Thread: Here's an interesting cylinder seal impression, about which I only know that it is from the first half of the first millennium BC and that it is currently in Louvre. I presume that it is from Mesopotamia (cuneiform)...

The official description is "lion attacking bull"...That's it...That's it? Of course not...This is another complex animal calendar marker. This one telling people when to harvest dates...That's a date palm full of fruit on the right...

Late July and early August is date harvesting season in Iraq, when within the span of a few weeks the desert sun turns hard green spheres into tender, golden brown fruit prized for its sweetness...

Great. So where's the animal calendar whatever you are talking about? Well, remember this thread about another complex animal calendar marker, made over 2000 years earlier, which told people when to harvest grain? https://twitter.com/serbiaireland/status/1391072020348162048

In this thread I explained that bull is the animal symbol for summer (May,Jun,Jul)...This is because summer starts with calving of the wild Eurasian cattle and ends with mating of the wild Eurasian cattle...Hence Taurus (bull) marking the beginning of summer...

Now the animal symbol for autumn (Aug,Sep,Oct) is lion. Because Eurasian lions main mating season starts in August and spans the whole of autumn...Hence, Leo (lion) marking the beginning of autumn... https://twitter.com/serbiaireland/status/1388585136040644608