Category: Detritus

It’s in many ways as if I’d just come out of a coma, or been stranded on a desert island for two years. I’ve missed, for example, pretty much the entire phenomenon of reality television…

Minoan Snake Goddess
by Dr Alena Trckova-Flamee, Ph.D.

The Snake Goddess was one of the Minoan divinities associated closely with the snake cult. She is called also Household Goddess due to her attribute of the snake, which is connected with welfare of the Minoan house. But the snake is also symbol of the underworld deity, so the Snake Goddess is related to chthonic aspects too.

The first, who identified this Minoan Goddess and who described her domestic and chthonic role and her cult, was A. Evans. He tried to find parallels in the Egyptian religion and linked the Snake Goddess with an Egyptian Goddess of the Nile Delta, Wazet (Wadjyt). From his point of view the attribute of goddess – snake – was a form of underworld spirit, which had a domestic and a friendly significance. M.P. Nilsson hold a snake as personification of the Snake Goddess and he believed, that her chthonic form is one of the aspects of the Great Mother.

But at the present time there are discussions about the functions of the Snake Goddess. In Crete does not exist a real archaeological evidence for her household role and there is almost no support for the chthonic aspects too. A small offering vessel of the Pre-Palace period in the shape of a female figure with a snake coiled around her body from Koumasa, came to light between some grave goods. But the other ritual figurines of the Snake Goddess were found in the Temple Repositories of the Knossos palace and public sanctuaries in Gurnia, Khania and Gortyn, where she was worshipped. Unknown provenience is the Snake Goddess made from ivory and gold (in the Boston museum) and a small bronze goddess with coil of snakes (in the Berlin museum).

Two famous faience Snake Goddesses from Knossos belong to the New-Palace period (about 1600 BCE). Besides the ritual function, they are among the best examples of the Minoan art with its dominant features – naturalism and grace. They are presented as the ladies of the palace court, dressed in the typical Minoan clothes with a long skirt (flounced, or with an apron) and a tight open bodice. The snakes crawl around the body of one the goddesses and appear in each hand of the other. These statuettes are interpreted sometimes as the goddess and her votary, the mother goddess and her daughter, or the human attendants of goddess, as well as the women personified the goddess.

Totally different ritual objects of the Snake Goddesses came from sanctuaries of the Post-Palace period (1400-1100 BCE). They are made from cheaper material – terracotta – in the position with raised hands, extremely stylized in accordance with the manners of this period. Their symbol – a snake – is often mixed with the other sacred signs: horns of consecration or birds.

Figures of the Snake Goddess and some other cult objects – so called snake tubes and vessels with wholes, decorated by a model of snake – illustrate the worshipping of a Snake Goddess and her cult in Crete during some periods. It seems that this cult came to existence from very early Minoan age, derived from the Egyptian belief system, but there was the strong Near-Eastern influence too. In the Egyptian mythology the snake was a personification of the goddess Kebechet, symbolized the purification by water in the funeral cult, so the snake became a protector of the pharaohs in their death. In the Sumerian and the Old-Babylonian literary tradition the snake was a wise creature and an expert for miraculous herbs of the eternal youth and immortality. A similar idea is contained in the Cretan myth about Glaukos, where the snake knows the herb of rebirth and resurrection.

It is possible, that the worshipping of the Minoan Snake Goddess was in some context to the rebirth, resurrection or renewal of the life. This cult was flourishing mainly in Knossos of the New-palace period and in the Post-Palace public sanctuaries. It is sure, that mainly Knossos’ idols, made from faience with a high artistic level, had an important function in the Minoan religion. We have to take into consideration, that the material of the New-Palace Snake Goddesses – faience – symbolized in old Egypt the renewal of life, therefore it was used in the funeral cult and in sanctuaries.

The Post-Palace Snake Goddesses, worshipped in the small public sanctuaries, kept probably a more popular role. These ritual objects were influenced by the Mycenaean culture. Their attribute of the snake had a strong signification in the belief system of all Aegean region at this time. The terracotta models of painted snakes were found in the Cult Center of Mycenae and the motif of snakes appear between the decoration of vessels for funeral cult from the Late Mycenaean cemeteries in the mainland and in the islands Rhodos, Kos and Cyprus.

The symbol and spirit of the Minoan Snake Goddess took in the Greek mythology many different features. The snake had a protective and beneficial role on the shield of Athena, it represented the chthonic power connected with the Goddess of Earth, it was the attribute of Asklepios, probably due to its knowledge about the herb of rebirth, resurrection and eternal youth and generally it was the symbol of superhuman power of the god. But the snake could have a totally negative role too as an originator of the death and an avenger in company with the mythical creatures.

Article created on 19 February 2000; last modified on 22 December 2002.
� 1995-2004 Encyclopedia Mythica. All rights reserved.

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Nine of Coins (Gain): Accomplishment. Discernment. Discretion. Foresight. Prudence. Material well-being. Love of nature.

Knight of Clubs: A journey. Advancement into the unknown. Alteration. Fight. Absence. Change of residence.

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Don’t you just hate it when you lose all traces of your dream between awakening and going to write it down? I swear I had soemthing cool and then I just drew a complete and total blank. Shite.

