Before Classical Greece: Antecedents and Predecessors of Asklepios

Thessaly...

Also, Anatolia...?

Asklepios may not have begun with the Greeks or their predecessors. The wondrous deity, revered healer, and huge constellation in the night sky may, according to Rey, represent the only historical figure in the night sky. There is evidently an Egyptian version of this figure, Imhotep, an "eminent physician and architect: first man of science in recorded history" who lived around 2900 B.C. (52). There is also evidence that there was a connection between the beliefs in Egypt and those in Greece. So the Asklepios lore may go back much further than classical Greece, into the eras before the tales were written down, and also when Goddesses had not yet lost as much of their power and eminence as they had by classical times.

Not only does he go far back in time, but he also comes forward to this present day. His symbol exists everywhere today, even in our country, the United States of America. It is the caduceus, the emblem of the medical profession, basically a rod with two snakes entwined about it, their heads meeting at the top. It is easy to see it as a logo on TV, anytime a newscaster introduces medical information or a breakthrough in medicine. It is still the symbol of medicine, and the snake is still there.

Interestingly, I have been told it resembles the DNA structure of molecules, at least the way it was first diagrammed, as can be seen here from a drawing I made of a similar drawing done as evidently described by James Watson in The Double Helix.

Kenneth R. Miller

Professor of Biology

Brown University

And now we will leave the Greek and Roman stories and travel over to see who Graves thought Asklepios was to the Druids. As we go back in time we find many stories of son/lovers of Goddesses who were sacrificed. It is not a far stretch to see that the story of Jesus as son of God may have some of its roots in similar stories, since so many of these myths come from the Middle East, from Egypt to Greece.

The Sacrificed Hero

Graves maintains that Asklepios is none other than the oak tree God, whose genitals (in the shape of mistletoe hanging from the oak) were lopped off by the Druids and sacrificed so that life might continue, for the "juice of its berries passed for oak-sperm, a liquid of great regenerative virtue" [my italics] (176). This story of the sacrifice of a God so that humans might be healed may be one of the forerunners of the Greek Asklepios myth (indeed even of the Jesus myth). Furthermore, according to Graves, the Latin form of Asklepios (which, I read in another place, means "unceasingly gentle"), is 'Aesculapius,' which also contains the meaning, "that which hangs from the esculent oak" (176). In addition, Ischys ("strength"), the lover of Coronis, may be a word closely associated with 'ixias,' which means 'mistletoe,' another link to the sacrificed oak God. In fact, Graves maintains that Ischys and Asklepios are actually the same mythic character. Finally, Graves believes Coronis to be none other than Athena in her crow aspect; thus, Asklepios/Ischys is the "strong and unceasingly gentle" son-lover of the Goddess herself, here the lover and son both cut down so that the human race might be healed.

Jesus is probably the last son-lover hero who was sacrificed for humankind. A contemporary card the author found on a Catholic relative's refrigerator reads: "Mary: Daughter of God the Father, Mother of God the Son, and Wife of God the Holy Spirit." In the last two parts, the ancient mythology is still alive today, although the Catholics would not interpret it in this way: God as the Son-Lover of Mary.

Hygeia, Coronis, Rhea, Athena, Hera, Eve

Hygeia, as we know, was "Health," the daughter of Asklepios. She, like Asklepios, is shown in statues with the snake and the egg. Except for the difference in sex, their statues are quite similar.

Hygeia had not always been the daughter of Asklepios. According to Barbara Walker, Hygeia was one of two female beings forming a unity, the other being Panacea, "All-healer." In earlier myths these two women were the "divine daughters of Mother Rhea Coronis at her Pelasgian sanctuary of Titane" (766). (Note the importance of Asklepios in Pelasgian country.) According to Walker the two may "have been personifications of the Great Mother's breasts, source of the Milk of Kindness and the balm of healing" (766). She goes on to say that Egyptians thought the cure for almost all sickness was "'the milk of a woman who has given birth to a child,'" a quite interesting concept, since it has been scientifically shown in this century that a mother's milk provides a newborn infant with needed antibodies which cow's milk does not. From this fact a myth may have come.

