting traces its roots to prehistoric bull worship and sacrifice in Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean region. The oldest evidence of a cult of the bull can be traced back to Neolithic central Anatolia, notably at the sites of Çatalhöyük and Alaca Höyük.

Taurus (Latin for bull) is the second astrological sign in the present zodiac. It spans from 30° to 60° of the zodiac. It is a Venus-ruled sign, just like Libra. Taurus was the first sign of the zodiac established among the ancient Mesopotamians, who called it as “The Great Bull of Heaven”, because it was the constellation through which the Sun rose on the vernal equinox at that time.

Cults centered around sacred bulls began to form in Assyria, Egypt, and Crete during The Age of Taurus, or “The Age of Earth, Agriculture, and the Bull”. The Hattians, Sumerians, Babylonians, Canaaites, and Carthaginians all had bull deities (in contrast with Indo-European or East Asian religions).

Minoan Crete, Hittite Anatolia, the Levant, Bactria and the Indus Valley also shared a tradition of bull leaping, the ritual of dodging the charge of a bull. In ancient Egyptian religion, Apis or Hapis, alternatively spelled Hapi-ankh, was a sacred bull worshiped in the Memphis region, identified as the son of Hathor, a primary deity in the pantheon of Ancient Egypt.

Initially, he was assigned a significant role in her worship, being sacrificed and reborn. Later, Apis also served as an intermediary between humans and other powerful deities (originally Ptah, later Osiris, then Atum).

The sacred bull of Hinduism, Nandi, present in all temples dedicated to Shiva or Parvati, does not have an Indo-European origin, but can be traced back to Indus Valley civilisation.

The first recorded bullfight may be the Epic of Gilgamesh, which describes a scene in which Gilgamesh and Enkidu fought and killed the Bull of Heaven: «The Bull seemed indestructible, for hours they fought, till Gilgamesh dancing in front of the Bull, lured it with his tunic and bright weapons, and Enkidu thrust his sword, deep into the Bull’s neck, and killed it».

Bull depictions are omnipresent in Minoan frescos and ceramics in Crete. Bull-masked terracotta figurines and bull-horned stone altars have been found in Cyprus (dating back as far as the Neolithic, the first presumed expansion of J2 from West Asia).

Bull leaping was portrayed in Crete, and myths related to bulls throughout Greece. The killing of the sacred bull (tauroctony) is the essential central iconic act of Mithras, which was commemorated in the mithraeum wherever Roman soldiers were stationed.

The most important Greek myth regarding this sign is the one where Zeus is transformed into a bull in order to get close to Europa and seduce her. After getting Europa’s attention, Zeus carried her on his back to Crete where he revealed his presence.

Zeus and Europa had a romantic relationship in which three sons were born, the most important being Minus, the famous king of Crete. Later on, Zeus showed his respect to the bull and placed it in the night sky.

It survives today in the traditional bullfighting of Andalusia in Spain and Provence in France, two regions with a high percentage of J2 lineages. The oldest representation of what seems to be a man facing a bull is on the Celtiberian tombstone from Clunia and the cave painting El toro de hachos, both found in Spain.

The Independence Day of Armenia (Armenian: Հայաստանի Անկախության օրը) is the main state holiday in Armenia. This date is celebrated on September 21. This is the second independence of Armenia. The first occurred on May 28, 1918 and led to the formation of the First Republic of Armenia.

This republic was then taken over by the USSR in 1920, also commonly referred to as Soviet Armenia, one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union in December 1922 located in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia.

It was established in December 1920, when the Soviets took over control of the short-lived First Republic of Armenia and lasted until 1991. It is sometimes called the Second Republic of Armenia, following the First Republic of Armenia’s demise.

On August 23, 1990, Supreme Council adopted the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Armenia proclaiming the Armenian SSR abolished and the establishment of the Republic of Armenia. On September 21, 1991, the people of Armenia voted in a referendum to proclaim independence from the Soviet Union. Levon Ter-Petrosyan was elected the first president of Armenia in November 1991.

On December 21, 1991, Armenia joined the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Armenia gained independence formally on December 26 in connection with the dissolution of the USSR.

Dilijan (Armenian: Դիլիջան) is a spa town and urban municipal community in the Tavush Province of Armenia. Hiking, mountain biking, and picnicking are popular recreational activities.

Usually called Armenian Switzerland or Little Switzerland by the locals, it is one of the most important resorts of Armenia, situated within the Dilijan National Park.

Dilijan National Park is known for its forest landscapes, rich biodiversity, medicinal mineral water springs, natural and cultural monuments, and extensive network of hiking trails.

The forested and reclusive town is home to numerous Armenian artists, composers, and filmmakers and features some traditional Armenian architecture. The Sharambeyan street in the centre, has been preserved and maintained as an “old town”, complete with craftsman’s workshops, a gallery and a museum.

In an ancient popular legend, the name of the town is named after a shepherd called Dili. The shepherd Dili was in love with his master’s daughter, however her father was against it and ordered to kill the shepherd.

For many long and dark days, the sorrowful mother was mourning and looking for her only son all over the area and desperately crying, “Dili jan, Dili jan .. ” ’Jan’ is an Armenian endearment term added to the name of a friend or family member. According to the legend the area was later known for his name.

Abdol Hossein Sardari (1914 in Tehran – 1981 in Nottingham) was an Iranian diplomat. He is credited with saving thousands of Jews in Europe, and given the title “Schindler of Iran”. His first step to help Iranian Jews in France, was to issue them with new passports that did not state their religion. He helped around 2,000 Jews obtain passports.

Though he formulated arguments in hopes of sparing the Iranian Jews, he did just as much to help non-Iranian Jews escape the horrors of the war. He began issuing hundreds of Iranian passports for non-Iranian Jews as well, to protect them from the hands of the Nazis.

The Iranians who got their passports would beseech Sardari to issue passports for their non-Iranian friends, spouses, and colleagues. In hopes of protecting them from persecution, Sardari issued passports and signed affidavits for as many Iranian and non-Iranian Jews as he could.

He hesitated speaking publicly about his heroic actions during World War II and never asked for anything in return. Due to his efforts to save the Jews, Sardari has since been known as “The Iranian Schindler”.

The Iranian Revolution of 1978 brought Sardari a great deal of despair when he heard the news that his nephew had been murdered and that all of his belongings in Iran were destroyed. He passed away in London in 1981.

In April 1978, three years before his death, Abdol Hossein Sardari responded to the queries of Yad Vashem, the Israeli national Holocaust Memorial, about his actions in this way: “As you may know, I had the pleasure of being the Iranian Consul in Paris during the German occupation of France, and as such it was my duty to save all Iranians, including Iranian Jews.”

Zero Degree Turn (Madare sefr darajeh), a popular Iranian TV series (2007), was loosely based on Sardari’s actions in Paris.

May 1909 Grand Sheikh Salim al-Bishri of Egypt issued a Fatwa or religious decree condemning Turkish Muslims for massacring 30,000 Armenians in Adana, a major city in the Ottoman Empire.

Sheikh al-Bishri’s 1909 Fatwa was further reinforced by the decree issued in 1917 by Al-Husayn Ibn Ali, the Sharif of Mecca, ordering all Muslims to defend Armenians and “provide everything they might need … because they are the Protected People of the Muslims about whom the Prophet Muhammad said: ‘Whoever takes from them even a rope, I will be his adversary on the day of Judgment.’”

This document makes it amply clear that the Armenian massacres of 1909 and the subsequent Genocide of 1915 were not the result of religious conflict between Muslim Turks and Christian Armenians.

The Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar rightly condemned the Turks for the mass murder of Armenians, which was committed for racist Pan-Turkic — not Pan-Islamic — reasons, along with the intent of capturing Armenian lands and properties.

The various Fatwas issued by Turkish Muftis (clerics) were intended to provoke fanatical Turkish mobs to attack and massacre innocent Armenians. In 2009, when Turkish Prime Minister Rejeb Erdogan stated that “Muslims don’t commit genocide,” he was only partly right. He should have said: “Good Muslims don’t commit genocide.”

The leaders of the Young Turk Party who masterminded the Armenian Genocide in 1915 were not faithful Muslims, judging by the teachings of the Quran — the Holy Book of Islam. They were simply criminals who used Islam as a convenient cover to carry out mass murder. The compassionate Fatwa of the Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar still rings true today.

The Forgotten Stories of Muslims Who Saved Jewish People During the Holocaust

The Assyrian genocide of 1915 in the Ottoman Empire and the Simele massacre of 1933 have been recognized by the State of California recently. The decision was made unanimously, with both Democratic and Republican assembly members behind the resolution.

The Assyrian genocide (also known as Sayfo or Seyfo, «Sword») refers to the mass slaughter of the Assyrian population of the Ottoman Empire and those in neighbouring Persia by Ottoman troops during the First World War, in conjunction with the Armenian and Greek genocides.

Contemporary newspapers reported death tolls of 200,000 to 250,000. Representatives from the Anglican Church in the region claimed that about half of the Assyrian population perished.

The Greek presence in Asia Minor dates at least from the Late Bronze Age (1450 BC). The geographer Strabo referred to Smyrna as the first Greek city in Asia Minor, and numerous ancient Greek figures were natives of Anatolia. The Greek poet Homer lived in the region around 800 BC.

By late 1922 most of the Greeks of Asia Minor had either fled or had been killed. For the whole of the period between 1914 and 1922 and for the whole of Anatolia, there are academic estimates of death toll ranging from 289,000 to 750,000.

Those remaining were transferred to Greece under the terms of the later 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey, which formalized the exodus and barred the return of the refugees.

The Armenian Genocide, also known as the Armenian Holocaust, was the Ottoman government’s systematic extermination of 700,000 to 1.5 million Armenians, mostly citizens of the Ottoman Empire.

One of the triumvirate rulers, Enver Pasha, publicly declared on 19 May 1916: «The Ottoman Empire should be cleaned up of the Armenians and the Lebanese. We have destroyed the former by the sword, we shall destroy the latter through starvation.»

The “Three Pashas” refers to the triumvirate of senior officials who effectively ruled the Ottoman Empire during World War I: Mehmed Talaat Pasha (1874–1921), the Grand Vizier (prime minister) and Minister of the Interior; Ismail Enver Pasha (1881–1922), the Minister of War; and Ahmed Djemal Pasha (1872–1922), the Minister of the Navy.

