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History's Hinge - 'Ain Jalut

[Bart]

Interesting if true, but something makes me a bit skeptical about the claim.

- Bart

Ancient snake spell in Egyptian pyramid may be oldest Semitic inscription
23Jan2007

By Laurie Copans, The Associated Press

JERUSALEM ? A magic spell to keep snakes away from the tombs of Egyptian kings, adopted from the Canaanites almost 5,000 years ago, could be the oldest Semitic text yet discovered, experts said Tuesday.

     The phrases, interspersed throughout religious texts in Egyptian characters in the underground chambers of a pyramid south of Cairo, stumped Egyptian experts for about a century, until the Semitic connection was found.

     In 2002 one of the Egyptologists e-mailed the undeciphered part of the inscription to Richard Steiner, a professor of Semitic languages at Yeshiva University in New York. Steiner discovered that the phrases are the transcription of a language used by Canaanites at some point in the period from 25th to the 30th centuries B.C.

     "This is the oldest connected text that we have in any Semitic language," Steiner said in a telephone interview while visiting Israel to present his findings in a lecture sponsored by the Academy of the Hebrew Language. The previous oldest Semitic text dates from the 24th century B.C., Steiner said.

     Another expert said it was still unclear whether the Egyptian text is actually the oldest.

     "This is highly significant because maybe, according to the researcher, it dates to the third millennium B.C., so it's the most ancient pre-Canaanite text that we ever met and maybe ... it is the most ancient Semitic text ever discovered," said Moshe Florentine, an expert on ancient Hebrew and a member of the language academy.

     Steiner has not submitted his findings to a scientific journal but plans to do so, he said. More study of the fragments will be necessary to determine how these passages fit into the evolution of Semitic languages, Florentine said.

     The Egyptians' use of the magic spell demonstrates the close relations they had at the time with the Canaanites. While Egyptians considered their culture and religion superior to that of their neighbors to the north, they were willing to do anything to protect the mummies of their kings from the poisonous snakes. (?)

     Believing that some snakes spoke the Semitic language of the Canaanites, Egyptians included the magic spells in inscriptions on two sides of the sarcophagus in an effort to ward them off.

     "Come, come to my house," reads one section in the Semitic language that is supposed to be the snake's mother speaking, trying to lure him out of the tomb. In another passage, the snake is addressed as if he is a lover with "Turn aside, O my beloved." (?)

     The Egyptian and Semitic sections are each an integral part of the magic spell and neither can stand alone, Steiner said. For this reason, the Egyptian experts could not fully understand parts of the religious texts until Steiner got involved.

     The Semitic language of these texts that have now been deciphered was a very archaic form of the languages later known as Phoenician and Hebrew, Steiner said.

     The text includes words that have the same meaning as in Hebrew, like "yad" for hand, "ari" for lion, and "beit" for house, he said.

[Bart]

Earliest Semitic Text Revealed In Egyptian Pyramid Inscription

Science Daily ?

     The first public revelation of the earliest continuous Semitic text ever deciphered has taken place at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

     The presentation was made by Prof. Richard Steiner, professor of Semitic languages and literature at Yeshiva University in New York, in a lecture entitled "Proto-Canaanite Spells in the Pyramid Texts: a First Look at the History of Hebrew in the Third Millennium B.C.E." The lecture was sponsored by the Academy of the Hebrew Language in cooperation with the Hebrew University and the World Union of Jewish Studies.



    Prof. Steiner, a past fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University and a member of the Academy of the Hebrew Language, has deciphered a number of Semitic texts in various Egyptian scripts over the past 25 years. In his Hebrew University lecture, he provided the interpretation for Semitic passages in Egyptian texts that were discovered more than a century ago, inscribed on the subterranean walls of the pyramid of King Unas at Saqqara in Egypt. The pyramid dates from the 24th century B.C.E., but Egyptologists agree that the texts are older. The dates proposed for them range from the 25th to the 30th centuries B.C.E. No continuous Semitic texts from this period have ever been deciphered before.