Thus, originally, Hygeia and Panacea were not daughters of Asklepios at all, but rather daughters of Mother Rhea Coronis, and it is interesting that the mother of Asklepios was called Coronis, the very name of Aesclepios' mother in the later myths described above!

Graves goes on to maintain, however, that Hygeia, and Coronis were all actually the same female deity, and all of them were actually Athena! Furthermore, Walker found that Rhea, the "Cretan name of the Aegean Universal Mother or Great Goddess," was, among other titles, none other than Coronis, "both a carrion crow (death-goddess) and a virgin mother (life-goddess) of the great hero of healing, Asclepius" (856). Rhea was Goddess Time (who kills all) and also the Goddess Earth "who consumes what she brings forth" (856), a duty taken over by Chronos, "Father Time" in Hellenic Greek myth. Thus, it seems that the mother and the daughter of Asklepios were none other than the Earth Mother and none other than Athena herself before she became the daughter of Zeus--Athena, who can grant life as well as death through the blood of the Gorgon.

What is additionally important to know is that the Gorgon Medusa is none other than the mother of Athena herself. According to Walker "Athene was born of the Three Queens of Libya--that is, the Triple Goddess, of whom Metis-Medusa was the Destroyer aspect. A female face surrounded by serpent-hair was an ancient, widely recognized symbol of divine female wisdom, and equally of the 'wise blood' (menstrual blood) that supposedly gave women their divine powers" (629). Furthermore, in some myths she was not the daughter of Medusa, but rather an aspect of the same divinity: "the Libyan Triple Goddess Neith, Metis, Medusa, Anath, or Ath-enna. ... Egyptians sometimes called Isis Athene, which meant 'I have come from myself'" (74). Thus, Athene may have at one time embodied all aspects of the life-giving, death-wielding Great Goddess Herself.

In a final linkage of names and personalities, it should be noted that the Earth Goddess was also called Hera, who, before she was relegated to being the estranged wife of Zeus, was actually part of the Triple Goddess called Hebe, Hera, Hecate (virgin, mother, crone), and furthermore, Hebe the daughter/virgin is none other than our very own Eve! So Eve was an aspect of the divinity, and is evidently related to the Goddess Athena, whose snakes were positive, as well as negative, forces! But by the time of the Eve myth it is easy to see that the snake was made into the evil perpetrator, with Eve as his agent, a great degeneration from her days as aspect of the Universal Goddess.

An additional link of the Serpent Holder constellation to Athena is formed through Anath, the Syrian warrior goddess similar to Athena, whom Walker says was the same as the Triple Goddess of Lybia, as was Athena. A visual link is formed when one looks upon the figure of Anath holding two snakes in her upraised hands. Again, although the Serpent surrounding the Serpent Holder constellation is supposed to be one snake consisting of two parts separated by the figure of the serpent holder, nevertheless it is not inconceivable that the serpent holder might be holding two snakes, a visual image that goes back in time for hundreds of years before Aesklepios. Furthermore, there is a variety of visual images of snake and female, some where she is holding one snake, others where she is holding three, and still others where she herself is part woman, part snake/serpent.

 The Minoan Snake Goddess, Older than Anath, Older than Athena, Her "Cousins"

It then becomes clear that the Asklepios myth is a later version of all these Athena myths. It is perhaps Athena who was the great healer, and Asklepios merely her agent on earth. Or, indeed, it may have been Athena who was the great healer herself. Could it be that the great serpent holder in the sky is not male, i.e., Asklepios, but rather female, i.e., Athena?

It is indeed possible that at an earlier time the constellation could have been the female deity. If one goes back to 1000 years before the Hellenic Athena to the Minoan Snake Goddess on the present-day Greek island of Crete (circa 1600 B.C.), one finds that this latter divinity and Her snake religion were the direct predecessors to Athena and Asklepios: that Athena is the later version of the Snake Goddess, while Asklepios is that of the beneficent snake:

The later Greek and Roman snake worship is based on conceptions of the Minoans, who considered the snake as a beneficent spirit looking after the welfare of the house, and an object of reverence. As a beneficial force it became [my italics] the attribute of Asklepios, the healing divinity of the Greeks, through whom it still survives as the emblem of the medical profession (Davaras, 295). (This interpretation has been controversial.)

