This article talks about the trefoil iconography and how it was adopted in different ancient cultures with an ultimate link to…
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the stars. In a lot of ancient, or even some more recent or current cultures, the priest, saint or chiefs wore leopard skins. Below a few examples, Maya, Egypt, Indus valley and Zulu. This article looks into the reasons for such and the link to the sky and sky leopard and looks at the following:
- Leopard robes in priest/chiefs across ancient cultures
- The link with the Aker symbolism, the two lions in relation to the tree of life symbolism
- The usage of the treefoil across ancient cultures
- Why bulls in ancient cultures started to have treefoil iconography (The celestial cow)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopard_skin_(clothing_in_Ancient_Egypt)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priest-King_%28sculpture%29
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anen
The common explanation is that people liked the fierce animal and associated with it. But the true story is deeper than this.
I knew at some point that the Indus valley priest was wearing a leopard skin like the Egyptian priests.
Note the pillar in the middle and the use of trefoil and stars interchangable on the other reliefs.
Its difficult to explain the full concept, because one needs to be aware of a few other ancient concepts such as the tree of life as a metaphore for the rotating skies and how the two panthers or lions allways are linked to that tree of life, as seen in byzantine art and various other occurences such as the Pigna fountain on which I wrote seperately.
Etruscan tomb of the leopards. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomb_of_the_Leopards
One needs to also understand the symbolism of the pyramid itself such as El Castillo in Chichen Itza, which is a calender of the year, the 4 cardinal directions of the sky. Inside, there is the famous Jaguar throne statue. Not because they “just liked it as a fierce animal”. There is another image that is of interest which is called the throne of the jaguar in Uxmal.
One could say, why are you going all over the world to cultures far apart, they just liked the predatory jaguar animal all independently as there are no connections between these civilizations. I do not agree with this statement at all. If one understands why the leopards where used and used similarly in these cultures in relation to pyramids and tree of life symbolism, there is only 1 answer, that there was cultural exchange between these cultures. Archeologist were looking for identical scripts, or styles. But the clues are in the symbolism and astronomy, not in the artistic expressions of these artefacts.
Etruscan double lion, note the band in the middle just like at Uxmal.
And even the trefoil made it to the Americas in relation to the leopard as can be seen from this example.
I have been trying to figure the double lion symbolism out for a long time. I visited Myceneas lions gate with the pillar again in the middle and found these lions allways returning in ancient art in relation to the tree of life of pillar of heaven and the Aker symbol in Egypt. One of my first old book on this subjuct was “The Mycenean tree and pillar cult from archeologist Arthur J. Evans“
A Quote from Wikipedia is at place: “Aker was first depicted as the torso of a recumbent lion with a widely opened mouth. Later, he was depicted as two recumbent lion torsos merged with each other and still looking away from each other.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aker_%28deity%29
I finally made a breakthrough in understanding this double feline symbolism and why they are seen flanking many figures in ancient art, such as Medusa, tree of life and others. All those figures are zodiac related figures. The two leopards related to the sky and its stars. All was falling together and made perfect sense. The drawing of the babylonian zodiac by Gavin white gave me answers to the east and west felines and to why Innana (eastern fish) or Nergal is often shown with a panther. This is the answer also to why there are temple lions.
The temple and tree of life is a symbol for the sky eternal creation and time itself. We are the fruit of the evergreen (pine) tree.
This is global astronomical symbolism. The lions or leopards are only a small fraction of the total picture. But understanding the whole makes it impossible to say that they all just started doing the same thing, if you can actually identify “the same thing”. It raises further questions to how these cultures exchanged such ideas or how all these ancient cultures were in contact or related to each other but that is a question that has never even be asked because there was the assumption that they were all independant cultures and not linked in any way.
Again, as is voiced by academia, there is no consensus whatsoever that the ancient cultures were related in any way, all is coincidence and they just came up with the same things. I think they just do not understand the relations and the symbolism that these cultures all shared.
Back to the trefoil and star connection
It is easy to see where the trefoil pattern came from and yes, they could have come up with this independently looking at the jaguar itself. But as you can see the jaguar has many spots and only few true trefoils so picking these, was a choice. A choice that was made in many cultures that were not suppose to interact with each other.
Iran Sasanian plate. The tree shape leaves in the background are important also in tree of life relation, as they are from the Pipal tree. The same leaves can be seen in relation to the Cernunnos Chauldron and again are Orion as the lunar deer Nakshastra and links to protoshiva from the indus civilization but that is out of scope for this article. Its tree of life / sky symbolism. The “tree of life” was many trees, in the west, the evergreen pinetree (Christmas tree with its stary lights and balls for planets with polar star), In Egypt likely the Cedar tree, In the americas the Ceiba tree and so on, but the concept was the same. The tree of life is the rotating sky and the cosmos. Why there are peepal leaves on the cernnunos chauldron or why depicted as a deer (orion sanskrit lunar mansion) raises again questions of cultural exchange or leads to possibilities of a global vedic civilization. In Egypt the Pyramids are called Mr. Close to Meru. Nila is a sanskrit word for blue. In the Americas Makara and turtles with pillars on their back were found. These all are leads to investigate on instead of holding on to the notion that these cultures sprouted independently even whilst the evidence against such starts to pile up quickly particularly in astronomical concepts such as the jaguar or tree of life and the astronomical pyramid buildings, “not just an easy way to build a tall building”.
That same trefoil pattern made it to Europe where these where worn on garments, much like the spots of a leopard.
Now India
In a previous article I explained the origin of the proto shiva and the Lingam Yoni worship as basis for creation through the god Min as Orion and even touched on Sayburc. It is no secret that like many bronze age civilizations, Egyptians, Cretans and the Minoans, the bull was worshipped. Eventually this is an Orion/Tauris relation.
But for the purpose of this article I learned something new regarding the trefoil coming from this side. Something that I wasnt aware of. Although I knew the leopards spot being related to the stars and its tree of life connections or connections with ancient figures flanked by them as Zodiac figures I did not know about the trefoil pattern on the Shiva lingam or the usage of the trefoil on the bulls. Mainly indian researchers made these connections
Since the bull was Taurus, or Hathor the mothergodess and the milkyway putting trefoils on them as they interchangeble with stars made perfect sense.
So what can be concluded from all this.
The trefoil is related to the stars, it was the leopard skin pattern applied also to lingams and bulls for they all have star relations
The leopard was an important sky figure. Its placement at Chichen Itza El Castillo was not because it was a fierce animal. It has, like many other cultures a star relation. The cow worship of which India still practices is likely the last remnants of an older global cow worship and culture linked to Taurus and Orion. Where the sun passes though its horns.
As last remnant of such bull worship culture, what the Indians perhaps do not realize, is that their Nandi and Shiva as “the cosmic dancer” in its circle of time, the rotating sky is also stars, Taurus and Orion, just like the catholic religion Jezus is based on Orion, the the shephard of Anu.
And for this reason the Indus valley priest had a circle on its forehead and I would even go as far that this is the reasons for the circles in front of the pyramids of Ancient Caral, where fires where lit on top of the pyramids for the cosmic fire, the sun, a form of Agni fire altar worship and as I pointed out in my other articles, links pyramids to volcanoes as the primordial mountains, rising from the primordial waters as creation of fire and water or the union of male and female forces, sky father and earth mother.
As for the “leopard”, the stary rotating sky, will eat us all.