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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

    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Tiamat.JPG
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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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