And further on we read:

The Classical Greek deity who embodied the spirit and the attributes of the Minoan Snake Goddess was Athena, with her sacred snake living on the Acropolis of Athens (Davaras, 297).

The snake religion to which Davaras refers held beliefs that the snake was:

a symbol of eternity, immortality and reincarnation, and further of the chthonic (underworld) divinities. This widespread belief was in fact based on the snake's ability to cast its skin and to renew itself (Davaras, 294).

Thus, the later Athena and Asklepios were originally the Minoan Snake Goddess and Her beneficent Snake spirits. If one looks at the combined Serpent and Serpent Holder constellations, one can see Her there, and as Allen states, originally the two constellations were perceived as one. It is not impossible to think that the Minoans may also have been watching the sky. There is evidence that the sky was being watched in the Cyclades, Greek islands not far from Crete. The peoples of the Fertile Crescent and Old Europe were probably looking at the sky for many years before the Greeks' interpretations of the constellations were created. Noted by the believers as the great healing female divinity, the Minoan Serpent Holder, or even more ancient female deities, may have been part of a people's celestial "holy book." And perhaps one snake represented death and the other resurrection. Will we ever know for sure?

Additional Links to Eve

There are additional ways in which Aesculapius (Asclepius) the serpent holder, Eve the great deity, and the serpent-holding Goddess might be linked.

According to Howey (1955, 89), "Garnier says that AEsculapius 'may more or less be identified' with the Babylonian god Hea, who was also symbolised by a serpent, and in support of this, he points out that 'Hea,' or 'Heya,' is the Arabic word for both 'life' and 'serpent,' and, he continues, 'the etymology of the name AEsculapius tends further to identify him with "Hea," for "Aish shkul ape" (which would be written "Aishkulape" and "AEsculapius" in Greek), means "the man-instructing serpent," from aish, "man," shkul, "to instruct," and ape or aphe, "serpent." Similarly "Hea," the serpent-god, is called "The teacher of Mankind, the Lord of Understanding," etc., and like AEsculapius, he is "The Life-Giver."'"

Barbara Walker indicates that many of the males were formerly females. It would make sense, because in Greece the figures holding snakes before the Greek period are females, whereas those in the Hellenic period are males. In her encyclopedia she says 'Eve' in Hebrew was "YHWH, yod-he-vau-he, ... from the Hebrew root HWH, meaning both 'life' and 'woman'--in Latin letters, E-V-E. With the addition of a Y (yod), it amounted to the Goddess's invocation of her own name as the Word of creation, a common idea in Egypt and other ancient lands" (288). She would thuse be saying, "I, Eve," YHWH.

So according to Walker the Hebrew YHWH means 'Eve,' 'life,' and 'woman.' According to Howey the Arabic means 'life' and 'serpent,' and in the name 'AEsculapius' are contained the concepts 'Serpent' and 'Teacher.' Further, under 'Serpent' Walker states: "Gnostic accounts of the Eden myth used the Aramaic pun identifying Eve, the Teacher, and the Serpent: Hawah, Mother of All Living; hawa, to instruct; and hewya, Serpent. Eve's name in Arabic still combines the idea of 'life' hayyat) with the name of the serpent (Hayyat).. Hippolytus viewed the serpent as a feminine Logos, 'the wise Word of Eve.'"

Now, according to Howey Hea or Heya means 'life' and 'serpent' in Arabic, whereas Walker states that in Aramaic Hawah means 'Mother of All Living,' and Hewya means 'serpent.' (Note how close Hewya and Heya are.) Now she says that hayyat means 'life' and 'serpent' in Arabic. So are Hea/Heya and hayyat the same word spelled differently? If Hea/Heya and hayyat are variations of the same idea, one can ascertain a direct link between AEsculapius and Eve, and between Eve and the serpent godDES, instead of god, which would then definitely show another form of proof for the pre-Greek serpent holder being the serpent Goddess herself, the Mother of All Living, probably THE deity of the time (in addition to her name as Hebe in the Hera Trinity). It would then show why the serpent holder is in the zodiac and was taken out, and why it is was configured so large in the sky: Eve the Great Mother of All Living was the Great Goddess symbolized by the Serpent Holder in the zodiacal sky and had to be vilified in the new religion, so she was removed from the zodiac. The Serpent Holder Eve had been an enormous constellation in the sky, a symbol of the Great Mother Herself and Lady of the Beasts (see below). And she had been recognized everywhere: in Egypt, Crete, Babylon, and Canaan--as deities representing the same essential deity before the Greeks (before 1000 B.C.) and during and maybe even before Egyptian dynastic times (beginning earlier perhaps than 3000 B.C.).

