The main deity is always the Mother Goddess, who is portrayed in her different forms. She is the chthonic "goddess with the snakes" the "Ministress of the Animals" with lions and chamois, and the goddess of the heavens, with birds and stars. The powerful god of fertility was worshipped together with her, apparently in the form of a bull, as were the young couple, boy and girl, who died or were lost in the autumn and came back to the light and life in the spring, thus representing the cycle of nature. Alongside them there existed a whole exotic world of monstrous demons to serve them, and facilitate communications between man and the divinity.
The deities were worshipped in sanctuaries in the palaces, houses or countryside, in the peak sanctuaries and in sacred caves. Many of the features of Minoan religion passed into the cycle of Greek mystery religions.
The Snake Goddess is dressed in the garb of the Deity, the Cretan Earth Mother, and displays the open bodice that was the Cretan fashion of the time. She is a personification of Earth from which all life springs and returns, and upon her headdress a snake is wound, symbols of death and rebirth and she is usually associated with Royal Houses. The snake was a beneficent spirit that protected the home.
The Snake Goddess was originally found by Sir Arthur Evans during his excavation of the Palace of Knossos in the early 1900's, and the original can now be viewed in the Heraklion Museum in Heraklion, Crete.
The Statuette is made of hydrostone with an antique stone finish with colour detail.
Height: 34 cms (approx. 12" );
Weight: 0.9 kgs / approx. 2 lbs.
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