     The passages, serpent spells written in hieroglyphic characters, had puzzled scholars who tried to read them as if they were ordinary Egyptian texts. In August, 2002, Prof. Steiner received an email message from Robert Ritner, professor of Egyptology at the University of Chicago, asking whether any of them could be Semitic. "I immediately  recognized the Semitic words for 'mother snake,'" said Steiner. "Later it became clear that the surrounding spells, composed in Egyptian rather than Semitic, also speak of the mother snake, and that the Egyptian and Semitic texts elucidate each other."

     Although written in Egyptian characters, the texts turned out to be composed in the Semitic language spoken by the Canaanites in the third millennium B.C.E., a very archaic form of the languages later known as Phoenician and Hebrew. The Canaanite priests of the ancient city of Byblos, in present-day Lebanon, provided these texts to the kings of Egypt.

     The port city of Byblos was of vital importance for the ancient Egyptians. It was from there that they imported timber for construction and resin for mummification. The new discovery shows that they also imported magical spells to protect royal mummies against poisonous snakes that were thought to understand Canaanite. Although the

     Egyptians viewed their culture as far superior to that of their neighbors, their morbid fear of snakes made them open to the borrowing of Semitic magic.

     "This finding should be of great interest to cultural historians," said Prof. Steiner. "Linguists, too, will be interested in these texts. They show that Proto-Canaanite, the common ancestor of Phoenician, Moabite, Ammonite and Hebrew, existed already in the third millennium B.C.E as a language distinct from Aramaic, Ugaritic and the other Semitic languages. And they provide the first direct evidence for the pronunciation of Egyptian in this early period." The texts will also be important to biblical scholars, since they shed light on several rare words in the Bible, he said.

      "This is a sensational discovery," said Moshe Bar-Asher, Bialik Professor of Hebrew Language at the Hebrew University and president of the Academy of the Hebrew Language. "It is the earliest attestation of a Semitic language, in general, and Proto-Canaanite, in particular."

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/01/070129100250.htm

[Bart]

Ancient Semitic Snake Spells Deciphered in Egyptian Pyramid

Mati Milstein in Jerusalem
for National Geographic News

February 5, 2007

The ancient Egytians believed themselves superior to their neighboring nations in almost every aspect.

But newly interpreted symbols?the oldest Semitic passages ever deciphered?reveal that the Egyptians turned to outside help for magic.

 The passages, inscribed on the subterranean walls of the pyramid of King Unas at Saqqara , reveal that the Egyptians enlisted the magical assistance of Semitic Canaanites from the ancient city of Byblos , located in what is now Lebanon.

The Canaanite spells were invoked to help protect mummified kings against poisonous snakes, one of ancient Egypt's most dreaded nemeses.

According to the incantations, female snakes?acting as mediators for Canaanite magicians?used their multiple mouths and sexual organs to prevent other snakes from entering the mummified rulers' remains.

The passages date from between 2400 to 3000 B.C. and appear to be written in Proto-Canaanite, a direct ancestor of biblical Hebrew (see a timeline of ancient Egypt).

In fact, experts say, the inscriptions may help them solve several long-standing mysteries of the Bible and ancient Egypt.

Puzzling Text

The passages were first uncovered in the 19th century, but they have remained a mystery to scholars for generations. (Related: "Egyptian Dentists' Tombs Found by Thieves" [October 23, 2006].)

Experts had attempted without success to decipher the serpent spells as if they were ordinary Egyptian texts composed in hieroglyphic characters.

But in 2002 a colleague asked Richard Steiner, a professor of Semitic languages and literature at New York's Yeshiva University, if the texts might be Semitic.

"I immediately recognized the Semitic words for 'mother snake,'" Steiner said at a recent lecture at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he presenting the findings.

"Later it became clear that the surrounding spells, composed in Egyptian rather than Semitic, also speak of the divine mother snake and that the Egyptian and Semitic texts elucidate each other," he added.

"It was hiding there in plain sight," Steiner told National Geographic News. "It's unintelligible to Egyptologists, but it makes perfect sense to Semitists."


Speaking in Tongues

The ancient Egyptian rulers called on Canaanite priests because some of the poisonous snakes so feared in Egypt were thought to understand Canaanite.

In the inscribed spells, a Canaanite-speaking mother snake cajoles and threatens invading snakes in their own language.

"You need somebody with good connections to the snake. You can't just come along and say, Get out of here, snake. Why should the snake listen to you?" Steiner said.