(Stone also notes that snakes were considered the embodiment of wisdom, perhaps because if one is bitten by, for example, a cobra and does not die, but becomes immune to the poison, then when bitten that person will hallucinate in a way similar to how one hallucinates on hallucinogenic drugs like LSD. She cites the case of a snake handler who did, and who felt he could "hear" much more clearly as well. Thus, the snake's embodiment of wisdom may have to do with the physical feeling of deeper perception, and perhaps insight through the bite of the snake. Perhaps for these reasons snakes were also kept at the Oracle of Delphi for the phrophetesses.)

What becomes clear is the positive nature of concepts associated with snake or serpent. Although the (later?) Bible portrays the snake as the embodiment of evil (although Moses put a serpent rod into the temple in Jerusalem!), as does modern U.S. (Christian and secular) culture, the serpent is here a symbol of what is positive: life itself and woman. Only with Christianity does the snake become absolutely bad. In all religions preceeding Christianity, it was either good or had both positive and negative attributes, but never until Christianity was it perceived of as completely negative.

So who, indeed, was Eve, if not the Great Goddess Herself now vilified? Who, indeed, was the Serpent, also now vilified, if not the great Serpent of the Great Goddess? And the Tree was the Tree of Life of the Great Goddess. In the Adam and Eve myth, they all become suspect, the woman and serpent vilified, and the tree taboo. Originally, the Goddess had been "the creator of human life. Yet the worshipers of Yahweh, perhaps one thousand years later, asserted that it was a male who initially created the world. It was the first claim to male kinship--maleness was primal" (Stone, 219).

Stone quotes those who maintain that the invention of the Adam and Eve myth was not simply a difference of religious belief, but rather a political move with important economic, as well as psychological, consequences:

The myth of Adam and Eve, in which male domination was explained and justified, informed women and men alike that male ownership and control of submissively obedient women was to be regarded as the divine and natural state of the human species.

But in order to achieve their position, the priests of the male deity had been forced to convince themselves and to try to convince their congregations that sex, the very means of procreating new life, was immoral, the "original sin." Thus, in the attempt to institute a male kinship system, Judaism, and following it Christianity, developed as religions that regarded the process of conception as somewhat shameful or sinful. They evolved a code of philosophical and theological ideas that inherently espoused discomfort or guilt about being human beings--who do, at least at the present time, conceive new life by the act of sexual intercourse--whether it is considered immoral or not.

This then was the unfortunate, unnatural and uncomfortable trap of its own making into which the patriarchal religion fell. Even today we may read in the Common Prayer Book of Westminster Abbey under the Solemnization of Matrimony, "Secondly it was ordained for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication; that such persons that have not the gift of continency might marry, and keep themselves undefiled members of Christ's body.

"The picture takes form before us, each tiny piece falling into place. Without virginity for the unmarried female and strict sexual restraints upon married women, male ownership of name and property and male control of the divine right to the throne could not exist" (218).

Ceres/Demeter

Discussion.

It becomes obvious, then, even to lay people (for scholars have been saying so for years) that the Adam and Eve story was simply contrived to put down and destroy another religion and its precepts, where woman, snake, and tree had been positive, life-affirming, and holy. And it becomes obvious that Heracles' struggle with all the snakes, examined in the chapter on his constellation, represents the destruction of another religion. So one cannot avoid the obvious conclusion that many of the Greek and Hebrew, and later Christian, religious beliefs were formulated, not as the result of a pure formulation they represented of the divine, but rather as a ruse to destroy beliefs that they wished to supercede. It then becomes extremely difficult to accept the precepts of religions whose very essence, in many ways, was dependent upon the destruction of other religions, and whose foundations were built upon the bent destruction of other belief systems.