They were largely responsible for the Empire’s entry into World War I in 1914. All three met violent deaths after the war – Talaat and Djemal were assassinated, while Enver died leading the Basmachi Revolt near Dushanbe, present-day Tajikistan.

DNA study uncovers ancient ancestor of Europeans

Modeled out of clay from the walls of the cave, the bisons stand next to each, propped up against a small boulder in the darkness. Although they stand at a diminutive 18 inches tall by 24 inches long, their craftsmanship and durability is remarkable. Until they were discovered in the early 20th century, the bison stood alone in the damp French cave for thousands of years.

14000 years old bisons sculpture found in Le Tuc d’Audoubert cave. Ariege, France

The pottery of ancient Tell Halaf of Mesopotamia and my ceramics

Pottery Neolithic

Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) is part of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, a Neolithic culture centered in upper Mesopotamia 8800–6500 BC. It was typed by Kathleen Kenyon during her archaeological excavations at Jericho in the West Bank.

Like the earlier PPNA people, the PPNB culture developed from the Mesolithic Natufian culture. However, it shows evidence of a northerly origin, possibly indicating an influx from the region of north eastern Anatolia.

It is believed that the use of clay plaster for floor and wall coverings during PPNB led to the discovery of pottery. The earliest proto-pottery was White Ware vessels, made from lime and gray ash, built up around baskets before firing, for several centuries around 7000 BCE at sites such as Tell Neba’a Faour (Beqaa Valley).

Sites from this period found in the Levant utilizing rectangular floor plans and plastered floor techniques were found at Ain Ghazal, Yiftahel (western Galilee), and Abu Hureyra (Upper Euphrates). The period is dated to between c. 10,700 and c. 8,000 BP or 7000–6000 BCE.

Plastered human skulls were reconstructed human skulls that were made in the ancient Levant between 9000 and 6000 BC in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period. They represent some of the oldest forms of art in the Middle East and demonstrate that the prehistoric population took great care in burying their ancestors below their homes. The skulls denote some of the earliest sculptural examples of portraiture in the history of art.

Tell Aswad (“Black hill”), Su-uk-su or Shuksa, is a large prehistoric, neolithic tell, about 5 hectares (540,000 sq ft) in size, located around 48 kilometres (30 mi) from Damascus in Syria, on a tributary of the Barada River at the eastern end of the village of Jdeidet el Khass.

Understanding of the role of Tell Aswad in the beginnings of farming has been complicated by changes in dating. Originally it was thought to be an example of one of the oldest sites of agriculture with domesticated emmer wheat dated by Willem van Zeist and his assistant Johanna Bakker-Heeres to the PPNA at 7600-7300 uncal BC (about 9000 cal BC).

The claim is based on the discovery of enlarged grains, absences of wild grains and on the presumption that the site was beyond the usual habitat of the wild variety of emmer wheat. Flax seeds were present, and fruit, figs and pistachios, were found in large quantities. Stationary containers of mud and stone were found with carbonized grain found on the interior of one designating them as silos. Finally, reeds were widely used, especially as reinforcement in the architecture, but also for mats and baskets and perhaps as bedding or fodder.

Despite the (apparently) early date of domesticated plants, Jacques Cauvin considered that Aswad was not the center for the origin of agriculture, stating that its first inhabitants “arrived, perhaps from the neighboring Anti-Lebanon, already equipped with the seeds for planting, for their practice of agriculture from the inception of the settlement is not in doubt. Thus it was not in the oasis itself that they carried out their first experiments in farming.”

Studies of lithics and radiocarbon dating of the 2001–2006 excavations showed that Tell Aswad was not occupied during the PPNA period. Instead the domesticated plants are present from the Early PPNB 8700 to 8200 cal BC onwards.

Analysis of c. 400 samples collected from the most recent excavations generally confirms van Zeist & Bakker-Heeres’s identifications from the earlier excavations. Domesticated barley is present; the domestication status of emmer wheat is uncertain. It has been speculated that irrigation or some form of water management would have been used in order to allow cultivation of cereals and figs in an area with under 200mm rainfall.

The redating of the earliest levels of Tell Aswad to the early PPNB place it alongside other sites with domesticated cereals such as Cafer Hüyük and Aşıklı Höyük (Turkey), Ganj Dareh and Chogah Golan (Iran), and Wadi el-Jilat 7 and Ain Ghazal (Jordan).

Tell Aswad can now be seen as part of a pattern of multi-regional, dispersed local development in at least five areas of the Near East, rather than as uniquely early evidence pointing to agricultural origins in the southern Levant. The preceding PPNA period is now widely accepted as encompassing pre-domestic cultivation of wild cereals, rather than full agriculture with domesticated crops.

The Pottery Neolithic (PN) or Late Neolithic (LN) began around 6,400 BCE in the Fertile Crescent, succeeding the period of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic. By then distinctive cultures emerged, with pottery like the Halafian (Turkey, Syria, Northern Mesopotamia) and Ubaid (Southern Mesopotamia).

This period has been further divided into PNA (Pottery Neolithic A) and PNB (Pottery Neolithic B) at some sites. The Chalcolithic (Stone-Bronze) period began about 4500 BCE, then the Bronze Age began about 3500 BCE with the invention of writing, replacing the Neolithic cultures and starting the historical period.

The northern Mesopotamian sites of Tell Hassuna and Jarmo (Qal’at Jarmo) are some of the oldest sites in the Near-East where pottery has been found, appearing in the most recent levels of excavation, which dates it to the 7th millennium BCE.

Jarmo is a prehistoric archeological site located in modern Iraq on the foothills of the Zagros Mountains. It lies at an altitude of 800 m above sea-level in a belt of oak and pistachio woodlands. Jarmo was an agricultural community dating back to 7000 BC. It was broadly contemporary with such other important Neolithic sites such as Jericho in the southern Levant and Çatal Hüyük in Anatolia.

Jarmo is one of the oldest sites at which pottery has been found, appearing in the most recent levels of excavation, which dates it to the 7th millennium BC. This pottery is handmade, of simple design and with thick sides, and treated with a vegetable solvent.

There are clay figures, zoomorphic or anthropomorphic, including figures of pregnant women which are taken to be fertility goddesses, similar to the Mother Goddess of later Neolithic cultures in the same region. These constitute the inception of the Art of Mesopotamia.

The Hassuna culture is a Neolithic archaeological culture in northern Mesopotamia dating to the early sixth millennium BC. It is named after the type site of Tell Hassuna in Iraq. Other sites where Hassuna material has been found include Tell Shemshara.

By around 6000 BC people had moved into the foothills (piedmont) of northernmost Mesopotamia where there was enough rainfall to allow for “dry” agriculture in some places. These were the first farmers in northernmost Mesopotamia. They made Hassuna-style pottery (cream slip with reddish paint in linear designs). Hassuna people lived in small villages or hamlets ranging from 2 to 8 acres (3.2 ha).

At Tell Hassuna, adobe dwellings built around open central courts with fine painted pottery replace earlier levels with crude pottery. Hand axes, sickles, grinding stones, bins, baking ovens and numerous bones of domesticated animals reflect settled agricultural life. Female figurines have been related to worship and jar burials within which food was placed related to belief in afterlife. The relationship of Hassuna pottery to that of Jericho suggests that village culture was becoming widespread.

The site of Umm Dabaghiyah in the same area of Iraq, the earliest known culture in the northern Iraq plain,  is believed to have the earliest pottery in this region, and is sometimes described as a ‘Proto-Hassuna culture’ site. Pottery is abundant in all the four main phases and includes painted types similar to archaic Hassuna pottery. Indeed the Umm Dabaghiyah culture can be regarded as ancestral to Hassuna. Other sites of this culture are Yarim Tepe and Tell Sotto further north.

The Umm Dabaghiyah Sotto culture is the oldest find group of the ceramic Neolithic in northern Mesopotamia about 26 km west of Hatra, is the southernmost of these and is a sort of outpost for hunting. The eponymous sites are Umm Dabaghiyah and Tell Sotto in today’s Iraq, which show the most comprehensive picture of this archaeological culture.

The term Proto-Hassuna culture is often used synonymously, since the Umm Dabaghiyah-Sotto culture is to be regarded as a direct precursor to the actual Hassuna culture. A generally accepted agreement to designate this epoch has not yet been made.

While earlier cultures mainly populated the hilly areas that enclose northern Mesopotamia crescent-shaped, now increasingly created settlements in the fertile plains of the Euphrates and Tigris. The Umm Dabaghiyah Sotto culture is the southernmost of these and is a sort of outpost for hunting.

The material legacy of these communities extends across much of the Jazirah from the foothills of the Zāgros Mountains in the east to the shores of the Chabur in the west. However, the focus is on the area on the upper Tigris south of the Jabal Sinjar in the region around Mosul.

Scattered older sites such as Jarmo or Maghzaliya already had knowledge of the production of ceramics and are therefore considered to be classical representatives of the ceramic Neolithicum before the heyday of the Umm Dabaghiyah Sotto type, but did not reach their diversity in their legacies.

From about 6,000 BC it is not only a more widespread use of ceramic goods in northern Mesopotamia to note, also larger coincidences between the finds from the individual settlements on and shape the image of a coordinated network.

Ever since the excavations of Umm Dabaghiyah and Tell Sotto more and more find material has been developed, whose characteristic features reveal a uniform cultural group, already in the centuries before the appearance Hassuna pottery populated the north Mesopotamian plain.

However, due to the lack of reliable radiocarbon data, unambiguous dating is difficult and relies heavily on comparisons. For example, an early construction phase on Tell 2 in Telul eth-Thalathat was identified with the Umm Dabaghiyah-Sotto culture and was recorded at 5,850 ± 80 BC. are also dated C14 evaluations for a layer of the settlement hill Kashkashok II, a period of 5,930-5,540 BC. And the Proto-Hassuna merchandise contained therein set a rough time frame.

For Umm Dabaghiyah and Sotto there are no radiocarbon values. However, with the latter, the steady development of ceramics can be very well understood – the finds from the layers 1-6 show strong parallels to Umm Dabaghiyah, while the ceramics of layers 7-8 has a striking similarity to the archaic Hassuna-Ware and thus already documents the first phase of the successor crop in northern Mesopotamia. These hints provide at least approximate clues, so that a period of about 6,000-5,750 BC. has been established.

Sotto is located 2 km west of the Yarim Tepe excavation site on the northern edge of the Upper Mesopotamian Plain in close proximity to the Kül Tepe sites in the west and about 40 km away Telul eth-Thalathat in the east. In the northeast of Syria, the facilities of Kashkashok II and Khazna II are located near al-Hasakah in Chabur. The eastern border marks Gird Ali Agha on the Great Zab.