I recall laughing in an empty room once.

I was sixteen and in the hospital, laying in my private room in the pediatrics ward, praying aloud when I realized, “Ha!” I realized I was talking to the ceiling. And it struck me as ridiculous. And I laughed and laughed and laughed. And that was the moment I gave up believing in god. Because it suddenly struck me as ridiculous to believe in this invisible faith reliant being that bestowed good and horribleness in such an apparently arbitrary fashion. A being for which the answer to every paradox was simply “you have to take it on faith.” And everyone would tell me that I was so lucky to be alive, that I had been spared “by the grace of god.” Or they’d tell me how they’d prayed for me, like they should get some sort of credit for that. Like “thank you for so obviously saving my life by praying for me. If you hadn’t prayed for me. god would’ve just let me die, but since he holds you in such high regard, he spared me just as a favor to you…” And it always baffled me that god was supposedly responsible for survivals and remarkable near misses and miraculous recoveries, but never gets any credit for the accidents or tragedies themselves. Either he’s just a sick,sick bastard or else he sure goes awol alot. Does bad shit happen because god was on his coffee break or something? Or better yet, does it fall in the category of “trials” and “crosses to bear?” Like humanity is a big science experiment, a big glass antfarm with god there reflecting sunlight through magnifying glasses at us to see if we’ll burst into flames or not. What kind of sick, demented bastard would invent a deity of that sort? I for one prefer to take stock in theories of random chaos. Random Chaos is a lot more forgiving. All hail the Church of Laughing Out Loud In Empty Rooms. And yes, I realize you’re supposed to spell the word “god” with a capital G.

In a twisted state of mind,

Corbid

My child is a computer genius. But I don’t understand why she put up a “Sisyphus rolling a rock up a hill” animation as my desktop background. Is she saying something about me?

Dreamt that Kurt Cobain was alive and well and had a blog and was currently reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman and listening to Townes Van Zandt on the sly, and that he knew me well enough to write me raw, painful, cathartic emails.

Iris, goddess of private eyes, watches. Always watches.

Once she was mercurial, a rainbow, mother of love, the bridge between the crude worlds and words of earthly things and the elevated world of spirituality. Now she’s a lone heroine, and goddess of lone heroines and heroes. Now she’s a bridge between the desire to know the truth, and the truth we don’t want to know. Now she watches, unblinking….Iris was the winged goddess of the rainbow and the messenger of the Olympian gods. She was depicted as a young woman with golden wings and a herald’s rod and/or a pitcher in her hand…

In Greek mythology, Iris was the daughter of Thaumas and the Ocean nymph Electra (according to Hesiod), the personification of the rainbow and messenger of the gods. As the rainbow unites Earth and heaven, Iris is the messenger of the gods to men; in this capacity she is mentioned frequently in the Iliad, but never in the Odyssey, where Hermes takes her place. Iris is represented as a youthful virgin, with wings of gold, who hurries with the swiftness of the wind from one end of the world to the other, into the depths of the sea and the underworld. She is especially the messenger of Zeus and Hera, and is associated with Hermes, whose caduceus or staff she often holds. By command of Zeus she carries in an ewer water from the Styx, with which she puts to sleep all who perjure themselves. Her attributes are the caduceus and a vase.

I actually had a chance to cook real food for dinner that wasn’t from a jar or a package for the first time in probably weeks (unless you count omelets, I am famous for my omelets…) tonight. Seared a london broil in butter in a pan on the stovetop, then sauteed some stir fry vegetables, then braised the whole thing in Killian’s Irish Red, which I can’t stand to drink but very much enjoy as a food seasoning, which is lucky as it was the only thing remptely alcoholic left in the fridge and the whole thing would not have worked quite as well if I’d used something like, say, soy sauce or apple cider vinegar. Made baked potatoes stuffed with cheese for the side. The whole thing was very Applebees special of the month, but not bad for an improvisation. Certainly a step up from totino’s party pizzas, anyway.

In other news, the new job situation is becoming more and more of a reality. It’s very strange to think that I’ll be leaving my job of two years for good soon. Working overnights is not just a job, it’s kind of a lifestyle choice. It’s going to be a very strange transition indeed. Yeah, the place was a bit of a pit, but it was my pit at least. In a sick way I think I’m sort of going to miss it a little. Plus the people there I’d worked with for a million years. It’s like graduating high school or something. But time marches on and there is good to come from all of this. Still, I’m just a little sad to leave. Not the job, just the familiarity of it all. And working days instead of nights. I don’t even know what that’s like anymore. It’s all so surreal to me. Whatever, that all seems so stupid. It’s just a job, anyway. One service job is the same as the next, right? Until I get back to school, work is not a method of fulfillment, it’s just a means to an end. Dear god, do I need to get back to school. I keep saying it, but I never do it. Oh well, maybe next time, right?

Corbid

Myth of the Day:

Dechtere

The mother of Cuchulainn. There are a number of versions of his birth, of which two follow: one, Dechtere accidentally swallowed a mayfly while drinking a cup of wine, became pregnant from this event, and bore Cuchulainn; two, She was impregnated by the god Lugh with his own soul, and vomited him into life as Cuchulainn, thereby remaining a virgin.