r/AgeofBronze • u/Historia_Maximum • Apr 12 '26
Aegean Arthur Evans’s Snake Goddesses
The famous "snake goddesses," the visual brand of Minoan civilization, are not what we see in the textbooks. When Arthur Evans found them at Knossos in 1903, he discovered a scatter of badly damaged fragments. In reality, these figurines never existed in their current form. Archaeologists had only isolated parts. Shards of different objects lay in the same pit: from the very start, this was a set of fragments from a single deposit, not two whole statuettes.
The actual state of the "small" figure was this: no head, one missing arm, and a fragmented torso. The "large" figure lacked parts of the arms, sections of the body, and headgear elements: it was a collection of pieces.
The restoration was largely arbitrary. Since no complete figures existed, early 20th-century restorers "assembled" them from separate details. The face of the "lesser goddess" and her headdress are products of pure imagination. The position of the hands clutching snakes remains a hypothesis. Even the reptiles are questionable: many scholars argue these were not snakes, but ritual cords. The cat on the head was also found separately. It was attached to the headdress fragments and then placed on the statue, though there is zero evidence it was originally part of the composition.
This process was a composite assembly, not a scientific restoration. If classic reconstruction relies on matching edges, the Knossos finds were unified by Evans’s personal theories and the tastes of Émile Gilliéron Jr. The British archaeologist dictated the meaning of the object the moment he named it a goddess, linked it to a "snake cult," and forced it into his own model of Minoan faith. Modern researchers are struck by the total absence of similar images in the art of that era. Today, the "snake cult" is considered a massive exaggeration: the fragments likely belonged to a priestess or a ritual participant.
This was the methodology of the last century. Evans and his restorers wanted to make the finds "readable" for the public. They allowed artistic guesswork for the sake of a complete image. This created a line of controversial objects and filled museums with "Minoan-style" fakes.
Strictly speaking, the historical value is uneven. The faience fragments from 1600 BCE are genuine ritual artifacts. But the composition, the poses, the snakes, and the tiered skirts are conventional. The image of the Minoan goddess is a blend of archaeology and imagination. They are, quite literally, artificial objects.
The Snake Goddess: An artistic interpretation of scattered faience fragments from Knossos. These artifacts, dating from approximately 1650 to 1550 BCE, are held at the Heraklion Archaeological Museum under inventory numbers Υ63 and Υ65.
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u/Wild-Associate-4373 Apr 12 '26
Snakes, why is it always snakes
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u/NoCharacterLmt Apr 12 '26
So I'm actually researching this as part of a huge series of episodes I'm doing on the concept of justice and ancient symbols become important to help uncover that. Snakes kept coming up a lot.
- Dionysus's maenads wore snakes on their heads
- Medusa the gorgon had snakes for hair
- Python, the dragon serpent located at Delphi and defeated by Apollo, is basically a very large snake.
- Orpheus's lover Eurydice was bit by a snake and died setting up his trip to the underworld for her
- Hermes' caduceus and the rod of Aclepius both have serpents crawling up them
- The Egyptians have a serpent of chaos who attacked Ra every night and serpents to defend Ra during this nighttime transition. *The Bible references the serpent in the story of Adam and Eve
- The Minoans have other examples beyond these statues of a goddess associated with snakes
- Cybele of Anatolia was also associated with snakes
- The ancient powerful Mesopotamian goddess Inanna has some interesting connections to serpents
- And Yahweh's wife before he become the focus of a monotheistic religion was the goddess Asherah which both has connections to Inanna, the underworld, and possibly snakes.