Yarim Tepe is an archaeological site of an early farming settlement that goes back to about 6000 BC. It is located in the Sinjar valley some 7km southwest from the town of Tal Afar in northern Iraq. The site consists of several hills reflecting the development of the Hassuna culture, and then of the Halaf and Ubaid cultures.

Kul Tepe (Iraq) is a related site located about 6km due west from Yarim tepe. Two mounds there (Kultepe I, and Kultepe II) have been excavated. The lowest level of Kultepe I contains material of Sotto type (from nearby Tell Sotto), and above it there is archaic Hassuna materials. The lowest level also contains three high quality marble vessels, with parallels at Tell es-Sawwan and Umm Dabaghiyah.

Other related sites in the area are Sotto, and Kul Tepe (Iraq). Another pre-Hassuna or proto-Hassuna site in Iraq is Tell Maghzaliyah (Tell Maghzalia), a prehistoric aceramic Mesolithic and Neolithic site located approximately 7.5 km northwest of Yarim Tepe, with which it shows some similarities.

Tell Maghzaliyah shows the development of pre-Hassuna culture. There are also numerous connections to the Jarmo culture going back to 7000 BCE. More recently, the concept of a very early ‘Pre-Proto-Hassuna’ pottery tradition has been introduced by some scholars. This has been prompted by more recent discoveries of still earlier pottery traditions.

The Halaf culture is a prehistoric period which lasted between about 6100 BC and 5100 BC. The period is a continuous development out of the earlier Pottery Neolithic and is located primarily in south-eastern Turkey, Syria, and northern Iraq, although Halaf-influenced material is found throughout Greater Mesopotamia.

Halaf pottery has been found in other parts of northern Mesopotamia, such as at Nineveh and Tepe Gawra, Chagar Bazar and at many sites in Anatolia (Turkey) suggesting that it was widely used in the region.

Tell Halaf  is an archaeological site in the Al Hasakah governorate of northeastern Syria, near the Turkish border, just opposite Ceylanpınar. The site, which dates to the 6th millennium BCE, was the first to be excavated from a Neolithic culture, later called the Halaf culture, characterized by glazed pottery painted with geometric and animal designs.

The best known, most characteristic pottery of Tell Halaf, called Halaf ware, produced by specialist potters, can be painted, sometimes using more than two colors (called polychrome) with geometric and animal motifs. Other types of Halaf pottery are known, including unpainted, cooking ware and ware with burnished surfaces. There are many theories about why the distinctive pottery style developed.

The theory is that the pottery came about due to regional copying and that it was exchanged as a prestige item between local elites is now disputed. The polychrome painted Halaf pottery has been proposed to be a “trade pottery”—pottery produced for export—however, the predominance of locally produced painted pottery in all areas of Halaf sites including potters settlement questions that theory.

Shulaveri-Shomu culture is a Late Neolithic/Eneolithic culture that existed on the territory of present-day Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia, as well as small parts of northern Iran. The culture is dated to mid-6th or early-5th millennia BC and is thought to be one of the earliest known Neolithic cultures.

Many of the characteristic traits of the Shulaverian material culture (circular mudbrick architecture, pottery decorated by plastic design, anthropomorphic female figurines, obsidian industry with an emphasis on production of long prismatic blades) are believed to have their origin in the Near Eastern Neolithic (Hassuna, Halaf).

Especially in recent years as a result of archaeological research in the area of Goytepe, the largest settlement of the early period of Neolithic era in the South Caucasus, the Shulaveri-Shomutepe culture has been identified as belonging to the 7th millennium BC and the second half of the 6th millennium.

Although Shulaveri-Shomutepe complex firstly was attributed to the Eneolithic era, it is now considered as a material and cultural example of the Neolithic era except the upper layers where metal objects have been discovered as in Khramis Didi-Gora and Arucho I.

The earliest evidence of domesticated grapes in the world has been found in the general “Shulaveri area”, near the site of Shulaveri gora, in Marneuli Municipality, in southeastern Republic of Georgia. Specifically, the most recent evidence comes from Gadachrili gora, near the village of Imiri in the same region; carbon-dating points to the date of about 6000 BC.

Shulaveri-Shomu culture covers the 6th-5th millennia BC. According to the material culture examples found in the sites depict that the main activities of the population were farming and breeding.[3] Shulaveri culture predates the Kura-Araxes culture which flourished in this area around 4000–2200 BC.

Later on, in the middle Bronze Age period (c. 3000–1500 BC), the Trialeti culture emerged. Sioni culture of Eastern Georgia possibly represents a transition from the Shulaveri to the Kura-Arax cultural complex.

Goytepe approximately dates back to the 6th millennium cal. BC. is one of the largest settlement sites of the Shomutepe culture. Ceramic, basalt and obsidian, bone-based labour instruments (awls, needles, axes and hammers), pottery specimens, plant and animal remnants were found from the Neolithic cultural sequence. 

Pottery samples were found at all layers. Vertical and incurved jars were mostly used, followed by bowls, small vessels without handles and deep bowls. Decorated pottery was hardly found; few samples of them have simple relief decoration with some circles and oval knobs and wavy lines, while others which were revealed from the upper levels have a monochrome decoration around the neck.

Mineral and plant tempered pottery were also found here; whereas, minerals, such as basalt and obsidian were generally used in plan-tempered pottery. Mineral-tempered pottery were found in less quantity from the upper layers.

Anthropomorphic figurines of mainly seated women found in the sites represent the items used for religious purposes relating to the fertility cult.  The similarities between the macrolithic tools and the use of ochre also bring Shulaveri-Shomu culture closer to the culture of Halaf. Pestles and mortars found in Shulaveri-Shomu sites and Late Neolithic layers of Tell Sabi Abyad in Syria are also similar to each other.

The technology and typology of bone-based instruments are similar to those of the Middle East Neolithic material culture. A quern with 2 small hollows found in Shomutepe is similar to the one with more hollows detected in Khramisi Didi-Gora.

There is no good evidence for pottery production in the Levant in the Early Neolithic (Pre-pottery Neolithic/PP) times, but the existence of pyrotechnology that allowed humans to attain temperatures in excess of 1000 °C for reducing limestone to lime to make plaster, indicates a level of technology ripe for the discovery of pottery and its spread. In the PPN period portable vessels of lime plaster, called “vaisselles blanche” or “White Ware” served some of the functions that pottery later fulfilled. These vessels tended to be rather large and coarse and were somewhat rare.

There are some indications that pottery may have been in use in the third and final phase of Early Neolithic, PPNC (recognized Early Neolithic phases are, beginning with the earliest, PPNA, PPNB and PPNC); however such artifacts are rare, their provenance equivocal and the issue remains in doubt. Approximately sometime in the late 6th millennium BC pottery was introduced into the southern Levant and it became widely used.

The supposedly sophisticated forms and technological and decorative aspects suggested to archaeologists that it must have been received as an imported, technological advance from adjacent regions to the north and was not developed locally. The evidence for this hypothesis, however, remains equivocal for lack of documentation in the archaeological record. This hypothesis also does not take into account the bulk of simple, rudely fashioned vessels that were part of the ceramic repertoire of this period.

White Ware or “Vaisselle Blanche”, effectively a form of limestone plaster used to make vessels, is the first precursor to clay pottery developed in the Levant that appeared in the 9th millennium BC, during the pre-pottery (aceramic) neolithic period.

It is not to be confused with “whiteware”, which is both a term in the modern ceramic industry for most finer types of pottery for tableware and similar uses, and a term for specific historical types of earthenware made with clays giving an off-white body when fired.

White Ware was commonly found in PPNB archaeological sites in Syria such as Tell Aswad, Tell Abu Hureyra, Bouqras and El Kowm. Similar sherds were excavated at Ain Ghazal in northern Jordan.

White pozzolanic ware from Tell Ramad and Ras Shamra is considered to be a local imitation of these limestone vessels. It was also evident in the earliest neolithic periods of Byblos, Hashbai, Labweh, Tell Jisr and Tell Neba’a Faour in the Beqaa Valley, Lebanon.

It has been noted that this type of pottery was more prevalent and dated earlier in the Beqaa than at Byblos. A mixed form was found at Byblos where the clay was coated in a limestone slip, in both plain and shell combed finishes.

The similarities of White Ware and overlapping time periods with later clay firing methods have suggested that Dark Faced Burnished Ware, the earliest form of real pottery developed in the western world, came as a development from this limestone prototype.

Dark Faced Burnished Ware was produced after the earliest examples from the independent phenomenon of the Jōmon culture in Japan and is predominantly found at archaeological sites in Lebanon, Israel southwest Syria and Cyprus.

Some notable examples of Dark Faced Burnished Ware were found at Tell Judaidah (and nearby Tell Dhahab) in Amuq by Robert Braidwood as well as at Ras Shamra and Tell Boueid. Other finds have been made at Yumuktepe in Mersin, Turkey where comparative studies were made defining different categories of ware that have been generally grouped as DFBW.

Tell Sabi Abyad is an archaeological site in the Balikh River valley in northern Syria. The site consists of four prehistoric mounds that are numbered Tell Sabi Abyad I to IV. Extensive excavations showed that these sites were inhabited already around 7500 to 5500 BC, although not always at the same time; the settlement shifted back and forth between these four sites.

The earliest pottery of Syria was discovered here; it dates at ca. 6900-6800 BC, and consists of mineral-tempered, and sometimes painted wares. Pottery found at the site includes Dark Faced Burnished Ware and a Fine Ware that resembled Hassuna Ware and Samarra Ware.

It was discovered that around 6700 BC, pottery was already mass-produced. Bowls and jars often had angled necks and ornate geometric designs, some featuring horned animals. Only around six percent of the pottery found was produced locally.

The pottery of Tell Sabi Abyad is somewhat similar to what was found in the other prehistoric sites in Syria and south-eastern Turkey; for example in Tell Halula, Akarçay Tepe Höyük, Mezraa-Teleilat, and Tell Seker al-Aheimar. Yet in Sabi Abyad, the presence of painted pottery is quite unique.

Tell Seker al-Aheimar, located in the Upper Khabur, northeastern Syria, is an early Neolithic settlement that chrono-culturally spans from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) to the Proto-Hassuna period (Pottery Neolithic). The site is one of the largest and best documented Neolithic sites in this relatively poorly investigated region in Upper Mesopotamia.

