On the island of Crete the snake appears in the worship of the female deity more repeatedly than anywhere else in the Mediterranean area. All over the island, artifacts have been unearthed that portray the Goddess or Her priestesses holding snakes in their hands or with them coiled about their bodies, revealing that they were an integral part of the religious rituals. Along with the statues of serpent-entwined priestesses, cylindrical clay objects, also wrapped about with serpents, have been discovered on Crete. Arthur Evans, the archaeologist who excavated the Cretan palace at Knossos, described them as “snake tubes” and suggested that they were used to feed the sacred serpents that were kept at the sanctuaries of the Cretan Goddess. The abundant evidence of the sacred nature of the serpent, along with the Goddess, has in fact appeared to such an extent on Crete that many archaeologists refer to the female deity there as the Serpent Goddess.
Evans, offering supportive evidence, asserted that the Lady of the Serpents on Crete was originally derived from the worship of the Cobra Goddess of the predynastic people of Egypt. He suggested that the worship of the Serpent Lady may have been brought to Crete in about 3000 B.C. This is much the same time that the First Dynasty of Egypt was forming, and he further suggested that Egyptian people may have fled to Crete as a result of the invasions at that time.
The use of the cobra in the religion of the Goddess in Egypt was so ancient that the sign that preceded the name of any Goddess was the cobra (i.e., a picture of a cobra was the hieroglyphic sign for the word Goddess). In predynastic Egypt the female deity of Lower Egypt (north) was the Cobra Goddess known as Ua Zit. Not a great deal is known about this most ancient Cobra Goddess, but we later see Her as the uraeus cobra worn upon the foreheads of other deities and Egyptian royalty. The cobra was known as the Eye, uzait, a symbol of mystic insight and wisdom. Later derivations of the Cobra Goddess, such as Hathor and Maat, were both known as the Eye. This term, in any context it is used, is always written in feminine form. The position of the Eye and its eventual association with male deities was explained in Chapter Four. The Goddess as Hathor was also associated with the male deity Horus; Her name actually means House of Hor. But one text preserved the story that Hathor had been the serpent who had existed before anything else had been created. She then made the heavens, the earth and all life that existed on it. In this account She was angry, though the text is not clear about the reason; She threatened to destroy all of creation and once more resume Her original form as a serpent.
A prophetic sanctuary stood in the Egyptian city of Buto, once the foremost religious center of the Cobra Goddess. The town was actually known as Per Uto in Egyptian, but the Greeks called it Buto, also applying this name to the Cobra Goddess Herself. This shrine was credited in classical Greek times to the Goddess known as Lato, but it is likely that the same site had once been the shrine of Oracular advice of the Goddess Ua Zit Herself. Herodotus reported that he saw enormous numbers of snake skeletons lying in a pass in that city.
In Greece, we are afforded the closest look at the derivatives of the Egyptian and Cretan Serpent Goddess. Though the nature of the religion had undergone some major transformations after the invasions of the Achaeans and Dorians, who brought with them the worship of Zeus, many vestiges of the earlier images and symbolism still survived. This was especially manifested in the heroic figure of Athena. Her serpent continually appeared in legends, drawings and sculptures. In some statues it peered out from beneath Her great bronze shield or stood by Her side. A special building known as the Erechtheum stood on the Acropolis alongside Her temple, the Parthenon. This Erechtheum was considered to be the home of Athena’s snake. But the snake of the Greek Goddess of Wisdom, who was revered on the majestic heights of the Athenian Acropolis, was not a creation of the classical Greek period. Despite the Indo-European Greek legend that suggests that Athena was born from the head of Zeus, the worship of the Goddess had arrived on the Acropolis long before—with the Cretan Goddess of the Mycenaean settlements. The classical temples of the Acropolis, consecrated to the Greek Athena, were actually built on Mycenaean foundations.
The connections begin to take form. As we read before, the Mycenaeans were the people who had lived on Crete at the palace of Knossos at about 1400 BC. They had integrated the earlier Minoan-Cretan culture into their own to such an extent that the worship is often described as the Minoan-Mycenaean religion. Clothing styles, signet rings, murals, seals and artifacts of all kinds reveal the great similarity of the Mycenaean religious beliefs to those of the Cretans. Once understanding these connections, we realize the significance of the fact that, beneath the ruins of the classical Greek temples of Athens and Delphi, as well as many other Greek shrines where the Goddess was most reverently associated with Her serpent, lay these older Mycenaean remains.
