DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.807#0551
M.M. Ill: THE SNAKE GODDESS AND RELICS 509
still exist 011 European soil must be very familiar. In many peasant Snake as
• Domestic
dwellings the snake, with his love of warmth which leads him to find Genius,
some cranny near the hearth, is regarded, as of old, as a kind of good
genius. To my own knowledge in Herzegovina and the Serbian lands,
East of the Adriatic, it was not an uncommon thing for snakes, who had
sought such human hospitality, to be fed with milk and treated as domestic
pets. Such a household snake is known, indeed, as domachitsa or ' house-
mother '.
In its homely origin, from the religious tending of the household snake, Snake
the cult itself may be supposed to be of old indigenous tradition. At the western
same time the exceptional prominence of a similar cult in the Western Delta-
Delta can hardly be left out of account. That there was at any rate
a reaction of this Nilotic cult on that of the Minoan chthonic Goddess as its Re-
finally evolved is clear from more than one feature in her attributes and 111
symbolism.
The snake raising its head above the tiara of the Goddess of the
Knossian Shrine itself curiously recalls the uraeus in similar positions on
the head of Hathor and other Egyptian Goddesses. The Delta Goddess Wazet:
Wazet, in many respects the double of Hathor, the mother of Horus, and q0^ss
identified in later times with Isis, could herself take the form of a serpent, Her Waz
S in b 01
and an uraeus snake is seen entwined about her papyrus sceptre. The adopted
latter symbol of the Goddess, moreover, the waz, in its simpler form by.
• r • Minoans.
a papyrus stem, has been already shown by a curious catena of evidence
to have played a special part among the borrowed materials of Cretan
decorative art. Early in the Middle Minoan Age we have seen the waz
symbol and associated canopy taken over as a type of Cretan signets, not, we
may imagine, without some sense of religious sanction. In derivative
shapes it continues to fulfil these sphragistic functions to the borders of the
Late Minoan Age and is interwoven with a series of fantastic seal-types of
the Zakro class.1 As incorporated in a decorative band we meet it again on Waz
the pedestal of a columnar lamp 2 from the pillar Crypt of the S.E. House at Cretan1
Knossos, and it inspires a whole series of ornamental designs in Late Minoan Art.
frescoes and vase paintings. An influence productive of such continuous
results cannot be lightly set aside. Considering the very ancient and intimate
relations of Crete with the Nile Valley—going back to the Pre-dynastic Age,
and not improbably marked by the actual settlement in the island of Egypto-
Libyan elements 3—it was natural that the great Delta Goddess, whose
1 See below, pp. 704-6, and Fig. 528. 2 See above, p. 345, Fig. 249.
3 See above, p. 79 seqq.
still exist 011 European soil must be very familiar. In many peasant Snake as
• Domestic
dwellings the snake, with his love of warmth which leads him to find Genius,
some cranny near the hearth, is regarded, as of old, as a kind of good
genius. To my own knowledge in Herzegovina and the Serbian lands,
East of the Adriatic, it was not an uncommon thing for snakes, who had
sought such human hospitality, to be fed with milk and treated as domestic
pets. Such a household snake is known, indeed, as domachitsa or ' house-
mother '.
In its homely origin, from the religious tending of the household snake, Snake
the cult itself may be supposed to be of old indigenous tradition. At the western
same time the exceptional prominence of a similar cult in the Western Delta-
Delta can hardly be left out of account. That there was at any rate
a reaction of this Nilotic cult on that of the Minoan chthonic Goddess as its Re-
finally evolved is clear from more than one feature in her attributes and 111
symbolism.
The snake raising its head above the tiara of the Goddess of the
Knossian Shrine itself curiously recalls the uraeus in similar positions on
the head of Hathor and other Egyptian Goddesses. The Delta Goddess Wazet:
Wazet, in many respects the double of Hathor, the mother of Horus, and q0^ss
identified in later times with Isis, could herself take the form of a serpent, Her Waz
S in b 01
and an uraeus snake is seen entwined about her papyrus sceptre. The adopted
latter symbol of the Goddess, moreover, the waz, in its simpler form by.
• r • Minoans.
a papyrus stem, has been already shown by a curious catena of evidence
to have played a special part among the borrowed materials of Cretan
decorative art. Early in the Middle Minoan Age we have seen the waz
symbol and associated canopy taken over as a type of Cretan signets, not, we
may imagine, without some sense of religious sanction. In derivative
shapes it continues to fulfil these sphragistic functions to the borders of the
Late Minoan Age and is interwoven with a series of fantastic seal-types of
the Zakro class.1 As incorporated in a decorative band we meet it again on Waz
the pedestal of a columnar lamp 2 from the pillar Crypt of the S.E. House at Cretan1
Knossos, and it inspires a whole series of ornamental designs in Late Minoan Art.
frescoes and vase paintings. An influence productive of such continuous
results cannot be lightly set aside. Considering the very ancient and intimate
relations of Crete with the Nile Valley—going back to the Pre-dynastic Age,
and not improbably marked by the actual settlement in the island of Egypto-
Libyan elements 3—it was natural that the great Delta Goddess, whose
1 See below, pp. 704-6, and Fig. 528. 2 See above, p. 345, Fig. 249.
3 See above, p. 79 seqq.