Among the occupation sequence of the site with well-defined architectural phases, the Late PPNB settlement (late 8th to early 7th millennium cal. BC) is characterized by an extensive mud-brick architecture, which comprises large multi-roomed rectangular buildings and gypsum-plastered floors.

The oldest Pottery Neolithic of Upper Mesopotamia, including the Khabur basin, has long been believed to be represented by the Proto-Hassuna (Sotto-Umm Dabaghiyah) entity. The excavations at Tell Seker al-Aheimar revealed that a Pottery Neolithic phase predating the Proto-Hassuna existed on the Khabur, characterized by a distinct set of pottery as well as architecture and lithic technology.

The long uninterrupted sequence at Tell Seker al-Aheimar shows that this cultural entity, referred to as “Pre-Proto-Hassuna”, was derived from a local Pre-Pottery Neolithic of the East Wing of the Fertile Crescent and gradually developed into Proto-Hassuna. Radiocarbon dates for this phase indicate the early centuries of the 8th millennium BP, a period prior to that of Proto-Hassuna settlements in both northeast Syria and northern Iraq.

Tell Halula is a large, prehistoric, neolithic tell, about 8 hectares (860,000 sq ft) in size, located around 105 kilometres (65 mi) east of Aleppo and 25 kilometres (16 mi) northwest of Membij in the Raqqa Governorate of Syria. The ceramic sequence in Halula begins early in the 7th millennium BC.

The introduction of Halaf culture painted Fine Ware is documented for the ‘Halula Phase IV’ period; this took place at the end of 7th millennium. Prior to that, there was the ‘Pre-Halaf’ period covering a very long initial stage of pottery production; the excavators break down this long period as Halula Phases I to III.

Archaeologists discovered what seems like the oldest painted pottery here. Remarkably, the earliest pottery was of a very high quality, and some of it was already painted. Later, the painted pottery was discontinued, and the quality declined.

Our finds at Tell Sabi Abyad show an initial brief phase in which people experimented with painted pottery. This trend did not continue, however. As far as we can see now, people then gave up painting their pottery for centuries. Instead, people concentrated on the production of undecorated, coarse wares.

It was not until around 6200 BC that people began to add painted decorations again. The question of why the Neolithic inhabitants of Tell Sabi Abyad initially stopped painting their pottery is unanswered for the time being.

Ashvini

Ashvin, Ashwin or Ashwan, also known as Aswayuja, is the seventh month of the lunisolar Hindu calendar, the Vikram Samvat, the solar calendar where it is known as Aipassi and the solar India’s national calender, which is the official solar calendar of modern-day Nepal and India, and the sixth month in the solar Bengali calendar and seventh in the lunar Indian national calendar of the Deccan Plateau.

It falls in the season of Shôrot, (Hindi Sharad) or Autumn. In Vedic Jyotish, Ashwin begins with the Sun’s enter in Virgo. It overlaps September and October of the Gregorian calendar and is the month preceding Diwali or Tihar, the festival of lights. In lunar religious calendars, Ashwin begins on the new moon after the autumn equinox. Ashwin is known as aipasi in Tamil and begins when the sun enters Libra in October.

Ashvini is the first star that appears in the evening sky. It is the first nakshatra (lunar mansion), or the first of the 27 Nakshatra, in Hindu astrology having a spread from 0°-0′-0″ to 13°-20′, corresponding to the head of Aries, including the stars β and γ Arietis.

It is ruled by Ketu, the descending lunar node. In electional astrology, Asvini is classified as a small constellation, meaning that it is believed to be advantageous to begin works of a precise or delicate nature while the moon is in Ashvini.

Asawin is the Thai variant of Ashvin and stands for the warrior. The term is often translated into English as “knight”. Ashvin also stands for the divine twins, the Ashvins, the gods of vision, Ayurvedic medicine, the glow of sunrise and sunset, and averting misfortune and sickness in Hindu mythology.

Asvini is ruled by the Ashvins, the heavenly twins who served as physicians to the gods. Personified, Asvini is considered to be the wife of the Asvini Kumaras. Ashvini is represented either by the head of a horse, or by honey and the bee hive. The name aśvinī is used by Varahamihira (6th century). The older name of the asterism, found in the Atharvaveda (in the dual) and in Panini was aśvayúj (“harnessing horses”).

Aries

Aries (Latin for “ram”) is the first astrological sign in the zodiac, spanning the first 30 degrees of celestial longitude (0°≤ λ <30°), and originates from the constellation of the same name. Under the tropical zodiac, the Sun transits this sign from approximately March 20 to April 21 each year. According to the tropical system of astrology, the Sun enters the sign of Aries when it reaches the March equinox, which occurs on average on March 21 (by design).

Aries is the first fire sign in the zodiac, the other fire signs being Leo and Sagittarius. In Greek Mythology, the symbol of the ram is based on the Chrysomallus, the flying ram that rescued Phrixus and Helle, the children of the Boeotian king Athamas and provided the Golden Fleece. The fleece is a symbol of authority and kingship. It was strongly associated with Mars, both the planet and the god.

In the description of the Babylonian zodiac given in the clay tablets known as the MUL.APIN, the constellation, now known as Aries, was the final station along the ecliptic. The MUL.APIN was a comprehensive table of the risings and settings of stars, which likely served as an agricultural calendar. Modern-day Aries was known as MULLÚ.ḪUN.GÁ, “The Agrarian Worker” or “The Hired Man”.

Although likely compiled in the 12th or 11th century BC, the MUL.APIN reflects a tradition which marks the Pleiades as the vernal equinox, which was the case with some precision at the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age.

The earliest identifiable reference to Aries as a distinct constellation comes from the boundary stones that date from 1350 to 1000 BC. On several boundary stones, a zodiacal ram figure is distinct from the other characters present.

The shift in identification from the constellation as the Agrarian Worker to the Ram likely occurred in later Babylonian tradition because of its growing association with Dumuzi the Shepherd. By the time the MUL.APIN was created—by 1000 BC—modern Aries was identified with both Dumuzi’s ram and a hired laborer. The exact timing of this shift is difficult to determine due to the lack of images of Aries or other ram figures.

The poem Inanna Prefers the Farmer begins with a rather playful conversation between Inanna and her brother Utu, who incrementally reveals to her that it is time for her to marry. Dumuzid comes to court her, along with a farmer named Enkimdu, the Sumerian god of farming, in charge of canals and ditches, a task assigned to him by the water god Enki during his organization of the world.

At first, Inanna prefers the farmer, but Utu and Dumuzid gradually persuade her that Dumuzid is the better choice for a husband, arguing that, for every gift the farmer can give to her, the shepherd can give her something even better. In the end, Inanna marries Dumuzid.

The shepherd and the farmer reconcile their differences, offering each other gifts. Samuel Noah Kramer compares the myth to the Biblical story of Cain and Abel because both myths center around a farmer and a shepherd competing for divine favor and, in both stories, the deity in question ultimately chooses the shepherd.

Inanna in her aspect as Anunītu was associated with the eastern fish of the last of the zodiacal constellations, Pisces. Her consort Dumuzi was associated with the contiguous first constellation, Aries.

According to the scholar Samuel Noah Kramer, towards the end of the third millennium BC, kings of Uruk may have established their legitimacy by taking on the role of Dumuzid as part of a “sacred marriage” ceremony.

This ritual lasted for one night on the tenth day of the Akitu, the Sumerian new year festival, which was celebrated annually at the spring equinox. As part of the ritual, it was thought that the king would engage in ritualized sexual intercourse with the high priestess of Inanna, who took on the role of the goddess.

In the late twentieth century, the historicity of the sacred marriage ritual was treated by scholars as more-or-less an established fact, but, in the early 2000s, largely due to the writings of Pirjo Lapinkivi, many scholars began to reject the notion of an actual sex ritual, instead seeing “sacred marriage” as a symbolic rather than a physical union.

In ancient Egyptian astronomy, Aries was associated with the god Amon-Ra, who was depicted as a man with a ram’s head and represented fertility and creativity. This is one of the reasons why the sign is associated with the bull. Because it was the location of the vernal equinox, it was called the “Indicator of the Reborn Sun”.

During the times of the year when Aries was prominent, priests would process statues of Amon-Ra to temples, a practice that was modified by Persian astronomers centuries later. Aries acquired the title of “Lord of the Head” in Egypt, referring to its symbolic and mythological importance.

Aries was not fully accepted as a constellation until classical times. In Hellenistic astrology, the constellation of Aries is associated with the golden ram of Greek mythology that rescued Phrixus and Helle on orders from Hermes, taking Phrixus to the land of Colchis. Phrixos and Helle were the son and daughter of King Athamas and his first wife Nephele. The king’s second wife, Ino, was jealous and wished to kill his children.

To accomplish this, she induced a famine in Boeotia, then falsified a message from the Oracle of Delphi that said Phrixos must be sacrificed to end the famine. Athamas was about to sacrifice his son atop Mount Laphystium when Aries, sent by Nephele, arrived. Helle fell off of Aries’s back in flight and drowned in the Dardanelles, also called the Hellespont in her honor.

After arriving, Phrixus sacrificed the ram to Zeus and gave the Fleece to Aeëtes of Colchis, who rewarded him with an engagement to his daughter Chalciope. Aeëtes hung its skin in a sacred place where it became known as the Golden Fleece and was guarded by a dragon. In a later myth, this Golden Fleece was stolen by Jason and the Argonauts.

Historically, Aries has been depicted as a crouched, wingless ram with its head turned towards Taurus. Ptolemy asserted in his Almagest that Hipparchus depicted Alpha Arietis as the ram’s muzzle, though Ptolemy did not include it in his constellation figure. Instead, it was listed as an “unformed star”, and denoted as “the star over the head”. John Flamsteed, in his Atlas Coelestis, followed Ptolemy’s description by mapping it above the figure’s head. Flamsteed followed the general convention of maps by depicting Aries lying down.

The First Point of Aries, the location of the vernal equinox, is named for the constellation. This is because the Sun crossed the celestial equator from south to north in Aries more than two millennia ago. Hipparchus defined it as a point south of Gamma Arietis in 130 BC.

Because of the precession of the equinoxes, the First Point of Aries has since moved into Pisces and will move into Aquarius by around 2600 AD. The Sun now appears in Aries from late April through mid May, though the constellation is still associated with the beginning of spring.

