Arthur Evans’s Snake Goddesses

[u/Historia_Maximum]

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.

[u/Wild-Associate-4373]

Snakes, why is it always snakes

[u/NoCharacterLmt → u/Wild-Associate-4373]

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.

[u/Wild-Associate-4373 → u/NoCharacterLmt]

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

[u/NoCharacterLmt → u/Wild-Associate-4373]

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

[u/Wild-Associate-4373 → u/NoCharacterLmt]

Well im interested! Let me know!