"You need to involve someone who commands the snake's respect, someone who can speak to the snake in its own language and who is related to it in some way?its mother or its lover," he added.

"That's the whole nature of Egyptian magic. In order to counter the bad guys, you need to enlist somebody close to them."

Moshe Bar-Asher is a Hebrew professor at the Hebrew University and president of the Academy of the Hebrew Language.

"The Egyptians had their own spells," Bar-Asher said. "But they had great respect for the magic of the Canaanites in the city of Byblos, and they imported a few of their spells."

Biblical Solution

Also of great significance, experts say, is that the newly deciphered spells provide the first glimpse of the ancestor language to Phoenician Phoenician and Hebrew.

"This is a discovery of utmost importance," Bar-Asher said. "Almost all the words found [in these texts] are also found in the Bible."

"It's not as different from biblical Hebrew as some people might have expected," Yeshiva University's Steiner added. "A lot of the characteristics of Hebrew that we know from the Bible are already present in these texts."

The language of the newly deciphered spells is so similar to biblical Hebrew, in fact, that Steiner was able to solve a long-standing dispute over the meaning of the word "pot."

Isaiah 3:17 reads, in regard to the daughters of Zion, "the Lord will uncover their pot."

By the Middle Ages there was already a dispute among biblical scholars over whether the word referred to the females' genitalia or to a part of their heads, Steiner said in his lecture.

But the use of this rare word in one of the Canaanite spells appears to settle the question.

"From this text it is now clear the Hebrew term used by Isaiah refers to the female genitalia," Bar-Asher, of the Hebrew University, said.

These texts also "provide the first direct evidence for the pronunciation of Egyptian in this early period," Steiner added.

"Current theories of Old Egyptian phonetics are based on extrapolation and are the subject of controversy. These spells may help to resolve some of the controversies."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070205-snake-spells_2.html

[Solomon]

I'm not joining in the debate on this topic. It is far too complex for me. I'm just happy to try and follow.

Solomon

[Bart]

   I am not too sure about this one either. If what they are saying is so, it has far more impact that what they are saying.
 
   Statements like this bother me "  The ancient Egytians believed themselves superior to their neighboring nations in almost every aspect. "

   If you believe you are superior, you don't ask a lesser people for help, that alone is an admission that you are not superior. No one else is making the claims they make regarding snakes or that the ancients viewed them in such a manner. The only explanation may be that the current thinking is old school, but that isn't clear yet.

- Bart


The Heliopolitan Cosmogony

Snakes were found throughout ancient Egypt, including the desert sands, in old walls, in fields, by the Nile and in its swamps, on threshing floors, in houses and in livestock enclosures and pastures. Poisonous snakes would have posed a threat to humans and domestic animals alike. Hence, the Egyptians had somewhat of a love/hate relationship with snakes. While they were dangerous, they were also viewed, for example, as a protector to the King, but also a demon of the underworld.

   A papyrus in the Brooklyn Museum which served as a manual for a doctor treating snakebite reveals that the Egyptians had an intimate knowledge of snakes. Although the beginning of the papyrus is lost, it would have listed the names of some thirty-seven. At least thirty-six species (some sources say 34, 37, or 40, of which an estimated seven are poisonous) have been identified in modern Egypt, but the ancient typology most likely did not correspond exactly to the modern ones. The papyrus gives a physical description of each snake and its habitat, along with precise descriptions of the symptoms produced by each snake's venom, whether or not the bite is mortal, and the name of the god or goddess of which the snake is considered to be a manifestation. Following the list of snakes is a list of remedies to cure bite victims.

   Some of the remedies are specific for certain types of snakes, while other were for specific symptoms. These remedies included emetics, compresses, unctions, massages, incision of wounds and fumigations. There were also magical incantations that were spoken over the remedies. The ingredients in the remedies include liquids and substances of mineral, animal and vegetable origin. The most common ingredient is onion, still used frequently in Egyptian folk medicine today to treat snakebite.

   One of the poisonous snakes the Egyptians feared most was the horned viper (Cerastes cornutus and Cerastes cerastes, also known as the sand viper). When the horned viper attacks, it rasps its coils together before springing forward. The rasping sounds like the letter f, and the horned viper was used as the hieroglyph to write the sound (fy is the Egyptian word for "viper" as well).