Medieval Muslim astronomers depicted Aries in various ways. Astronomers like al-Sufi saw the constellation as a ram, modeled on the precedent of Ptolemy. However, some Islamic celestial globes depicted Aries as a nondescript four-legged animal with what may be antlers instead of horns.

Some early Bedouin observers saw a ram elsewhere in the sky; this constellation featured the Pleiades as the ram’s tail. The generally accepted Arabic formation of Aries consisted of thirteen stars in a figure along with five “unformed” stars, four of which were over the animal’s hindquarters and one of which was the disputed star over Aries’s head.[20] Al-Sufi’s depiction differed from both other Arab astronomers’ and Flamsteed’s, in that his Aries was running and looking behind itself.

The obsolete constellations introduced in Aries (Musca Borealis, Lilium, Vespa, and Apes) have all been composed of the northern stars. Musca Borealis was created from the stars 33 Arietis, 35 Arietis, 39 Arietis, and 41 Arietis. In 1612, Petrus Plancius introduced Apes, a constellation representing a bee. In 1624, the same stars were used by Jakob Bartsch to create a constellation called Vespa, representing a wasp. In 1679 Augustin Royer used these stars for his constellation Lilium, representing the fleur-de-lis.

None of these constellation became widely accepted. Johann Hevelius renamed the constellation “Musca” in 1690 in his Firmamentum Sobiescianum. To differentiate it from Musca, the southern fly, it was later renamed Musca Borealis but it did not gain acceptance and its stars were ultimately officially reabsorbed into Aries.

In 1922, the International Astronomical Union defined its recommended three-letter abbreviation, “Ari”. The official boundaries of Aries were defined in 1930 by Eugène Delporte as a polygon of 12 segments. Its right ascension is between 1h 46.4m and 3h 29.4m and its declination is between 10.36° and 31.22° in the equatorial coordinate system.

In Hebrew astronomy Aries was named “Taleh”; it signified either Simeon or Gad, and generally symbolizes the “Lamb of the World”. The neighboring Syrians named the constellation “Amru”, and the bordering Turks named it “Kuzi”.

In traditional Chinese astronomy, stars from Aries were used in several constellations. The brightest stars—Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Arietis—formed a constellation called Lou (婁), variously translated as “bond”, “lasso”, and “sickle”, which was associated with the ritual sacrifice of cattle. This name was shared by the 16th lunar mansion, the location of the full moon closest to the autumnal equinox. The lunar mansion represented the area where animals were gathered before sacrifice around that time.

This constellation has also been associated with harvest-time as it could represent a woman carrying a basket of food on her head. 35, 39, and 41 Arietis were part of a constellation called Wei (胃), which represented a fat abdomen and was the namesake of the 17th lunar mansion, which represented granaries.

Delta and Zeta Arietis were a part of the constellation Tianyin (天陰), thought to represent the Emperor’s hunting partner. Zuogeng (左更), a constellation depicting a marsh and pond inspector, was composed of Mu, Nu, Omicron, Pi, and Sigma Arietis. He was accompanied by Yeou-kang, a constellation depicting an official in charge of pasture distribution.

In a similar system to the Chinese, the first lunar mansion in Hindu astronomy was called “Aswini”, after the traditional names for Beta and Gamma Arietis, the Aswins. Because the Hindu new year began with the vernal equinox, the Rig Veda contains over 50 new-year’s related hymns to the twins, making them some of the most prominent characters in the work. Aries itself was known as “Aja” and “Mesha”.

Mesha

Meṣa, or Mesha, is a month in the Indian solar calendar. It corresponds to the zodiacal sign of Aries, and overlaps with about the second half of April and about the first half of May in the Gregorian calendar. In Vedic texts, the Mesa month is called Madhu, but in these ancient texts it has no zodiacal associations.

The Mesha is preceded by the solar month of Mīna, a month in the Indian solar calendar that corresponds to the zodiacal sign of Pisces, and overlaps with about the later half of March and about the early half of April in the Gregorian calendar.

It is followed by the solar month of Vṛṣabha, or Vrishabha, that corresponds to the zodiacal sign of Taurus, and overlaps with about the second half of May and about the first half of June in the Gregorian calendar.

In Vedic texts, the Mina month is called Tapasya, but in these ancient texts it has no zodiacal associations. The solar month of Mina overlaps with its lunar month Chaitra, in Hindu lunisolar calendars. The Mina marks the spring season for the Indian subcontinent. The Mina month is called Panguni in the Tamil Hindu calendar, and is its last month in the traditional calendar.

In Vedic texts, the Vrsabha month is called Madhava, but in these ancient texts it has no zodiacal associations. The solar month of Vrsabha overlaps with its lunar month Jyeshtha, in Hindu lunisolar calendars. The Vrsabha month is called Vaikasi in the Tamil Hindu calendar.

Vaisakha

The solar month of Mesha overlaps with its lunar month Vaisakha (Kannada: Vaiśākha; Malayalam: Vaiśākham; Marathi: Vaiśākh; Bengali: Boiśākh; Tamil: Vaikāci; Hindi: Baisākh; Nepali: Odia: Baiśākh, Bengali: boisakh, Assamese: Bohag), in Hindu lunisolar calendars that corresponds to April/May/June in the Gregorian Calendar.

Regional calendars used in the Indian subcontinent have two aspects: lunar and solar. Lunar months begin with Chaitra and solar months start with Vaisakha Sankranti. However, regional calendars mark when the official new year is celebrated.

In Indian national calendar, Vaisakha is the second month of the year. It is the first month of the Vikram Samvat calendar, Nepali calendar, Odia calendar, Punjabi calendar, Assamese calendar (where it is called Bohag) and the Bengali calendar (where it is called Boishakh). This month lies between the second half of April and the first half of May.

In regions such as Maharashtra which begin the official new year with the commencement of the lunar year, the solar year is marked by celebrating Vaisakha Sankranti. Conversely, regions starting the new year with Vaisakha Sankranti, give prominence to the start of the lunar year in Chaitra.

In the Hindu solar calendar, Vaisakha begins in mid-April in Bengal, Nepal, and Punjab. In Tamil Nadu, it is known as Vaikasi and represents the second month of the Tamil solar calendar. In the Hindu lunar calendar, Vaisakha begins with the new moon in April and represents the second month of the lunar year. The name of the month is derived from the position of the moon near the star Vishakha on full moon day.

The month of Boishakh also marks the official start of Summer. The month is notorious for the afternoon storms called Kalboishakhi (Nor’wester). The storms usually start with strong gusts from the north-western direction at the end of a hot day and cause widespread destruction.

Madhusudana

In Vedic calendar the month of Vaisakha is called Madhav, and in Vaishnav (also called Vishnuism) calendar it is called Madhushudan month. In the Vaishnava calendar, Madhusudana, another name of Vishnu or God and is the 73rd name in the Vishnu sahasranama, governs this month. According to Adi Sankara’ s commentary on the Vishnu sahasranama, Madusudanah means the destroyer of the demon Madhu.

Madhu and Kaitabha, Rakshasas or demons of Hindu mythology, are associated with Hindu religious cosmology. They both originated from one of the ears of God Vishnu, while he was in the deep sleep of Yoganidra or yogic sleep, a state of consciousness between waking and sleeping, like the “going-to-sleep” stage, typically induced by a guided meditation. From his navel, a lotus sprouted on which Brahma, the creator, was found sitting and contemplating the creation of the cosmos.

Bhagavata Purana states that during the creation, the demons Madhu and Kaitabha stole the Vedas from Brahma and deposited them deep inside the waters of the primeval ocean. Vishnu, in his manifestation as Hayagriva, also spelt Hayagreeva (lit. ‘Horse-neck’), a horse-headed avatar of the Lord Vishnu in Hinduism, killed them, and retrieved the Vedas. The bodies of Madhu and Kaitabha disintegrated into 2 times 6 — which is twelve pieces (two heads, two torsos, four arms and four legs). These are considered to represent the twelve seismic plates of the Earth.

According to another legend, Madhu and Kaitabha are considered demons, designed to annihilate Brahma. However, Brahma spotted them, and invoked the goddess Mahamaya, or Durga. At this point, Vishnu awoke, and the two conspiring demons were killed. This led to Vishnu being called Madhusudanah – the killer of Madhu and mahamaya came to be known as kaitabhi.

Hayagriva

In Hinduism, Lord Hayagriva is an avatar of Lord Vishnu. He is worshipped as the god of knowledge and wisdom, with a human body and a horse’s head, brilliant white in color, with white garments and seated on a white lotus. Symbolically, the story represents the triumph of pure knowledge, guided by the hand of God, over the demonic forces of passion and darkness.

Origins about the worship of Hayagriva have been researched, some of the early evidences dates back to 2,000 BCE, when people worshipped the horse for its speed, strength, intelligence. Hayagriva is one of the prominent deities in Vaikhanasas, Sri Vaishnavism and Madhwa Brahmins traditions.

His blessings are sought when beginning study of both sacred and secular subjects. Special worship is conducted on the day of the full moon in August (Śravaṇa-Paurṇamī) (his avatāra-dina) and on Mahanavami, the ninth day of the Navaratri festival. He is also hailed as “Hayasirsa”. Hayaśirṣa means haya=Horse, śirṣa=Head.

Yoga nidra

Yoga nidra is a state in which the body is completely relaxed, and the practitioner becomes systematically and increasingly aware of the inner world by following a set of verbal instructions. This state of consciousness is different from meditation, in which concentration on a single focus is required.

In yoga nidra the practitioner remains in a state of light withdrawal of the 5 senses (pratyahara) with four senses internalised, that is, withdrawn, and only hearing still connects to any instructions given. The goals of both yogic paths, yoga nidra and meditation are the same, a state of meditative consciousness called samadhi.

It is among the deepest possible states of relaxation while still maintaining full consciousness. In lucid dreaming, one is only, or mainly, cognizant of the dream environment, and has little or no awareness of one’s actual environment. Yoga nidra results in conscious awareness of the deep sleep state, which is called prajna in the Mandukya Upanishad.

It is said that the history of yoga nidra is as old as yoga itself, as the first mention of yoga nidra is in the Upanishads. Lord Krishna is associated with yoga nidra in the epic Mahabharata: [The Ocean] becomes the bed of the lotus-naveled Vishnu when at the termination of every Yuga that deity of immeasurable power enjoys yoga-nidra, the deep sleep under the spell of spiritual meditation (Mahabharata, Book 1, section XXI).