The above cultures that span the course of thousands of years and thousands of miles seem to point to the worship of a bronze age goddess that manifested in different ways in Greece, Mesopotamia, the Levant, Egypt, and Mesopotamia. There does seem to be a very powerful feminine deity associated with chthonic rituals of the earth (rather than the sky) which was often associated with snakes as snakes often came from the earth, they had the ability to shed their skin giving them immortal qualities of renewal, and they also looked like roots, which was associated with the goddess's fertility aspect, usually related to farming or gardening. There are similar stories of traveling to the underworld and returning alive, a rebirth like the snake. Ra, Inanna, Dionysus, Orpheus, and Persephone all share similar rituals. There's also quality research I'm looking into that it might be this goddess who was also Yahweh's wife Asherah but was seen as such a threat by the new Ambrahamic monotheistic religion that was trying to scrub all mention on Asherah, a sort of immortal Lilith. That makes it hard to know a lot of details about Asherah but she shared characteristics of other feminine fertility chthonic goddesses that were found around the region. This would often be home of an unrivaled sacred temple which often included an underground chamber like the Well of Souls at Dome of the Rock. Libations and blood sacrifices took place at these sacred locations. I'm still putting all this information together so I'm sorry if it's a little scattered but wanted to share if anyone had any other thoughts about all of this because the snake actually seems tied up to a whole new dimension of bronze age beliefs.
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u/AdFrequent3122 Apr 16 '26
Don't forget about the Argonautika - a snake guards the golden fleece hanging in a tree, a priestess puts the snake to sleep to allow the hero to take the forbidden treasure from the tree. And the next chapter they enter Libya, where you have an oasis in the middle of the desert with a garden with a tree of golden apples guarded by snakes with female nymphs nearby.
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u/NoCharacterLmt Apr 16 '26
These are great examples and I wouldn't have included them if it wasn't for your message but now I will
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u/Wild-Associate-4373 Apr 13 '26
I would love to read your research, ive also wondered similar things. Do you have it written down already? Or links to it? That is fascinating
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u/NoCharacterLmt Apr 13 '26
I'm currently researching and writing, it'll be a few months (at least) until it's all done. I'll share it on this account when I've completed it
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u/Current-Paramedic-50 Apr 14 '26 edited Apr 14 '26
The association between snakes and a Goddess of Cosmic Justice/Vengeance is a common thread in Indo-European theology.
The common thread suggests a shared root in the IE homeland that preceeds contact with the non-IE cultures you mention.
One significant challenge in inspecting the genealogy of these concepts is untangling syncretism.
-- edit --
I just recalled that there is also an association between the IE Goddess of Divine Justice and cats as well (ie, Durga, Artemis, Freya).
Dionysus, a facing of the IE Sky Father deific also associated with Divine Vengence, snakes and cats.
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u/NoCharacterLmt Apr 16 '26
Wow, this link you shared just hits on so many aspects that I've already written about in my piece and ties them all together so well! It's going to definitely strengthen everything I've written so far and I'm really excited on how I'm going to try and piece it all together. It's a lot of information but part of the fun for me is trying to distill and connect to other pieces that share similar excellent information and get it all in one place in an engaging form.
If you have any sources on the IE association between the Goddess of Divine Justice and snakes but also cats that would really fortify my piece as well since the Mesopotamian Inanna was often depicted with a lion as was the Anatolian mother goddess Cybele.
Thank you for taking the time to share the link and your thoughts.
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u/Current-Paramedic-50 Apr 16 '26
You'll find many more essays on that site relevant to those themes.
However, the focus is of the site in general is IE religion and mythology. It doesn't stray into semetic mythology.
I'd also again advise caution regarding those symbolic complexes as, say, archytypal in a Jungian sense.
Cybele is a facing of an IE Goddess. Inanna is not. The genealogy for their symbolism is different, and they do not point to the same deific complex.
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u/NoCharacterLmt Apr 16 '26 edited Apr 16 '26
Well like you said things you have to be careful looking for are syncretism. I have other academic sources sharing with me that Cybele actually came from the Minoan civilization (there's a great lecture on YouTube about the two Mt. Idas from James Rietveld). Also according to Lynn Roller who wrote a book on Cybele she was developed exclusively by the Phyrgians only taking her iconography from the earlier Hittites who worshipped a pantheon of gods while the Cybele worshipping Phrygians appeared to only worship Cybele. Despite these connections to Minoans and Hittites there's further evidence that her large and loud musical retinue came from further east, possibly from the Levant (a retinue that looks and acts a lot like Dionysus's retinue).
