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Snake Cults
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Worlds oldest ritual discovered. Worshipped the python 70,000 years ago
SACRIFIED TO THE PYTHON:
The worlds oldest ritual ceremonies are twice as old as previously thought. More than 70,000 years agoin a small cave in Botswana, humans sacrificed spearheads to the python.
A new archaeological find in Botswana shows that our ancestors in Africa engaged in ritual practice70,000 years ago 30,000 years earlier than the oldest finds in Europe. This sensational discoverystrengthens Africas position as the cradle of modern man.
Associate ProfessorSheila Coulson, from the University of Oslo, can now show that modern humans,Homo sapiens, have performed advanced rituals in Africa for 70,000 years. She has, in other words,discovered mankinds oldest known ritual.
67,000 B.C.E. Botswana, Africa
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5,000-year-old Semitic text dealingwith magical spells and snakes has
been deciphered from an ancientEgyptian pyramid inscription, theHebrew University of Jerusalemannounced Monday.
These serpent spells, written inhieroglyphic characters anddiscovered in an Egyptian pyramid,are the earliest continuous Semitic
texts to have been deciphered.
The texts, which were firstdiscovered a century ago in a 24thCentury BCE Egyptian pyramid, arethe earliest continuous Semitic textsever to have been deciphered, saidSemitic languages Prof. RichardSteiner of New York's YeshivaUniversity in a premiere presentationat the Hebrew University.
The passages, serpent spells writtenin hieroglyphic characters, areestimated to have been written
between the 25th to the 30th
centuries BCE.
3000 B.C.E - Egypt
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3000 B.C.E Elam (Iran)
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This famous green steatite vase was carved for king
Gudea of Lagash (dated variously 2200& 2025 BCE),
dedicated by its inscription to Ningizzida, "Lord of
the Tree of Truth" which bears a relief of serpents
twined round a staff"
2100 B.C.E. -2,100 B.C.E Lagash (Babylon)
The drawing above is from the internet and shows the image of
the vase "rolled out".
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Tiamat & Marduk
Marduk , the god of Babylonian society, defeated the great serpent Tiamat
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1,400 1,500 C.E. Mexico / Aztec 100 200 C.E. - Peru
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1,100 C.E. Cambodia India
Naga
the great snake that sheltered Siddhartha from the rain
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Seen in the form of the
snake goddess statuesfound at Knossos datingto the 17th century BC, aswell as, for example,earrings, such as the oneshowing a double-headed, earth encircling
serpent.
1,600 B.C.E. - Snake veneration in Crete
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Medusa / Gorgon Arguably the most indelible image of snakes in
mythology, Medusa means "sovereign female
wisdom," in Sanskrit. Medusa was actually imported
into Greece from Libya. Medusa was the destroyer
aspect of the Great Triple Goddess also called Neith,
Anath, Athene or Ath-enna in North Africa and Athana
in 1400 c. BC Minoan Crete. Medusa was originally
an aspect of the goddess Athena from Libya where
she was the Serpent-Goddess of the Libya
(Amazons). In her images, her hair sometimes
resembles dread locks, showing her origins in Africa.
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The goddess of wisdom and strategy, Athena is often depicted
wearing the Aegis of Zeus, which was fashioned from the head of
Medusa.
Athena
Images are from 600 - 500 BCE
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Apollo
The Greek god most closelyassociated with snake worship
is Apollo; the original name of
Apollo's temple at Delphi was
Pytho, after the snake Python .
Apollo killed the snake when he
came there, and took it over .This may actually be the origin
of the story of the gorgons.
Apollo was the god of prophesy
and knowledge, and the
snake, therefore became a
natural symbol for him.
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Aesculapius The Greek God of Medicine
was the son of Apollo. He is
typically depicted as having a
staff with a snake wound
around it.
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Many believe that the
Aesclapius staff (left)
represents the healers
ability to rid the patient of
the guinea worm by rollingthe parasite out of the
body attached to a stick,
each day rolling a little
more out. A symbol of
medicine for thousands of
years, it was replaced bythe Caduseus when the
army Medical Corp.
adopted it as its official
emblem in 1905.
Caduseus
The Staff of
Aesclapius
The Caduseus was the
staff of Hermes, and wasderived from the tree of
life / truth image
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Nehushtandepicted as a bronze snake wrapped around a staff, it was said to have been used byMoses to cure the Israelites of their snake bites.
The Mormon religion speaks of it as wrapped around the tree of life, and that it has the
power to heal. Some Christian religions have claimed that the tree of life was used tomake the cross on which Jesus was crucified.
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Macedonia 375-316 BCE
Olympias, the mother of Alexander the
Great, was said to have conceived of thegreat ruler after laying with a snake. The
famous historian Plutarch writes:
And Philip, some time after he was married,
dreamt that he sealed up his wife's body with a
seal, whose impression, as be fancied, was
the figure of a lion. Aristander of Telmessus,considering how unusual it was to seal up
anything that was empty, assured him the
meaning of his dream was that the queen was
with child of a boy, who would one day prove
as stout and courageous as a lion. Once,
moreover, a serpent was found lying by
Olympias as she slept, which more thananything else, it is said, abated Philip's passion
for her; and whether he feared her as an
enchantress, or thought she had commerce
with some god, and so looked on himself as
excluded, he was ever after less fond of her
conversation
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Glykon
The cult of the snake godGlykon was introduced in inthe mid-second century CE bythe Greek prophet Alexander
of Abonutichus.
The cult -or at least the snakeAlexander venerated-originated in Macedonia,where similar snake cults were
already known in the fourthcentury BCE.
Greece 120 B.C.E.
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OuroborosThe serpent or dragon eating its own tail has survived from antiquity and can be
traced back to Ancient Egypt, circa 1600 B.C.E. From there it passed to
Phoenicia and then to the Greek philosophers, who gave it the name
Ouroboros ("the tail-devourer").
First Fruits of the Earth Offered to Saturn
Giorgio Vasari (Italian, 15111574)
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Garden of Eden
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