   The Pyramid Texts allude repeatedly to the menace of serpents, and they recur in religious texts throughout ancient Egyptian history. First attested in the First Intermediate Period, the snake god Apophis (Apep) was considered the enemy of order, or Ma'at. As early as the reign of Ramesses II, Apophis became the subject of a ritual recorded in several magic books. During religious processions and lunar feasts, images of Apophis were fashioned from papyrus and wax and then subjected to various tortures, representing the triumph of Re and Ma'at over the chaos symbolized by Apophis. However, while Apophis was the nemesis of the sun god, the powerful serpent deity, Mehen, protected the sun.

   However, not all snakes were considered bad. Deities associated with poisonous snakes were sometimes even considered beneficial. The goddess Renenutet often appeared in the form of a hooded cobra. Her name is derived from an Egyptian word meaning, "to nurse," and she was closely associated with the fertility of fields, and consequently was considered the goddess of the granary. Offerings of the first fruits were made and hymns sung to a statue of Renenutet when grain was brought to the granary or when wine was stored in the cellar. She also had close ties with woven material and personified linen. Although her name first appears in the Old Kingdom in the Pyramid Texts, she is not depicted in art until the New Kingdom. She was worshipped throughout Egypt, but her cult was of particular significance in the Fayoum.

   The snake goddess Meretseger personified the pyramid shaped peak that rises above the Valley of the Kings. She may have been an object of a domestic cult in the nearby village of the royal tomb builders and their families at Deir el-Medina, because snake figurines were found during excavations, many of which were covered with cooking soot, suggesting she provided protection for the kitchen. Certainly nonpoisonous snakes would have been considered beneficial to the household, as they are sometimes regarded today in Egypt, because they eat rodents. 

   The uraeus was the image of the Egyptian cobra (Naja haje), worn in the front of the king's headdress. Here the snake represents the snake goddess Wadjet, associated with the Lower Egyptian sanctuary of Buto. Her counterpart was the vulture goddess Nekhbet of Hierakonpolis in Upper Egypt. Wadjet acted as a mythical mother and midwife of the king. At Tuna el-Gebel, mummified cobras have been found amongst the millions of other animals in the great animal catacombs.

   A creation myth explains how the uraeus came into being. The god Atum had created the god Shu and the goddess Tefnut, who represented air and moisture, and they had gone out into the world. Atum sent his eye out to fetch them, which it did, but when it saw that it had been replaced by the sun, it became furious and transformed itself into a cobra, which Atum appeased by placing it on his brow. Thus the uraeus came to be considered a protector of kingship.

   Other snake deities include Denwen, a serpent god with dragon-like ability known from Old Kingdom times, Kebehwet (Kabechet), a celestial serpent who is mentioned several times in the Pyramid Texts and who was said to be the daughter of Anubis and the king's sister. Nehebu-Kau is first attested in the Pyramid texts and was regarded as a benign and helpful deity who assisted the deceased king in various ways. The serpent goddess Wepset appears to be one of the various identities of the fiery uraeus who guarded gods and kings and is first attested to in the Coffin Texts. The name Weret-Hekau was applied to several goddesses. In the Pyramid texts the name is associated with the divine uraeus and with the crown of Lower Egypt. Finally, Yam was a Semitic god that made its way into Egypt. He was known elsewhere as a tyrannical, monstrous deity of the sea and other bodies of water.

   Winged snakes are depicted in Egyptian art and are found frequently in religious texts painted in the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings. Wadjet was sometimes depicted as a winged snake. The Greek author Herodotus claimed to have seen skeletons of flying snakes when he visited Egypt. It is not known how the idea of winged snakes originated, but among the suggestions that have been put forth are the resemblance of the posture of the snake's neck and anterior of its body to wings when it is excited, the fact that horned vipers throw themselves at their victims, or the resemblance of a shedding snakeskin to wings.

   Snakes appear in several Egyptian literary works. A central character in the Story of the Shipwrecked Sailor is a cobra who saves the shipwrecked sailor and looks after him on his island in the midst of the sea for four months. At the birth of the eponymous character in the Story of the Doomed Prince, the fates decree that he will die as a victim of a snake, dog or crocodile. He escapes the first of these fates after his wife puts out some beer to attract the dangerous snake out of its hole. The snake drinks it, passes out and is hacked up by the woman.