The shrine that perhaps offers the deepest insight into the connections of the female deity of Greece to the Serpent Goddess of Crete is Delphi. Under the classical temple and buildings of Delphi, Mycenaean artifacts and ruins of earlier shrines have been unearthed. In the earliest times, the Goddess at Delphi was held sacred as the one who supplied the divine revelations spoken by the priestesses who served Her. The woman who brought forth the oracles of divine wisdom was called the Pythia. Coiled about the tripod stool upon which she sat was a snake known as Python. Though in later Greek writings Python was male, in the earliest accounts Python was described as female. The serpent Python was of such importance that this city had once been known as Pytho. According to Pausanius the earliest temple at this site had been built by women, while Aeschylus recorded that at this holiest of shrines the Goddess was extolled as the Primeval Prophetess. In later times the priests of the male Apollo took over this shrine, and Greek legend tells us of the murder of Python by Apollo. The many sculptures and reliefs of women, generally described as “the Amazons,” fighting against men at this shrine may actually depict the initial seizure.
Reports of Python, as well as the legend of Cassandra of Troy, reveal that snakes were familiar inhabitants of the oracular shrine at Delphi. Sacred snakes were also kept at a temple of the Goddess known as Hera, who was closely associated with Gaia of Delphi, the Primeval Prophetess. The sites of divination at Delphi, Olympia and Dodona were initially identified with the Goddess but were later confiscated by the priests of Zeus and Apollo (both of whom are described as having killed the serpent of the Goddess Gaia). Yet, even under the name of the male deities, it was still priestesses who most often supplied the respected counsel.
So far we have seen that the female deity, as She was known in Babylon, Egypt, Crete and Greece, was identified as or with serpents and closely associated with wisdom and prophecy. But it was not only in these lands that the Serpent Goddess was known. Again, when we look over to Canaan, which bordered on the Mediterranean Sea (as do Egypt, Crete and Greece), we discover evidence of the esteem paid to the Goddess as the Serpent Lady.
The manner in which the connections occur are intriguing. They are really deserving of an entire book rather than the few paragraphs we have room for here. From Neolithic times onward, people were quite mobile, trading and warring in areas many miles from their original homes. Distant colonies were founded and settled where timber, gold, spices and other valuable materials were found. Phoenician ships traversed not only the entire Mediterranean Sea and the inland rivers but made their way well around the coast of Spain as far as Cadiz, and possibly even up to the British Isles, many centuries before the birth of Christ and the Roman invasions. Even before the Phoenicians, who were actually the Canaanites of Tyre and Sidon, there were groups of people who sailed the Mediterranean waters freely and who were known simply as the Sea Peoples. They appear to have traveled widely, often leaving behind them the evident remains of their visit or settlement.
One such people were known as the Philistines. This name has been made familiar to us through the Bible, where they are continuously described as a treacherously evil people, obviously the archenem
ies of the Hebrews. But as Professor R.K. Harrison wrote, “Archaeological excavations in Philistine territory have shown that it is clearly a mistake to regard the Philistines as synonymous with barbarity or cultural deficiency, as is so frequently done in common speech.”
The Philistine people present one of the most significant links between the worship of the Serpent Goddess of Crete and the female deity as She was revered in Canaan. The Philistines are recorded in the Old Testament to have come from the isle of Caphtor—which is generally believed to be Crete; the Egyptians called it Keftiu. The Bible described them as coming from Caphtor and Egypt. Though their major migrations to Canaan appear to have taken place about 1200 BC, Philistines are mentioned in Canaan in the time of Abraham. Several writers have suggested that the Philistines were actually a branch of the Mycenaeans, who were culturally active upon Crete and Greece at the same time. Some writers associate their name with the Pelasgians, the people who lived in Greece before the Indo-European invasions. During the periods of the greatest Philistine migrations into Canaan, they settled primarily in the southwest. This area came to be known as Philistia, the origin of the name Palestine. Evidence suggests that along with the Philistine people came the religion of the Serpent Goddess.
