Q: (L) Okay... Can you get me any closer to a clue here?
A: Check the Hurrian connection.
Q: (L) I thought I had checked that pretty deeply. I guess I could read some more. Now, there are those who say that Zurvanism was an attempt to deal with some of the dangling problems that Zoroaster left in terms of his dualism. One of his hymns describes Ahura Mazda and Ahriman as twins, so, they came up with Zurvanism, the ultimate god of space/time as father to the twins to explain this. Is that in fact the case?
A: No. Zurvan was the ancient god of the steppes and the Indo-Aryan peoples.
Q: (L) Okay, I've got a paper here... It seems that Zurvan was perceived as the god of infinite time and space, and was described as, "One Alone, a transcendental neutral god, and without passion. One for whom there was no distinction between good and evil. So, Zurvan had a varied history... So, the problem I want to get to right now is the idea that Zurvan was represented as the lion-headed god. There was a lion man figure found in Hohlenstein-Stadel, which is a German cave. It's carved out of ivory, and it's THE oldest known zoomorphic animal sculpture in the world, and the oldest known uncontested example of figurative art. It has been determined to be about - ready? 40,000 years old!! That was by carbon dating the material which was in the same layer where the figure was found. It was associated with the Aurignacian culture and it was 29cm in height, carved out of mammoth ivory using a flint stone knife. Seven parallel, transverse, carved gouges are on the left arm. The figure of Zurvan is often represented with a serpent coiled around him seven times. It is said that the sculpture shares certain similarities with French cave wall paintings which also show hybrid creatures. The Lion man is several thousand years older. Anyhow, this artifact seems to resemble very closely the lion man figure that was described as being the representation of Zurvan. So, I guess my question is: Are we talking about the same religion or religious ideas or perceptions that were common to the cultures that produced the cave art in Western Europe?
A: Yes