In the twentieth century many of us know that ideas and beliefs don't arise "out of the blue," but that any idea or belief that exists, exists within a complex context of beliefs and ideas as a support of or rebellion against other beliefs. Context teaches us that the beliefs of the Greeks, Hebrews, and Christians did not arise "out of nowhere or 'revelation,'" as we have been led to believe when learning Christian or Jewish dogma or reading Greek mythology, but rather as a support, in some ways, of and a rebellion in others against, the existing religions that they eventually overpowered through myth, force, death, slavery, and destruction. And that is the crux of the matter: the later religions established themselves upon the intended destruction of previous belief systems.

She's Everywhere!

Going back even further, and also into Egypt of later times, as well as the more northern lands of which we have been speaking, the Goddess takes on a different, more ancient form. Here she is not a female figure holding snakes, but rather, she embodies both snake and female, for she has a snake head and a female body, or she is a snake, who is supposed to be female.

Continuing On: Final Links

From that time on, we realized, there was not just one similar statue of a female figure, but this snake-woman motif occurred in the Mediterranean over time and place and even into the Christian era, alongside the Jewish and Christian myths of woman and snake (Eve, Mary; in fact, Mary is the final version: woman turning on herself, for she is often depicted with her foot on the snake -- the later religions have won, at least for the time being!). Furthermore, we learned that the further back into prehistory one goes, the more female-and-snake concepts one finds, as depictions on pottery and as statues. Although sometimes also depicted as male, snakes have been heavily associated with female figures. The more we read and looked, the more we saw these motifs over and over again.

While the Asklepios legend and the Serpent Holder constellation legend come from the first millenium B.C. and into A.D., Anath is from 1200 B.C., and the snake goddess of Knossos from 1600 B.C. Furthermore, there are even more ancient visualizations of such a dual snake goddess, from Sumer of 2500 B.C., and she is a Goddess, not only of snakes, but of many animals and plants.

 

 

 Later she seems to have become St. Theta in the Christian pantheon of saints:

 

This Goddess may be the same one of whom we are speaking, for a case will be made for the Serpent Holder as Lady of the Beasts, the Beasts being many of the other signs of the zodiac, positive in pre-Greek times, destructive - and often destroyed by Heracles (Hercules) - in Hellenic times.

So today She still exists -- demoted and in a reversal of the older stories. She is demoted because she is Mary, Mother of God, but no longer God herself and because she is Eve, demoted to a mortal who caused the fall of the world. Today people still believe in those reversals of the old order! They still believe that Eve existed, and that Mary existed, and they believe their stories. ... And woman has completely lost her place as God, for today the God of the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faiths is male. (People say He's not male, but they always call Him male! Any depictions in the minds of people are certainly not female! And they probably are anthropomorphic, because God is talked about in anthropomorphic terms, having emotions, being called 'He', and making laws and rules -- very human acts, so it's hard to see Him as the vague notion of "spirit".) And these are the religions that come from the same areas of the Middle East as did the worship of female Gods, the worship that they successfully stamped out.

Musings: Could the Serpent Holder the Lady of the Beasts (and the Plants)?

How, then, must the Serpent Holder be related to the Lady of the Beasts? The connection is a visual one, for the Lady of the Beasts appears on a bowl in Khafaje, Sumer, 2500 B.C. She is at the center, the animals surrounding her on either side, and she also forms a symmetry of the picture, for she stands similar to the way the Serpent Holder looks in the sky: arms out, with two snakes symmetrically facing her. What is different about this picture is that there are added features to it: a flower in the background and two lions flanking either side below the serpents. Furthermore, there are other animals and plants continuing around the bowl, as well as another depiction of her with what look like bulls of some kind

What makes me think that this deity might be related to the Minoan Snake Goddess and the Serpent Holder include the following: the Goddess is standing in much the same position in 2500 B.C. in Sumer ("Iraq") as she is 900 years later in Crete as the Minoan Snake Goddess. Furthermore, she seems as if she could be the Serpent Holder herself. Consider that many of the zodiacal constellations are of animals: ram, bull, crab, lion, scorpion, goat-fish, fishes, and consider that the serpent is part of the serpent holder constellation, reaching into the zodiac. It is possible that She could have been perceived of as the Holy Lady (equivalent to the Judeo-Christian male version "Holy Lord") surrounded by her animals in the sky as well as on the bowl.