Some of the most revealing evidence of the connections of the worship of the Serpent Goddess of Crete to the female deity of Canaan, as well as the nearby island of Cyprus, has been the discovery in both places of “snake tubes”—nearly identical to those found on Crete. Of even greater significance is the fact that a snake tube was unearthed in a Philistine temple devoted to the worship of Ashtoreth.
Archaeologist R.W. Hutchinson pointed out some of the connections:
The snake tubes of Gournia [a town on Crete] have interesting parallels outside Crete and Evans collated a convincing series of examples of clay tubes connected with the household snake cult, some with modeled snakes crawling up them … Some of the more interesting examples of snake tubes, however, come not from Crete at all but from Late Bronze Age sites in Cyprus and Philistia. One tube found at Kition on Cyprus shows the snake tube converted into a dove cot … Another tube found in the House of Ashtoreth on the Philistine site of Beth Shan [Canaan] dated to the reign of Ramses II of Egypt (c. 1292–1225 BC) shows two snakes crawling round and into the tube …
Another piece found at Beth Shan portrayed the Goddess leaning from the window of a shrine, while a serpent emerged from a lower level. At this same site quite a few “Astarte plaques” were found, along with the statue of a woman, probably intended to represent a priestess—with a serpent coiled about her neck. Another interesting discovery made in this temple was a terra cotta serpent with female breasts. According to the Bible it was this House of Ashtoreth in Beth Shan where the armor of the defeated Hebrew King Saul was victoriously displayed by the Philistines (I Sam. 31:10).
On the nearby island of Cyprus, at another temple of Ashtoreth located in the town of Kition, near present-day Larnaca, not only a snake tube most similar to those found on Crete was discovered but also a small clay figure holding a snake. Recent excavations at Kition have unearthed another figure of Ashtoreth. We may not be too surprised to learn that the Ashtoreth temple at Kition was built on what are thought to be Mycenaean or Cretan foundations.
Though the presence of the Philistines alone might be sufficient to attest and explain the appearance of the Serpent Goddess in Canaan, Her worship gained entrance into the “promised land” through other channels as well. The Goddess Isis-Hathor, whose worship assimilated that of Ua Zit, the Cobra Goddess of Egypt, was well known in certain sections of Sinai and Canaan. Even as early as the Second Dynasty, some of these places are believed to have been seaports or even colonies of Egypt.
Some of the connections of the Goddess in Canaan with the female deity as She was known in Egypt are revealed through their names. In Egypt the Canaanite Ashtoreth was known as Asit, again much like Ua Zit and Au Set. The name Umm Attar, Mother Attar, was known in parts of Arabia, probably related to the name Hathor but also to another Canaanite name for Ashtoreth—Attoret.
Several ancient temples offer evidence of the connection between Isis-Hathor and the Goddess in Canaan. In both She appears as the Serpent Goddess. At the first, Serabit el Khadim, a shrine on the Sinai Peninsula close to the great Egyptian turquoise mines, bilingual Egyptian and Semitic inscriptions have been discovered. The inscriptions named the deity once worshipped at the shrine as the Goddess Hathor. In these bilingual inscriptions Hathor was also referred to as Baalat, meaning Lady or Goddess, as the word was then known in Canaan. J.R. Harris wrote of the temple on Sinai and discussed the relationship between the two names of the Goddess as She was known there. He explained, “Here she [Baalat] was evidently identified with the Egyptian Goddess Hathor at whose temple all the inscriptions were found.” But perhaps most significant is the fact that, on the walls of this shrine, two prayers had been carved into the stone. In both of these the Goddess was invoked—as the Serpent Lady.
Sir Flinders Petri wrote of probable oracles at the enclosures of the Serabit complex. This shrine on the Sinai Peninsula, which lies between Egypt and Canaan, is particularly worth noting since many scholars have suggested that it may have been on the route the Hebrew tribes took upon their exodus from Egypt. The Bible records that it was during this period in the desert that Moses came to possess the “brazen serpent,” which appeared seven hundred years later in the shrine in Jerusalem. It was eventually destroyed by the Hebrew reformer Hezekiah as a “pagan abomination” but it is not inconceivable that it may have come into the possession of the Hebrews at Serabit and even have been accepted temporarily by Moses as a means of placating the Hebrew people.