Durga

Durga, identified as Adi Parashakti, is a principal and popular form of the Hindu Goddess. She is a goddess of war, the warrior form of Parvati, whose mythology centres around combating evils and demonic forces that threaten peace, prosperity, and Dharma the power of good over evil. Durga is also a fierce form of the protective mother goddess, who unleashes her divine wrath against the wicked for the liberation of the oppressed, and entails destruction to empower creation.

Durga is depicted in the Hindu pantheon as a Goddess riding a lion or tiger, with many arms each carrying a weapon, often defeating Mahishasura (lit. buffalo demon). The three principal forms of Durga worshiped are Maha Durga, Chandika and Aparajita. Of these, Chandika has two forms called Chandi who is of the combined power and form of Saraswati, Lakshmi and Parvati and of Chamunda who is a form of Kali created by the goddess for killing demons Chanda and Munda.

Maha Durga has three forms: Ugrachanda, Bhadrakali and Katyayani. Bhadrakali Durga is also worshiped in the form of her nine epithets called Navadurga. She is a central deity in Shaktism tradition of Hinduism, where she is equated with the concept of ultimate reality called Brahman. One of the most important texts of Shaktism is Devi Mahatmya, also known as Durgā Saptashatī or Chandi patha, which celebrates Durga as the goddess, declaring her as the supreme being and the creator of the universe

Navaratri[a]

Navaratri[a] is a Hindu festival that spans nine nights (and ten days) and is celebrated every year in the autumn. It is observed for different reasons and celebrated differently in various parts of the Indian cultural sphere. The word Navaratri means ‘nine nights’ in Sanskrit, nava meaning nine and ratri meaning nights.

Theoretically, there are four seasonal Navaratri. However, in practice, it is the post-monsoon autumn festival called Sharada Navaratri that is the most observed in the honor of the divine feminine Devi (Durga). The festival is celebrated in the bright half of the Hindu calendar month Ashvin, which typically falls in the Gregorian months of September and October.

In the eastern and northeastern states of India, the Durga Puja is synonymous with Navaratri, wherein goddess Durga battles and emerges victorious over the buffalo demon to help restore Dharma. In the northern and western states, the festival is synonymous with “Rama Lila” and Dussehra that celebrates the battle and victory of god Rama over the demon king Ravana.

In southern states, the victory of different goddesses, of Rama or Saraswati is celebrated. In all cases, the common theme is the battle and victory of Good over Evil based on a regionally famous epic or legend such as the Ramayana or the Devi Mahatmya.

Celebrations include stage decorations, recital of the legend, enacting of the story, and chanting of the scriptures of Hinduism. The nine days are also a major crop season cultural event, such as competitive design and staging of pandals, a family visit to these pandals and the public celebration of classical and folk dances of Hindu culture.

On the final day, called the Vijayadashami or Dussehra, the statues are either immersed in a water body such as river and ocean, or alternatively the statue symbolizing the evil is burnt with fireworks marking evil’s destruction.

The festival also starts the preparation for one of the most important and widely celebrated holidays, Diwali, the festival of lights, which is celebrated twenty days after the Vijayadashami or Dussehra or Dashain.

According to some Hindu texts such as the Shakta and Vaishnava Puranas, Navaratri theoretically falls twice or four times a year. In all cases, Navaratri falls in the bright half of the Hindu lunisolar months. The celebrations vary by region, leaving much to the creativity and preferences of the Hindu.

Of these, the Sharada Navaratri near autumn equinox (September–October) is the most celebrated and the Vasanta Navaratri near spring equinox (March–April) is the next most significant to the culture of the Indian subcontinent.

Sharada Navaratri is the most celebrated of the four Navaratri, named after Sharada which means autumn. It commences on the first day (pratipada) of the bright fortnight of the lunar month of Ashvini (post-monsoon, September–October). In many regions, the festival falls after the autumn harvest, and in others during harvest.

The festival is celebrated for nine nights once every year during this month, which typically falls in the Gregorian months of September and October. The exact dates of the festival are determined according to the Hindu lunisolar calendar, and sometimes the festival may be held for a day more or a day less depending on the adjustments for sun and moon movements and the leap year.

The festivities extend beyond goddess Durga and god Rama. Various other goddesses such as Saraswati and Lakshmi, gods such as Ganesha, Kartikeya, Shiva, and Krishna are regionally revered. For example, a notable pan-Hindu tradition during Navaratri is the adoration of Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of knowledge, learning, music, and arts through Ayudha Puja.

On this day, which typically falls on the ninth day of Navaratri after the Good has won over Evil through Durga or Rama, peace and knowledge is celebrated. Warriors thank, decorate and worship their weapons, offering prayers to Saraswati. Musicians upkeep their musical instruments, play and pray to them.

Farmers, carpenters, smiths, pottery makers, shopkeepers and all sorts of tradespeople similarly decorate and worship their equipment, machinery, and tools of trade. Students visit their teachers, express respect and seek their blessings. This tradition is particularly strong in South India, but is observed elsewhere too.

Vasanta Navaratri is the second most celebrated, named after vasanta which means spring. It is observed the lunar month of Chaitra (post-winter, March–April). In many regions the festival falls after spring harvest, and in others during harvest.

The other two Navratris are observed regionally or by individuals: Magha Navaratri: in Magha (January–February), winter season. Ashada Navaratri: in Ashadha (June–July), the start of the monsoon season.

The fifth day of Magha Navaratri is often independently observed as Vasant Panchami or Basant Panchami, the official start of spring in the Hindu tradition wherein goddess Saraswati is revered through arts, music, writing, kite flying. In some regions, the Hindu god of love, Kama is revered.

Pôhela Boishak

In Bengali, the word Pahela means ‘first’ and Baishakh. Pahela Baishakh or Bangla Nabobarsho is the first month of the Bengali calendar. The first day of Baishakh, the first day of Bengali Calendar, is celebrated as the Pahela Baishakh or Bangla Nabobarsho, New Year’s Day. The traditional greeting for Bengali New Year is “Shubho Nabobarsho” which is literally “Happy New Year”.

Bengali people of India have historically celebrated Pahela Baishakh, and it is an official regional holiday in its states of West Bengal and Tripura. The festival date is set according to the lunisolar Bengali calendar as the first day of its first month Baishakh. It therefore almost always falls on or about 14 April every year on the Gregorian calendar.

It is celebrated on 14 April as a national holiday in Bangladesh, and on 14 or 15 April in the Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura and part of Assam by people of Bengali heritage, irrespective of their religious faith. The day is observed with cultural programs, festivals and carnivals all around the country. The day of is also the beginning of all business activities in Bangladesh and neighboring Indian state of West Bengal.

The festival is celebrated with processions, fairs and family time. The traders starts new fiscal account book called Halkhata. The accounting in the Halkhata begins only after this day. It is celebrated with sweets and gifts with customers. The festive Mangal Shobhajatra is organized in Bangladesh. In 2016, the UNESCO declared this festivity organized by the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Dhaka as a cultural heritage of humanity.

The same day is observed elsewhere as the traditional solar new year and a harvest festival, and is known by other names such as Vaisakhi in central and north India, Vishu in Kerala and Puthandu in Tamil Nadu.

Narasimha

Vaisakha sukla chaturdasi is celebrated as Narasimha Jayanthi Festival in Sri Varaha Lakshmi Narasimha Swamivari Temple at Simhachalam. Narasimha (Sanskrit: Narasiṃha, consisting of the two words “nara” which means man, and “simha” which means lion; lit. man-lion) is a fierce avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu, one who incarnates in the form of part lion and part man to destroy evil and end religious persecution and calamity on Earth, thereby restoring Dharma.

Narasimha is a significant iconic symbol of creative resistance, hope against odds, victory over persecution, and destruction of evil. He is the destructor of not only external evil, but also one’s own inner evil of “body, speech, and mind” states Pratapaditya Pal.

In South Indian art – sculptures, bronzes and paintings – Viṣṇu’s incarnation as Narasiṃha is one of the most chosen themes and amongst Avatāras perhaps next only to Rāma and Kṛṣṇa in popularity. Lord Narasiṃha also appears as one of Hanuman’s 5 faces, who is a significant character in the Rāmāyaṇa as Lord (Rāma’s) devotee.

Narasimha is known primarily as the ‘Great Protector’ who specifically defends and protects his devotees from evil. Narasimha iconography shows him with a human torso and lower body, with a lion face and claws, typically with a demon Hiranyakashipu in his lap whom he is in the process of killing.

The most popular Narasimha mythology is the legend that protects his devotee Prahlada, and creatively destroys Prahlada’s demonic father and tyrant Hiranyakashipu. The demon is powerful brother of evil Hiranyaksha who had been previously killed by Vishnu, who hated Vishnu for killing his brother.

Hiranyakashipu gains special powers by which he could not be killed during the day or night, inside or outside, by any weapon, and by man or animal. Endowed with new powers, Hiranyakashipu creates chaos, persecutes all devotees of Vishnu including his own son. Vishnu understands the demon’s power, then creatively adapts into a mixed avatar that is neither man nor animal and kills the demon at the junction of day and night, inside and outside.

Narasimha legends are revered in Vaikhanasas, Sri Vaishnavism, Madhwa Brahmins but he is a popular deity beyond these Vaishnava traditions such as in Shaivism. He is celebrated in many regional Hindu temples, texts, performance arts and festivals such as Holika prior to the Hindu spring festival of colors called Holi.

The oldest known artwork of Narasimha has been found at several sites across Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh, such as at the Mathura archaeological site. These have been variously dated between 2nd and 4th-century CE.

Buddha

Vaisakha Purnima is celebrated as Buddha Purnima or the birthday of Gautama Buddha amongst Buddhists of South and Southeast Asia, Tibet and Mongolia. Purnima refers to the Full Moon. Known in Sinhalese as Vesak, it is observed in the full moon of May.

Kartikeya

Vaishakha Purnima is known as “vaikasi vishakam” in Tamil Nadu which is celebrated as the birthday of Lord Murugan. Kartikeya, also known as Murugan, Skanda, Kumara, and Subrahmanya, is the Hindu god of war. He is the son of Parvati and Shiva, brother of Ganesha, and a god whose life story has many versions in Hinduism.

Kartikeya is an ancient god, traceable to the Vedic era. Archaeological evidence from 1st-century CE and earlier, where he is found with Hindu god Agni (fire), suggest that he was a significant deity in early Hinduism. He is found in many medieval temples all over India, such as at the Ellora Caves and Elephanta Caves.

