The Serpent Race & Concept ♦ Evidence from India

Snake Cults Dominated Early Arabia

Pre-Islamic Middle Eastern regions were home to mysterious snake cults, according to two papers published in this month's Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy journal.

From at least 1250 B.C. until around 550 A.D., residents of what is now the Persian Gulf worshipped snakes in elaborate temple complexes that appear to have been built for this purpose, the studies reveal.

The first paper, by archaeologist Dan Potts of the University of Sydney, describes architecture and relics dating to 500 B.C. from Qalat al-Bahrain in Bahrain.

Two rooms in what is now known as the Late Dilmun Palace each contain 39 pits, some of which surround what appears to have been an altar. At least 32 of the pits housed ceramic vessels containing bones from rat snakes and sea snakes.

The remains showed no signs of mutilation. "They were in cloth bags, now badly decomposed, and that might suggest that they had been buried alive, i.e. put into a bag, placed in a bowl, and then buried in the ground," Potts told Discovery News.

Some bowls found at the site have been identified as "wine-drinking" cups. Potts, however, does not necessarily think that wine consumption accompanied the snake rituals, which he speculates were meant to confer protection and good luck.

He described pottery decorated with snakes, snake artwork and even ancient oral traditions, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, which originated at early Arabic sites and paid homage to snakes.

In the second paper, archaeologist Anne Benoist of the Eastern Archaeology Laboratory at the National Center for Scientific Research in France describes yet another Iron Age temple complex linked to snake cults.

Excavation of the site, at Al Bithnah in the United Arab Emirates, revealed both indoor and open-air altars, chapel-like structures, incense burners, man-made pools of water and numerous vessels and objects decorated with snakes.

Most of the snakes were depicted with triangular heads and scales, which Benoist said suggests "a viper species, which is striking, as they are venomous and therefore dangerous."

Benoist said early Middle Eastern traditions held that snake venom was viewed as "a source of power over life." Snakes are prevalent in Persian Gulf regions.

She pointed out that the association of snakes with power over life even carried over into the Old Testament. One passage describes Moses placing a bronze snake on a pole so that anyone who had been bitten by a snake would be healed upon seeing it.

The seasonal shedding of skin linked the reptile to cycles of death and rebirth, so snakes were probably also connected to fertility.

Potts thinks snake worship originated in India and spread throughout the Middle East. There is evidence for extensive trade and travel between the two areas.

As for the fate of snake cults, Benoist said later religions likely deemed them "superstitious," causing followers to practice snake veneration in secret. Eventually, she said, the cults were "overtaken by the official monotheist religion."

From: http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/05/17/snakecult_arc.html?category=archaeology

Archeologists have found a carved python snake as tall as a man and 20 feet long inside a cave in the remote hills of the Kalahari Desert of Botswana they say is proof humans were performing rituals 70,000 years ago.

Prior to the recent discovery scientists had thought human intelligence had not evolved the capacity to perform group rituals until perhaps 40,000 years ago.

"You could see the mouth and eyes of the snake. It looked like a real python," said Sheila Coulson of the University of Oslo. "The play of sunlight over the indentations gave them the appearance of snake skin. At night, the firelight gave one the feeling that the snake was actually moving."

Coulson and her colleagues also found spearheads made of stone brought to the cave from hundreds of miles away when they dug a test pit near the stone reptile. The scientists said the spearheads were burned in what only could be described as some sort of ritual.

"Stone age people took these colorful spearheads, brought them to the cave, and finished carving them there," Coulson said today. "Only the red spearheads were burned. It was a ritual destruction of artifacts. There was no sign of normal habitation. No ordinary tools were found at the site."

The remote region of Botswana called Tsodilo Hills is the only uplifted area for miles around. Modern Sanpeople call it the "Mountains of the Gods" and the "Rock that Whispers." According to their legend, mankind descended from the python, and the ancient, arid streambeds around the hills were created by the python as it circled the hills in its ceaseless search for water.

That legend made the discovery of the stone python all the more amazing.

"Our find means that humans were more organized and had the capacity for abstract thinking at a much earlier point in history than we have previously assumed," Coulson said. "All of the indications suggest that Tsodilo has been known to mankind for almost 100,000 years as a very special place in the pre-historic landscape."

Behind the carved python, scientists found a secret chamber with worn areas that indicate it's been used over the years.

"The shaman, who is still a very important person in San culture, could have kept himself hidden in that secret chamber," Coulson explained. "He would have had a good view of the inside of the cave while remaining hidden himself. When he spoke from his hiding place, it could have seemed as if the voice came from the snake itself. The shaman would have been able to control everything. It was perfect."

The shaman could also have disappeared from the chamber by crawling out onto the hillside through a small shaft, the scientists found.

Paintings in the cave appear to support part of modern San mythology.

Although cave paintings are common in the Tsodilo Hills, inside the python cave are only two small paintings of an elephant and a giraffe. The images were painted at the precise spot where water runs down the wall.

One San story has the python falling into water, unable to get out. It's saved by the giraffe. The elephant, with its long trunk, is often a metaphor for the python in San mythology.

"In the cave, we find only the San people's three most important animals: the python, the elephant, and the giraffe," Coulson said. "That is unusual. This would appear to be a very special place. They did not burn the spearheads by chance. They brought them from hundreds of kilometers away and intentionally burned them. So many pieces of the puzzle fit together here. It has to represent a ritual."