Certainly, there are non-animal constellations in the zodiac: Virgo the Virgin Corn Mother Demeter Ceres; Gemini the Twins who may have been children of the Goddess or aspects of the Goddess herself; Libra the Scales; Sagittarius the Archer, half man, half animal; Aquarius the Water Carrier, later a man, earlier the female deity who is in charge of the waters of life. Yet could the ancients have viewed a sky with the Lady of the Beasts in it?

We do not know exactly how the ancients of 2500 B.C. viewed the whole night sky. They had determined some constellations; other important markers were stars or planets, and not groups of stars. However, it is possible that they were looking and watching and interpreting the stars as symbols of some of their beliefs; for around this time Draco was at the "hub of the universe," important to that constellation. Around this time, 2500 B.C., the sun would have been going through the Serpent Holder around the time of the Autumnal Equinox, or somewhat before, during harvest, possibly important in the worldview of the time, for it would have symbolized the turning point, the change, from harvesting to death and dormancy, and the processes of renewal which were going on to prepare for rebirth in the spring. Of course, the sun would be passing through Scorpio during the last one-third of the constellation's month, thus symbolizing the dying aspect as well. But the Serpent Holder is said by some to have held both: one snake death and one snake rebirth -- both aspects of the same life process, one constantly following the other.

Epilogue

Where can Athena be found today? She and her symbols are still about, as are those of her descendant Asklepios. While one can find his caduceus as the symbol of the medical profession, one can find Athena in her town's name Athens. Furthermore, many tourists visit the ruins of her holy temple yearly and do not even know it is hers: the Parthenon on the Acropolis in Athens. She is to be found everywhere in museums in Greece and Italy, and she, with her sacred tree and staff, grace the Italian 100 lire coin.

Also, unfortunately, she can be found in Eve, although the Eve we know has been turned on her head, made into the cause of the "downfall of humankind" instead of the great life-giver and -taker.

So in some senses one can say the Minoan Snake Goddess lives on in popular culture, although one would not recognize her. She also lives on in the sky, her name having been changed, but she is up there, clearly visible, clearly the Great Serpent Holder of the night.

As I sit here at my computer, this summer evening of August 3, 1995, I look at the Minoan Snake Goddess Replica I have who proudly stands on top of my computer printer, snakes in hand. To me she embodies femininity and power, two concepts that are rarely linked in positive ways in our present culture (although it is getting somewhat better). But this woman of Minoan Crete is powerful and proud, her breasts of nurture exposed over what is to me a most feminine flounced skirt, my ideal of as a young girl of the skirt a long dress would have. And she is powerful, for this woman who can raise her arms and hold two snakes in her hands with a stern look on her face is powerful. She embodies for me what I would like to be and what I would like for women who also wish it: feminine and powerful, not juxtaposed or in contradiction, but in concert with each other. Power and feminity do not have to be separated. She can be beautiful and awesome simultaneously. That indeed is what I wish for myself and all women, to be revered and respected and taken seriously.

This Goddess may indeed embody the attributes of Asklepios/Ischys, the "unceasingly gentle" and the "strong." If she represents both death and the regenerative spirit, as did Medusa possess the life-taking and life-giving powers, she may indeed be the strong death wielder and the unceasingly gentle giver of life, the Great Mother whose breasts personified are Hygiea, Health, and Panacea, All-Healer and who is also Coronis, Mother Time, who determines when one's life has run out.

The night. A time of watching and waiting, of dreaming and healing. The darkness good and not so dark sometimes. Black is good and needed, even as light is needed.

Your Turn to Decide

Take a look at the pictures and decide for yourself what the meaning may have been. True, you do not have the context of where the objects were found, nor information on what other objects and materials were found, as well as current speculation about their meanings. However, take a look, and remember not to have preconceived ideas about 'woman' or 'snake' or dress or life, death, afterlife, rebirth. What could these images have meant to human beings? To men? To women? The fact that they exist -- what does that tell you about their importance or significance? Would they have been "good," "bad," what?

A RECAP OF THE INFORMATION

The Female Snake God?