The iconography of Kartikeya varies significantly; he is typically represented as an ever-youthful man, riding or near a peacock, dressed with weapons sometimes near a rooster. According to the Talmudists, his emblem was a cockerel and Nergal means a “dunghill cock”, although standard iconography pictured Nergal as a lion.

Most icons show him with one head, but some show him with six heads reflecting the legend surrounding his birth where six mothers symbolizing the six stars of Pleiades cluster who took care of newly born baby Kartikeya. He grows up quickly into a philosopher-warrior, destroys evil in the form of demon Taraka, teaches the pursuit of ethical life and the theology of Shaiva Siddhanta.

Lahamu and Lahmu

Lahamu (also Lakhamu, Lachos, Lumasi, or Assyro-Akkadian Lammasu), meaning parent star or constellation, was the name of a protective and beneficent deity, the first-born daughter of Tiamat and Abzu in Akkadian mythology. With her brother Lahmu (also called Lakhmu, Lache, Lumasi or Assyro-Akkadian Lammasu) she is the mother of Anshar and Kishar, who were in turn parents of the first gods.

Lahamu is sometimes seen as a serpent, and sometimes as a woman with a red sash and six curls on her head. It is suggested that the pair were represented by the silt of the sea-bed, but more accurately are known to be the representations of the zodiac, parent-stars, or constellations.

They are the parents of Anshar and Kishar, the sky father and earth mother, who birthed the gods of the Mesopotamian Pantheon. Laḫmu is depicted as a bearded man with a red sash – usually with three strands – and four to six curls on his head and they are also depicted as monsters, which each encompasses a specific constellation. He is often associated with the Kusarikku or “Bull-Man”.

In Sumerian times Laḫmu may have meant “the muddy one”. Lahmu guarded the gates of the Abzu temple of Enki at Eridu. He and his sister Laḫamu are primordial deities in the Babylonian Epic of Creation Enuma Elis and Lahmu may be related to or identical with “Lahamu”, one of Tiamat’s creatures in that epic.

Some scholars, such as William F. Albright, have speculated that the name of Bethlehem (“house of lehem”) originally referred to a Canaanite fertility deity cognate with Laḫmu and Laḫamu, rather than to the Canaanite word lehem, “bread”.

Abzu (or Apsû) fathered upon Tiamat the elder deities Lahmu and Lahamu (masc. the “hairy”), a title given to the gatekeepers at Enki’s Abzu/E’engurra-temple in Eridu. Lahmu and Lahamu, in turn, were the parents of the ‘ends’ of the heavens (Anshar, from an-šar = heaven-totality/end) and the earth (Kishar); Anshar and Kishar were considered to meet at the horizon, becoming, thereby, the parents of Anu (Heaven) and Ki (Earth).

Tiamat

Tiamat was the “shining” personification of salt water who roared and smote in the chaos of original creation. She and Apsu filled the cosmic abyss with the primeval waters. She is “Ummu-Hubur who formed all things”.

In the myth recorded on cuneiform tablets, the deity Enki (later Ea) believed correctly that Apsu was planning to murder the younger deities, upset with the noisy tumult they created, and so captured him and held him prisoner beneath his temple, the E-Abzu (“temple of Abzu”).

This angered Kingu, their son, who reported the event to Tiamat, whereupon she fashioned eleven monsters to battle the deities in order to avenge Apsu’s death. These were her own offspring: Bašmu (“Venomous Snake”), Ušumgallu (“Great Dragon”), Mušmaḫḫū (“Exalted Serpent”), Mušḫuššu (“Furious Snake”), Laḫmu (the “Hairy One”), Ugallu (the “Big Weather-Beast”), Uridimmu (“Mad Lion”), Girtablullû (“Scorpion-Man”), Umū dabrūtu (“Violent Storms”), Kulullû (“Fish-Man”) and Kusarikku (“Bull-Man”).

Tiamat possessed the Tablet of Destinies and in the primordial battle she gave them to Kingu, the deity she had chosen as her lover and the leader of her host, and who was also one of her children.

The deities gathered in terror, but Anu first extracting a promise that he would be revered as “king of the gods”, overcame her, armed with the arrows of the winds, a net, a club, and an invincible spear. Anu was later replaced by Enlil and, in the late version that has survived after the First Dynasty of Babylon, by Marduk, the son of Ea.

Slicing Tiamat in half, he made from her ribs the vault of heaven and earth. Her weeping eyes became the source of the Tigris and the Euphrates, her tail became the Milky Way. With the approval of the elder deities, he took from Kingu the Tablet of Destinies, installing himself as the head of the Babylonian pantheon. Kingu was captured and later was slain: his red blood mixed with the red clay of the Earth would make the body of humankind, created to act as the servant of the younger Igigi deities.

Lamassu

A lamassu (Cuneiform: an.kal; Sumerian: dlammař; Akkadian: lamassu; sometimes called a lamassus) is a Sumerian protective deity, often depicted as having a human head, the body of a bull or a lion, and bird wings. In some writings, it is portrayed to represent a female deity. A less frequently used name is shedu (Cuneiform: an.kal×bad; Sumerian: dalad; Akkadian, šēdu), which refers to the male counterpart of a lamassu. Lammasu represent the zodiacs, parent-stars or constellations.

The motif of a winged animal with a human head is common to the Near East, first recorded in Ebla around 3000 BCE. The first distinct lamassu motif appeared in Assyria during the reign of Tiglath-Pileser II as a symbol of power. In Hittite, the Sumerian form dlamma is used both as a name for the so-called “tutelary deity”, identified in certain later texts with Inara, and a title given to similar protective gods.

Lamassu represent the zodiacs, parent-stars, or constellations. They are depicted as protective deities because they encompass all life within them. In the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, they are depicted as physical deities as well, which is where the lammasu iconography originates, these deities could be microcosms of their microcosmic zodiac, parent-star, or constellation.

To protect houses, the lamassu were engraved in clay tablets, which were then buried under the door’s threshold. They were often placed as a pair at the entrance of palaces. At the entrance of cities, they were sculpted in colossal size, and placed as a pair, one at each side of the door of the city, that generally had doors in the surrounding wall, each one looking towards one of the cardinal points.

The ancient Jewish people were influenced by the iconography of Assyrian culture. The prophet Ezekiel wrote about a fantastic being made up of aspects of a human being, a lion, an eagle and a bull. Later, in the early Christian period, the four Gospels were ascribed to each of these components. When it was depicted in art, this image was called the Tetramorph.

In art, lamassu were depicted as hybrids, with bodies of either winged bulls or lions and heads of human males. In Assyro-Babylonian ecclesiastical art the great lion-headed colossi serving as guardians to the temples and palaces seem to symbolise Nergal, just as the bull-headed colossi probably typify Ninurta.

Papsukkal

The Akkadians associated the god Papsukkal with a lamassu and the god Išum with shedu. Papsukkal is the messenger god in the Akkadian pantheon. He is identified in late Akkadian texts and is known chiefly from the Hellenistic period. His consort is Amasagnul, and he acts as both messenger and gatekeeper for the rest of the pantheon.

A sanctuary, the E-akkil is identified from the Mesopotamian site of Mkish. Papsukkal was syncretized with Ninshubur, the messenger of the goddess Inanna. Papsukkal was the regent of the tenth month in the Babylonian calendar.

Ishum

Ishum is a minor god in Akkadian mythology, the brother of Shamash and an attendant of Erra. He may have been a god of fire and, according to texts, led the gods in war as a herald but was nonetheless generally regarded as benevolent.

Ishum is known particularly from the Babylonian legend of Erra and Ishum. He developed from the Sumerian figure of Endursaga, the herald god in the Sumerian mythology who leads the pantheon, particularly in times of conflict.

Erra

Erra (sometimes called Irra) is an Akkadian plague god known from an ‘epos’ of the eighth century BCE. Erra is the god of mayhem and pestilence who is responsible for periods of political confusion. In the epic that is given the modern title Erra, the writer Kabti-ilani-Marduk, a descendant, he says, of Dabibi, presents himself in a colophon following the text as simply the transcriber of a visionary dream in which Erra himself revealed the text.

The poem opens with an invocation. The god Erra is sleeping fitfully with his consort (identified with Mamītum and not with the mother goddess Mami) but is roused by his advisor Išum and the Seven (Sibitti or Sebetti), who are the sons of heaven and earth “champions without peer” is the repeated formula—and are each assigned a destructive destiny by Anu. Machinist and Sasson (1983) call them “personified weapons”.

The Sibitti call on Erra to lead the destruction of mankind. Išum tries to mollify Erra’s wakened violence, to no avail. Foreign peoples invade Babylonia, but are struck down by plague. Even Marduk, the patron of Babylon, relinquishes his throne to Erra for a time.

Tablets II and III are occupied with a debate between Erra and Išum. Erra goes to battle in Babylon, Sippar, Uruk, Dūr-Kurigalzu and Dēr. The world is turned upside down: righteous and unrighteous are killed alike. Erra orders Išum to complete the work by defeating Babylon’s enemies. Then the god withdraws to his own seat in Emeslam with the terrifying Seven, and mankind is saved. A propitiatory prayer ends the work.

Nergal, Nirgal, or Nirgali (Sumerian: dKIŠ.UNU or dGÌR-UNUG-GAL) is a deity that was worshipped throughout ancient Mesopotamia (Akkad, Assyria, and Babylonia) with the main seat of his worship at Cuthah represented by the mound of Tell-Ibrahim. Other names for him are Erra and Irra.

Shivini

Shivini (also known as Siuini, Artinis, Ardinis) was a solar god in the mythology of the Armenian kingdom of Urartu. He is the third god in a triad with Khaldi and Theispas. The Assyrian god Shamash is a counterpart to Shivini. He was depicted as a man on his knees, holding up a solar disc. His wife was most likely a goddess called Tushpuea who is listed as the third goddess on the Mheri-Dur inscription.

Shiva

Shiva (Sanskrit: Śiva, lit. the auspicious one) also known as Mahadeva (lit. the great god) is one of the principal deities of Hinduism. He is one of the supreme beings within Shaivism, one of the major traditions within contemporary Hinduism.

In the Skanda Purana, a Hindu religious text, Mars is known as the deity Mangala and was born from the sweat of Shiva. The planet is called Angaraka in Sanskrit, after the celibate god of war who possesses the signs of Aries and Scorpio, and teaches the occult sciences.Mars is the traditional ruling planet of Aries and Scorpio and is exalted in Capricorn.