Snakes in Egypt Today

   In modern Egypt, the cobras are perhaps the most infamous. Myth and legend fueled by Shakespeare popularly lay the blame for Cleopatra's death on the asp, but this small viper is not found in Egypt. More likely, the true culprit clutched to her bosom was probably the Egyptian Cobra. Egyptian Cobras can reach a length of nearly two meters and are generally a uniform brown in color, though the shade varies considerably. Some individuals are marked with darker brown around the head. The famous hood is not apparent unless the animal is annoyed, whereupon it flattens the neck region and adopts its classic pose.

   Two other species of cobra occur in the country. One is the uncommon Spitting Cobra, characterized by its black neck and unusual method of delivering venom. The other is the rare Innes cobra, only likely to be encountered in the northeast, and there only if one is very lucky, or perhaps unlucky. Other poisonous snakes include the vipers, such as the Horned Viper, the Saw Scaled Viper, which is very dangerous, and Burton's Carpet Viper, which is found in the Sinai and apparently mole vipers.

   Most Egyptian snakes are harmless. The African egg eating snake is a widespread species with a range covering most of Africa and parts of Arabia. In Egypt it is restricted to the southern part of the Nile Valley. As the name suggests, it feeds on eggs and everything about it is geared to the consumption of eggs The Egg eating Snake is a very slender reptile, generally under a meter long and colored gray with black diamonds. Another helpful snake is the Sand Boa Eryx colubrinus), which is only a couple of feet long, but very deadly to the rodent population.

   Other unusual snakes include the Banded Snake (Coluber sinai) and the Hoogstraal's Cat Snake (Telescopus hoogstraali), both found in the Sinai.

References:

Title Author Date Publisher Reference Number
Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt, The Wilkinson, Richard H. 2003 Thames & Hudson, LTD ISBN 0-500-05120-8
Dictionary of Ancient Egypt, The Shaw, Ian; Nicholson, Paul 1995 Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers ISBN 0-8109-3225-3
Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses, A Hart, George 1986 Routledge ISBN 0-415-05909-7
Natural Selections (A Year of Egypt's Wildlife) Hoath, Richard 1992 American University in Cairo Press, The ISBN 977-424-281-5
Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, The Redford, Donald B. (Editor) 2001 American University in Cairo Press, The ISBN 977 424 581 4
Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, The Shaw, Ian 2000 Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-815034-2
Western Desert of Egypt, The Vivian, Cassandra 2000 American University in Cairo Press, The ISBN 977 424 527 X

[Diving Doc]

Bart,
I agree,
On second reading of your post I find that it appears some of the conclusions are based on assumptions that are not supported nor fully referenced. I do not posses any expertise in this area and wouldn't challenge anything but the language in which this claim is couched. You have a good eye for forensic examination of History Bart. I note also that all of the referenced works (dictionaries for the most part) are within the past twelve  years.
Cheers,
Doc

[Bart]

Thank you Doc, and Solomon is correct in that this is confusing, but I am unable to tell yet if that is by design or not.

   Further searching has revealed that this announcement is not quite what it is cracked up to be. The connection between the Egyptian characters and Proto-Canaanite text and language were well known in 2002 in scholarly circles. These scholars all seem to be from institutes of higher religious studies. I found no definition of the word 'Archateology' (from the title of the book referred to below) in a search. Is someone coining a new word/phrase? Is this word an attempt to graft archaeology with theology? It doesn't appear to be a typo, but I could be wrong on that. Have you ever heard of that word?

Here, Wikipedia  has much to say about the mix of Egyptian and Hebrew languages and texts.

