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The ouroboros is often interpreted as a symbol for eternal cyclic renewal or a cycle of life, death and rebirth; the snake's skin-sloughing symbolises the transmigration of souls. The snake biting its own tail is a fertility symbol in some religions: the tail is a phallic symbol and the mouth is a yonic or womb-like symbol.
The Anguiped (Latin: angui, 'snake'; ped-, 'foot') is a kind of divinity that is often found on magical amulets from the Greco-Roman period, and is characterized by having serpents for legs. Abraxas, the most common kind of Anguiped, is depicted as a creature with the head of a rooster and snakes for legs, symbolism thought to be of Persian origin
In Greek mythology snakes are associated with deadly antagonists, as a chthonic symbol, roughly translated as 'earthbound'. The nine-headed Lernaean Hydra that Hercules defeated and the three Gorgon sisters are children of Gaia, the earth. Medusa was one of the three Gorgon sisters who Perseus defeated. Medusa is described as a hideous mortal ...
The Greek poet Hesiod might have mentioned the Snake-Legged Goddess in the Theogony, where he assimilated her to the monstrous figure of Echidna from Greek mythology.In Hesiod's narrative, "Echidna" was a serpent-nymph living in a cave far from any inhabited lands, and the god Targī̆tavah, assimilated to Heracles, killed two of her children, namely the hydra of Lerna and the lion of Nemea.
The anthropologist Lynne Isbell has argued that, as primates, the serpent as a symbol of death is built into our unconscious minds because of our evolutionary history.. Isbell argues that for millions of years snakes were the only significant predators of primates, and that this explains why fear of snakes is one of the most common phobias worldwide and why the symbol of the serpent is so ...
Glycon, also spelled Glykon (Ancient Greek: Γλύκων Glýkōn, gen: Γλύκωνος Glýkōnos), was an ancient snake god.He had a large and influential cult within the Roman Empire in the 2nd century, with contemporary satirist Lucian providing the primary literary reference to the deity.
One of the animals shown is a two-headed snake (conjoined twin snakes), with one head on each end, much like an amphisbaena. The image is captioned, " two headed snakes of India are harmless ". [ 8 ] It is possible a sighting of an animal like this was the origin of the amphisbaena, or that the Greek mythological creature is used, as well as ...
The snakes portrayed are nonvenomous European grass snakes, except for the two snakes on the right side of her head which are vipers. [5] Vipers are a medieval symbol of ungratefulness. [5] In Greek mythology, Medusa is portrayed as having venomous snakes for hair. [6] The vipers are shown mating with the female having the male's head in her mouth.