Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky (Cambridge, 1914)

360 The Ram and the Sun in Egypt

True, we have already seen the snakes of Esmun, the Punic
Asklepios1, brought into connexion with the horned Ba'al-hamman2;
we cannot, therefore, exclude the possibility that the snake of Zeus
Amnion owed something to the Semites.

But snakes undoubtedly played a large part in Egyptian
religion3. Of the vipera cerastes, which has been found at Thebes
in mummified form4, Herodotos writes :

' In.the neighbourhood of Thebes there are sacred snakes, which do no harm
to man. They are small of size and have two horns springing from the top of
the head. When they die, they are buried in the sanctuary of Zeus ; for they
are deemed sacred to this god5.'

It is very possible, then, that the snake of Amen, the Theban
Zeus, was transferred to Zeus Amnion*.

Again, Isis and Sarapis were often represented as a pair of
human-headed uraeus-snakes or asps7. Sarapis alone appears in
the same shape on imperial coins of Alexandreia8. A handsome
bronze formerly in the Demetriou collection and now at Athens
(fig. 275)9 shows a Sarapis of this sort equipped with the horns of
Amnion™. The god raises himself from an oblong base perhaps
meant for his kiste or sacred ' chest11.' On his head are traces of
the usual kdlathos or modius. Over his shoulders is a cape incised
with a net-work pattern, probably a form of agrendn. Round his
neck hangs an amulet shaped like a small shrine. The arms are
missing. The body is that of a scaly asp, adorned in front with

1 At Kyrene {supra p. 351 f.) and at Gythion [supra p. 351) Amnion was linked with
Asklepios: see Gruppe Gr. Myth. Rel. p. 1558 n. 5. Cp". the pantheistic type figured
infra p. 361.

2 Supra p. 354.

3 E. A. Wallis Budge The Gods of the Egyptians London 1904 ii. 376 f.

4 H. Brugsch cited by H. Stein on Hdt. 2. 74.

5 Hdt. 2. 74.

6 Ptolemaios ap. Arrian. 3.3.5 states that two snakes guided the army of Alexander
the Great across the desert towards the Ammoneion.

7 W. Drexler in Roscher Lex. Myth. ii. 536 ff. fig., H. P. Weitz ib. iv. 378
fig. 10.

8 Brit. Mus. Cat. Coins Alexandria p. 88 no. 745
Hadrian pi. 14, p. 130 nos. 1103 £ Antoninus Pius, cp.
no. 1105 pi. 14, Hunter Cat. Coins iii. 472 no. 489 An-
toninus Pius pi. 88, 13.

9 P. Kabbadias in the 'B0. 'A-px- 1893 p. 187 ff". pi. 12,
Reinach Rep. Stat. ii. 21 no. 1.

10 P. Kabbadias and S. Reinach locc. citt. prefer to
describe him as Zeus Amnion.

11 Cp. fig. 276 = Brit. Mus. Cat. Coins Alexandria p. 81
no. 677 Hadrian pi. 1 (bust of Zeus Amnion with a solar
disk on his head, the whole set on an oblong base or

Fig. 276. box dotted to indicate an inscription).