Yet this bronze serpent seems to have been identified with the Goddess religion, for the Bible reveals that it was kept in the same temple in Jerusalem where in 700 BC we find vessels for Ashtoreth and Baal, the asherah, the house of the sacred women and the women who wept for Tammuz.
The title of Baalat as another name for Hathor leads to yet another shrine of the Goddess, the one at the Canaanite port of Byblos, a site first settled as long ago as 6000 BC. As late as the fourth century BC, writings from Berytus (Beirut) stated that the Baalat was still the principal deity of Byblos. Overlooking the Mediterranean waters, on this coastal site of what is now Lebanon in what had once been Canaan, temple foundations date back to at least 2800 BC. Many records of Byblos tell us that it was, during most periods, closely aligned with Egypt.
At this temple in Byblos the Goddess was revered both as Baalat and as Isis-Hathor. Many symbols of the Goddess and Her cobra were found amid the ruins. One headband, adorned with the rising cobra, was constructed so that the snake would emerge from the forehead of the person who wore it, as the Eye of Wisdom. At this same site two golden cobras and an offering bowl decorated with snakes was also unearthed. According to Egyptian legend, it was to this city of Byblos in Canaan that Isis had once traveled to retrieve the body of Her dead brother/husband Osiris.
Elsewhere in Canaan evidence of snakes appears alongside the worship of the Goddess. It seems likely that the majority of the sculptures and artifacts associated with the female deity and Her serpent in Canaan may have met destruction at the time of the occupation of the Levite-led Hebrews; yet scattered remains offer silent testimony to Her one-time existence even in the cities of southern Canaan.
At Taanach a number of serpent heads were discovered, as well as a small figure holding a serpent. Here too was found a bronze figure of Ashtoreth along with an inscription that the Goddess gave the oracles by the pointing of Her finger.
At Beth Shemesh, jugs with serpents and a figure of the Goddess with a snake falling over Her shoulder and into Her lap were unearthed in excavations. At Tell Beit Mersim, another Philistine stronghold, there were many “Astarte plaques,” as well as a plaque that Albright refers to as the Goddess, a serpent coiled about the lower half of the body. The piece is ve
ry badly mutilated and I would hesitate to say who the figure actually represents, though the snake is certainly clear enough.
Hutchinson draws a connection between this particular figure and the Serpent Goddess of Minoan Crete, writing, “A similar snake goddess seems to have been worshipped during the Bronze Age in Palestine where a stele was found at Tell Beit Mersim in a deposit dated about 1600 BC, carved with a representation of a goddess with her snake curling round her body. This stele was practically contemporary with the faience figure of the Snake Goddess found in the temple repositories at Knossos.”
Another bronze serpent was found at Shushan, while at Shechem archaeologists unearthed a figure with a snake coiled about its body. At the town of Gezer, eighteen miles northwest of Jerusalem, a bronze serpent was found near a cave which had been used as a religious sanctuary. There was also a plaque of the Goddess with a cobra. Serpents also appear to have been depicted in the margins of the plaque. It has been suggested that in Her outstretched arms She once held serpents, as in so many of the other plaques of this type which combine the aspects of both Ashtoreth and Hathor, clay reliefs simply marked Qadesh—Holy. A bronze figure of Ashtoreth was also discovered at this same site.
Archaeologist R.A.S. Macalister described the excavation at Gezer in this way: “In an enclosure close to the standing stones was found a bronze model of a cobra which may have been a votive offering. It recalls the story of the brazen serpent of Moses to whose worship Hezekiah put an end in II Kings. Possibly this object was similar in appearance. Another remarkable find made within the precincts of the high place was the unique figure of the two horned Astarte.”
Gezer had two large underground caverns; the cobra was found at a nearby circular structure. Again, several writers have suggested that oracular divination may have been practiced in the underground chambers where libation bowls decorated with snakes were discovered.
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