Shiva is known as “The Destroyer” within the Trimurti, the Hindu trinity that includes Brahma and Vishnu. In Shaivism tradition, Shiva is one of the supreme beings who creates, protects and transforms the universe. According to the Shaivism sect, the highest form of Ishvar is formless, limitless, transcendent and unchanging absolute Brahman, and the primal Atman (soul, self) of the universe.

In the Shaktism tradition, the Goddess, or Devi, is described as one of the supreme, yet Shiva is revered along with Vishnu and Brahma. A goddess is stated to be the energy and creative power (Shakti) of each, with Parvati (Sati) the equal complementary partner of Shiva. He is one of the five equivalent deities in Panchayatana puja of the Smarta tradition of Hinduism.

There are many both benevolent and fearsome depictions of Shiva. In benevolent aspects, he is depicted as an omniscient Yogi who lives an ascetic life on Mount Kailash as well as a householder with wife Parvati and his two children, Ganesha and Kartikeya. In his fierce aspects, he is often depicted slaying demons. Shiva is also known as Adiyogi Shiva, regarded as the patron god of yoga, meditation and arts.

The iconographical attributes of Shiva are the serpent around his neck, the adorning crescent moon, the holy river Ganga flowing from his matted hair, the third eye on his forehead, the trishula or trident, as his weapon, and the damaru drum. He is usually worshipped in the aniconic form of Lingam. Shiva is a pan-Hindu deity, revered widely by Hindus, in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

Mars

Mars in culture is about the planet Mars in culture. For example, the planet Mars is named after the Roman god of war Mars. In Babylonian astronomy, the planet was named after Nergal, their deity of fire, war, and destruction, most likely due to the planet’s reddish appearance. The planet was known by the ancient Egyptians as “Horus of the Horizon”, then later Her Deshur (“Ḥr Dšr”), or “Horus the Red”.

Ashwini

Ashvin also stands for the divine twins, the Ashvins, or Ashwini Kumaras (“horse possessors”; also spelled Ashvins), the twin Vedic gods of vision, Ayurvedic medicine, in Hindu mythology, the glow of sunrise and sunset, and averting misfortune and sickness in Hindu mythology.

The Aśvins are associated with the dawn and are described as youthful divine twin horsemen in the Rigveda, travelling in a chariot drawn by horses that are never weary.

They are an instance of the Proto-Indo-European divine horse twins. Their cognates in other Indo-European mythologies include the Baltic Ašvieniai, the Greek Castor and Polux; and possibly the English Hengist and Horsa, and the Welsh Bran and Manawydan.

Nasatya

The epithet Nasatya (possibly “saviours”; a derivate of nasatí, “safe return home”), a name that appears 99 times in the Rigveda, likely derives from the Proto-Indo-European root *nes-, “to return home (safely)”, with cognates in Avestan Nā̊ŋhaiθya, the name of a demon in the Zoroastrian religious system, in Greek Nestor and in Gothic nasjan (“save, heal”).

The first mention of the Nasatya twins is from the Mitanni documents of the second millennium BCE, where they are invoked in a treaty between Suppiluliuma and Shattiwaza, respectively kings of the Hittites and the Mitanni.

Apollo

Medicine and healing are associated with Apollo, whether through the god himself or mediated through his son Asclepius, and he delivered men from epidemics, yet Apollo is also a god who could bring ill-health and deadly plague with his arrows.

Amongst the Hurrians and later Hittites Nergal was known as Aplu, a name derived from the Akkadian Apal Enlil, (Apal being the construct state of Aplu) meaning “the son of Enlil”. Aplu may be related with Apaliunas who is considered to be the Hittite reflex of *Apeljōn, an early form of the name Apollo.

Nergal

In Babylonian astronomy, the stars Castor and Pollux were known as the Great Twins. The Twins were regarded as minor gods and were called Meshlamtaea and Lugalirra, meaning respectively ‘The One who has arisen from the Underworld’ and the ‘Mighty King’. Both names can be understood as titles of Nergal, the major Babylonian god of plague and pestilence, who was king of the Underworld.

Nergal’s chief temple at Cuthah bore the name Meslam, from which the god receives the designation of Meslamtaeda or Meslamtaea, “the one that rises up from Meslam”. The name Meslamtaeda/Meslamtaea indeed is found as early as the list of gods from Fara while the name Nergal only begins to appear in the Akkadian period.

Gemini

Gemini is one of the constellations of the zodiac. Its name is Latin for “twins,” and in Greek mythology it is associated with the two Dioscuri, or heavenly twins, Castor and Pollux, the children of Leda and Argonauts both. Pollux was the son of Zeus, who seduced Leda, while Castor was the son of Tyndareus, king of Sparta and Leda’s husband.

Mercury

Mercury is the ruling planet of both Virgo and Gemini and is exalted in Virgo and Aquarius. Uranus is the modern ruling planet of Aquarius and is exalted in Scorpio. Pluto is the modern ruling planet of Scorpio and is exalted in Virgo. Saturn is the traditional ruling planet of Capricorn and Aquarius and is exalted in Libra. Mars is the traditional ruling planet of Aries and Scorpio and is exalted in Capricorn.

Before the discovery of Uranus, Saturn was regarded as the ruling planet of Aquarius alongside Capricorn, which is the preceding sign. Anyway many traditional types of astrologers refer to Saturn as the planetary ruler for both Capricorn and Aquarius.

Isimud

Isimud (also Isinu; Usmû; Usumu (Akkadian)) is a minor god, the messenger of the god Enki, in Sumerian mythology. In ancient Sumerian artwork, Isimud is easily identifiable because he is always depicted with two faces facing in opposite directions in a way that is similar to the ancient Roman god Janus.

Isimud appears in the legend of Inanna and Enki, in which he is the one who greets Inanna upon her arrival to the E-Abzu temple in Eridu. He also is the one who informs Enki that the mes have been stolen. In the myth, Isimud also serves as a messenger, telling Inanna to return the mes to Enki or face the consequences.

Isimud plays a similar role to Ninshubur (also known as Ninshubar, Nincubura or Ninšubur), Inanna’s sukkal. Isimud also appears in the myth of Enki and Ninhursag, in which he acts as Enki’s messenger and emissary.

Ninshubur

Ninshubur was the sukkal or second-in-command of the goddess Inanna in Sumerian mythology. Her name means “Queen of the East” in ancient Sumerian. Much like Iris or Hermes in later Greek mythology, Ninshubur served as a messenger to the other gods.

Ninshubur accompanied Inanna as a vassal and friend throughout Inanna’s many exploits. She helped Inanna fight Enki’s demons after Inanna’s theft of the sacred me. Later, when Inanna became trapped in the Underworld, it was Ninshubur who pleaded with Enki for her mistress’s release.

Janus and Jana

According to Macrobius who cites Nigidius Figulus and Cicero, Janus and Jana (Diana) are a pair of divinities, worshipped as Apollo or the sun and moon, whence Janus received sacrifices before all the others, because through him is apparent the way of access to the desired deity. Numa in his regulation of the Roman calendar called the first month Januarius after Janus, according to tradition considered the highest divinity at the time.

Solar interpretation

A similar solar interpretation has been offered by A. Audin who interprets the god as the issue of a long process of development, starting with the Sumeric cultures, from the two solar pillars located on the eastern side of temples, each of them marking the direction of the rising sun at the dates of the two solstices: the southeastern corresponding to the Winter and the northeastern to the Summer solstice.

These two pillars would be at the origin of the theology of the divine twins, one of whom is mortal (related to the NE pillar, as confining with the region where the sun does not shine) and the other is immortal (related to the SE pillar and the region where the sun always shines). Later these iconographic models evolved in the Middle East and Egypt into a single column representing two torsos and finally a single body with two heads looking at opposite directions.

Skara Brae is a stone-built Neolithic settlement that is older than Stonehenge and the Great Pyramids, it has been called the “Scottish Pompeii” because of its excellent preservation. It gained UNESCO World Heritage Site status as one of four sites making up “The Heart of Neolithic Orkney”.

It is located on the Bay of Skaill on the west coast of Mainland, the largest island in the Orkney archipelago of Scotland. Consisting of eight clustered houses, it was occupied from roughly 3180 BC to about 2500 BC and is Europe’s most complete Neolithic village.

Skara Brae (Scotland) is associated with haplogroup G2a and I2b. The testing of Neolithic remains in various parts of Europe has confirmed that haplogroup G2a was the dominant lineages of Neolithic farmers and herders who migrated from Anatolia to Europe between 9,000 and 6,000 years ago.

As of late 2016, there were 303 mutations (SNPs) defining haplogroup G, confirming that this paternal lineage experienced a severe bottleneck before splitting into haplogroups G1 and G2. G1 might have originated around modern Iran at the start of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), some 26,000 years ago. G2 would have developed around the same time in West Asia. At that time humans would all have been hunter-gatherers, and in most cases living in small nomadic or semi-nomadic tribes.

The highest genetic diversity within haplogroup G is found in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent, between the Levant and the Caucasus, which is a good indicator of its region of origin. It is thought that early Neolithic farmers expanded from northern Mesopotamia westwards to Anatolia and Europe, eastwards to South Asia, and southwards to the Arabian peninsula and North and East Africa.

Members of haplogroup G2 appear to have been closely linked to the development of early agriculture in the Fertile Crescent part, starting 11,500 years before present. The G2a branch expanded to Anatolia, the Caucasus and Europe, while G2b diffused from Iran across the Fertile Crescent and east to Pakistan.

There has so far been ancient Y-DNA analysis from Early Neolithic Anatolia, Iran, Israel, Jordan as well as most Neolithic cultures in Europe (Thessalian Neolithic in Greece, Starčevo culture in Hungary/Croatia, LBK culture in Germany, Remedello in Italy, and Cardium Pottery in south-west France and Spain) and all sites yielded a majority of G2a individuals, except those from the Levant. This strongly suggests that farming was disseminated by members of haplogroup G at least from Anatolia/Iran to Europe.

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Scottish Farmer Discovers 5,000-Year-Old Lost City

Until recently, the oldest human fossil remains ever discovered in Poland were three molars found in Cave Stajnia, in the Krakow-Czestochowa Upland. Those molars were estimated to be between 42-52,000 years old. According to Science in Poland, that discovery has recently been blown away. A pair of finger bones belonging to a young Neanderthal child have been found in Cave Ciemna. The bones appear to have been digested by a large bird and are estimated to be about 115,000 years old.

Bones Reveal Neanderthal Child was Eaten by a Giant Prehistoric Bird