Women and snakes have been linked for millenia, even much earlier than Adam and Eve (where the linking was negative). Were these female images "Gods," "priestesses," were they related to life and death, or were they related to fertility and nourishment and menstruation? Let us assume for the moment that they were viewed as representations of some form of deity, as we begin looking at the serpent holder in the sky.

In those days the sky was their holy book, their "Bible," if you will. The sky was important, for it was a good calendar that told the agricultural peoples when to plant and when to harvest. Why? Well, the stars are at specific places in the sky, depending on the time of year. And the ancients knew how to "read the sky." "When you can see the Goddess Sotis just before sunup, the Nile will flood." This meant that when the star we now call Sirius (and the Egyptians called the Goddess Sotis) appears just before dawn, it is a certain time of the year, and the Nile will soon flood, because the Nile floods at that time of the year. This is the harbinger of that time and quite possibly of the new planting season.

The sky was also the site of their religion, for they put their religious stories into the night constellations. Sotis was Isis, the Wisest of the Wise, the One before all others. And the constellations came from how they saw the position of the stars in relationship to each other.

The serpent holder constellation is one of those ancient constellations. If you look at her in a star book (i.e., H. A. Rey's The Stars: A New Way to See Them) you'll note that she is a woman with a gown on and she is holding two snakes.(The original priests were women who wore gowns in imitation of the Goddess; thus, male priests today wear gowns, because they replaced that tradition with men, but kept the gowns.) Back to the constellation: I posit that She is the Snake Goddess of ancient times. In those times both the female divine and the Snake divine were holy. The female divine was holy, because She was the giver and taker of life (The Lady giveth, and The Lady taketh away). She was the original Mother of us all. The Snake divine was holy, because She (later He) represented reincarnation (the Snake sheds its skin and seems to be "reborn") and was also the death wielder (remember that many Snakes are poisonous). In addition, the Snake was wisdom personified. If you were bitten by a Snake (and survived), you had hallucinations which were interpreted as oracles from the Goddess.

The Snake Goddess (or images of women and snakes, women as snakes) is very old. She is found in Ur, prehistoric Iraq in the fourth millenium B.C.E. -- somewhere between 4000 and 3000 B.C.E., or 5000 to 6000 years ago!! She doesn't yet look like the Snake Goddess in the sky, however, although the people were using the sky as their agricultural calendar then. But by 2500 B.C.E. in Sumer (Iraq) She does look like the Snake Goddess in the sky. By the time She reaches Crete, an island off the Greek mainland, She is very clearly that Snake Goddess in the sky (1600-1500 B.C.E.). And in Ras Shamira, Syria (13th c B.C.E.) She is still the Snake Goddess. In Canaan (Israel or Lebanon) in 1200 B.C.E. She wears the dress of the Goddess and the pointed hat of the Goddess as well.

By the classical Greek era, however, She has been changed fairly drastically. She has become Athena, Preserver and Protector of Athens and the Creator of Civilization. She still has a Snake, but now it is by Her side on Her shield, and there is only one Snake. Furthermore, Athena has renounced Her mother and says She comes only from the Father (which is a biological impossibility, of course). By these times we also find Demeter with the Snakes as well (fifth century B.C.E.). In addition, Demeter holds the grain of the harvest in Her hands, indicating the relationship of harvest to death (Snake of death; see below) and food to renewed life (Snake of rebirth; see below).

By the Chrisitan era, the Snake Goddess is no longer female, and has become only half divine. She has become Aesclepius, half-man, half-God, who is a snake holder and healer. By 500 C.E. (Christian era), the last Goddess temple has been closed in the Western world.

The Meaning of the Snake Goddess, as I have extrapolated it

The Snake Goddess is the mother of all living plants, animals, humans. She has the breasts of the nourisher. In one hand She holds the Snake of rebirth (creation), which sheds its skin. In the other hand She holds the Snake of death (destruction and Armaggedon), because the Snake is often poisonous. The Snake of rebirth is also the Snake of wisdom, since the hallucinations caused what people thought was wisdom, insight, and prophecy.

Her Meaning in the Sky

The Snake Goddess is important in the night sky. First of all, She is huge -- a very large constellation compared to others.