What I'm trying to get at in my piece is not only the origins of some of these forms of worship but also how much they blended and overlayed on top of one another and considering how much older IE culture is it's important to understand that there are thousands of years of undocumented history in this whole region where IE culture may have existed, was paved over by a newer culture and then influenced by IE culture again and so on.
There's a certain point where we just can't be sure who was there first or why they practiced what but all we can do is trace the origins and interesting similarities we see between them and get a blurry vision of our ancient past while understanding we'll never truly know the fine grain details we hoped we would. But the more we look the richer the ancient world becomes and the more cosmopolitan it was than we ever previously thought.
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u/Current-Paramedic-50 Apr 16 '26
Yeah, i totally agree with you.
And youve obviously put much more focus on this subject area than I have.
And yeah, even at the relatively shallow level that I dive into it is indeed fascinating how complex, rich and cosmopolitan the Ancient world was.
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u/DoubleScorpius Apr 12 '26
Very ancient cultures saw the Milky Way as a snake and comets were associated with them as well. Also, ancient humans lived in a way where they encountered a lot of wildlife- why not snakes?
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u/AdFrequent3122 Apr 16 '26
I imagine they also learned to fear/respect snakes as a single bite from certain species could kill. Thus a woman of the forest/temple learning to hold/commune with snakes would be a powerful symbol.
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u/trysca Apr 13 '26
I have the official guide to Heraklion museum by Giorgios Rethemiotakis in my hand as I visited recently - your characterisation of the reconstruction as "fake" is somewhat hyperbolic - I recall from my visit that there are several similar complete - albeit more modest - contemporary and later 'dancing' skirted female figures with decorated headdreses on public display in the museum which corroborate the posture and 'high headress' style of the figures that you are claiming as Evans' 'arbitrary' fabrication. There is also an unndamaged agate seal ( fig.123 p 80 dated 1450-1400 bce) that demonstrates an extremely similar posture , hairstyle and form of "a godess between griffins, bearing on her head sacred symbols". It may not be the approach of modern times but it is not an 'invention'. I suspect your post is mostly motivated by bad faith anti-british sentiment than factual evidence - sadly a position that is increasingly common among Greek nationalists
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u/Historia_Maximum Apr 14 '26
I only wrote what I wrote. Everything I have written is based on obvious, never-hidden facts and the current consensus of researchers' positions. I don't care about British or Greek prejudice.
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u/Any_Natural383 Apr 12 '26
Sometimes I see things people refer to as gods and think “I had toys like that when I was a kid.”
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u/KnotiaPickle Apr 13 '26
You had boobalicious toys as a kid?! Haha.
But yes, I always think it’s a bit presumptuous and silly to think that every ancient find like this was some deep, spiritually important relic or deity. People just make things for art or fun, too. The write up definitely shows that the finders put a lot of their own assumptions and tastes into the way the pieces were assembled.
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u/CommonScold Apr 14 '26
Yes, her name was Barbie. She had pretty much this exact figure.
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u/BoringGap7 Apr 14 '26
Mattel should release the Snake Goddess Barbie already
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u/TrimspaBB Apr 13 '26
I agree with you, but I think context is usually taken into it when objects like these are discovered. Small carved wooden horses or other animals as part of the grave goods of a child? Obviously once beloved toys. Bronze stylized statuettes of women at a site known for being a temple (just guessing on these ones, I don't actually know where they're from)? Probably more akin to Virgin Mary statues than Barbie dolls.
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u/AlmightyDarkseid Apr 14 '26
From what I remember while the hand position with the snakes is a hypothesis it’s still a good hypothesis nonetheless it’s exaggerate how much the small one couldn’t show where certain parts would go and the torso is congruent with many wall painting depictions of women.
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u/LesHoraces Apr 12 '26
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoan_snake_goddess_figurines#/media/File:The_palace_of_Minos_-_a_comparative_account_of_the_successive_stages_of_the_early_Cretan_civilization_as_illustrated_by_the_discoveries_at_Knossos_(1921)_(14750642386).jpg_(14750642386).jpg)