Secondly, She is located on the Zodiac.

Thirdly, She is the 13th constellation.

Fourth, She comes around at harvest.

What does all this mean? Well, size makes Her stand out.

Being located on the Zodiac is important astronomically and agriculturally. As I said, the Zodiac was important as a calendar. What is the Zodiac? Well, it's a bit hard to explain clearly, but I'll try. You see, from earth's perspective, we see the stars in a certain juxtaposition to each other. The way the stars look in relationship to each other we call constellations. We've grouped the stars in certain ways so that they make visuals.

Now, the planets seem to move through the night sky, and as they do so, they seem to move through certain constellations. The movement of the planets forms a kind of line from our perspective, and this line is called the Ecliptic and forms a line along which the planets seem to move through the constellations, from our perspective on earth, and these constellations are called the Zodiac (they seem to move on this line as well). Thus, these constellations are more important than constellations that don't have any planets moving through them. More is happening there! The sun, moon, and planets all seem to move through these constellations. Thus, you hear about the sun or Venus or Mars being in the constellation Gemini the twins, or Leo the lion. (See visual 12.)

Now, today the Zodiac has 12 constellations. But if you look at a sky map, you'll see that the Zodiac actually has 13 constellations running through it, the 13th being the Snake Goddess. What happened? Why do we pretend She's not in the Zodiac? Deleting her from the Zodiac will have happened long ago. She was evidently so important to the ancient peoples that She was removed from the Zodiac by later peoples who didn't like Her religion and wanted to replace Hers with their own. This is very likely what I think happened. (Rey finds it strange that the Serpent Holder is considered a part of the Zodiac when it is indeed on the Ecliptic.)

Also, She would make the 13th constellation in today's Zodiac. The number 13 is a bad omen in later belief systems, because it was so good and important in these earlier ones that had to be overthrown in order for later religions to take over. 13 was a good number, for there are 13 lunar months in a year. The number 13 was good. In fact, a holy woman and her coven of 12 make 13. Jesus and his 12 disciples make 13. The numbers 13 and 12 were important. From the number 12 came our designation of time as well. (We don't have 10 or 20 hours in a day. We have two sets of 12!)

The Snake Goddess in our time is "in the sun" during late autumn. However, back in those days (because the earth shifts on its axis), the Snake Goddess was "in the sun" at the harvest time. She represented the cutting down of the harvest, the death of the plants so that humans might live through winter to see another spring of rebirth. She was the wielder of death, but also of nourishment to keep one going until the spring of rebirth.

Let's Get Her Back

The Snake Goddess is a wonderful icon. If those many figurines were not symbols of divinity, we may make them so, for in our terms, She is a representation of what reality is: we are created and we die, and out of us is reborn something new -- maybe not us, but maybe new soil, flowers, etc., etc. She represents earth's natural behavior, and nature's natural behavior. What is created must be destroyed to make room for what is created out of it, which also must be destroyed later to make room for what is then created out of that, and so on throughout the earth's and the universe's eons. It is not logical, given the structure of the universe, that anything should stay in one form forever. Everything is constantly changing form, constantly coming into being or being destroyed. Such is the nature of the universe. Such is our nature.

She is also live-giver and nourisher. She is the Mother of all that is. Out of Her Body everything came. She is the great giver of truth, justice, the right, of pleasure, love, and affection, of giving. She is The Lady, and The Lady giveth, and The Lady taketh away. Blessed be the name of The Lady.

This is the nature of reality. We are born, we grow, we mature, we decline, and we die. This great reality is a mystery that we cannot fathom. We create a God -- or a Goddess -- and say She or He was here from the beginning, but how can we not question where S/He came from? Who created Him/Her? If no one did, then how did S/He always exist? Our brains cannot fathom one way or the other. Reality is the great mystery. It is magical. How could it have been created? Or how could its creator have been created? It is magical and mysterious. The great mystery. The great, unsolvable mystery.

*There is also a story about Eurynome, the Original Being. Eurynome began to dance one day in ecstasy. She danced so fast that She set the wind in motion, and it became like Snake. She became so sexually aroused that She and the Snake coupled, and She brought forth the Universe. This story comes from the "Greek" area.

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