- Bart
_____________________________________________________________________________________

"W. F. Albright and his students, most notably Frank Moore Cross, helped to build the foundations for the disciplined study of Proto-Canaanite and Old Canaanite inscriptions. While Albright worked primarily on the Proto-Canaanite texts, Cross concentrated on the Old Canaanite inscriptions from later in the second millennium BCE. Together, they attempted to channel some of the romance and excitement of investigating the origin and early transmission of the alphabet into disciplined academic approaches concerning ancient handwriting, language, and the contextual analysis of specific inscriptions." (NEA 65:1 (2002): 35)

I quote these words from a 2002 Near Eastern Archateology article by this year's recipient of the Frank Moore Cross Award, who has himself just produced a major addition to this legacy. Gordon J. Hamilton's book The Origins of the West Semitic Alphabet in Egyptian Scripts is a well written and easily accessible compendium of the graphic prototypes for the West Semitic alphabet in Egyptian writing and includes a detailed survey of all early alphabetic inscriptions from the Southern Levant.

http://www.huronuc.on.ca/faculty_of_theology/news_upcoming_events/faculty_awards/

[Solomon]

"Hostile Spirit"
This photo shows a closeup of a 3rd century A.D. relief from Iran. The "hostile spirit" Ahriman is depicted as having a crown in the shape of a snake.
Dan Potts

Snake Cults Dominated Early Arabia
Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News

May 17, 2007 ? Pre-Islamic Middle Eastern regions were home to mysterious snake cults, according to two papers published in this month's Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy journal.

From at least 1250 B.C. until around 550 A.D., residents of what is now the Persian Gulf worshipped snakes in elaborate temple complexes that appear to have been built for this purpose, the studies reveal.

The first paper, by archaeologist Dan Potts of the University of Sydney, describes architecture and relics dating to 500 B.C. from Qalat al-Bahrain in Bahrain.

Two rooms in what is now known as the Late Dilmun Palace each contain 39 pits, some of which surround what appears to have been an altar. At least 32 of the pits housed ceramic vessels containing bones from rat snakes and sea snakes.

The remains showed no signs of mutilation.

"They were in cloth bags, now badly decomposed, and that might suggest that they had been buried alive, i.e. put into a bag, placed in a bowl, and then buried in the ground," Potts told Discovery News.

Some bowls found at the site have been identified as "wine-drinking" cups. Potts, however, does not necessarily think that wine consumption accompanied the snake rituals, which he speculates were meant to confer protection and good luck.

He described pottery decorated with snakes, snake artwork and even ancient oral traditions, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, which originated at early Arabic sites and paid homage to snakes.

In the second paper, archaeologist Anne Benoist of the Eastern Archaeology Laboratory at the National Center for Scientific Research in France describes yet another Iron Age temple complex linked to snake cults.

Excavation of the site, at Al Bithnah in the United Arab Emirates, revealed both indoor and open-air altars, chapel-like structures, incense burners, man-made pools of water and numerous vessels and objects decorated with snakes.

Most of the snakes were depicted with triangular heads and scales, which Benoist said suggests "a viper species, which is striking, as they are venomous and therefore dangerous."

Benoist said early Middle Eastern traditions held that snake venom was viewed as "a source of power over life." Snakes are prevalent in Persian Gulf regions.

She pointed out that the association of snakes with power over life even carried over into the Old Testament. One passage describes Moses placing a bronze snake on a pole so that anyone who had been bitten by a snake would be healed upon seeing it.

The seasonal shedding of skin linked the reptile to cycles of death and rebirth, so snakes were probably also connected to fertility.

Potts thinks snake worship originated in India and spread throughout the Middle East. There is evidence for extensive trade and travel between the two areas.

As for the fate of snake cults, Benoist said later religions likely deemed them "superstitious," causing followers to practice snake veneration in secret. Eventually, she said, the cults were "overtaken by the official monotheist religion."

An Iron Age II snake cult in the Oman peninsula: evidence from Bithnah (Emirate of Fujairah)
Anne BenoistLaboratoire ??Arch?orient??, UMR 5133, CNRS.
Maison de l'Orient, 7 Rue Raulin, F?69007 Lyon, France
e-mail:
Abstract
Excavations carried out by the French Archaeological Mission at Bithnah-44/50 (Emirate of Fujairah) have provided new data about Iron Age II cultic practices in the Arabian Peninsula centred on the symbol of the snake. The site includes a public building, various types of shrines, and a central area of offerings where the remains of animal sacrifices were buried in pits. These remains are presented and a preliminary account of the evolution of the site is given on the base of the site's stratigraphy.

Revisiting the snake burials of the Late Dilmun building complex on Bahrain
D.T. PottsDept. of Archaeology, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
e-mail:
Abstract
The well-known snake burials from the Late Dilmun building complex at Qalat al-Bahrain are discussed in the context of pre-Islamic Arabian, Mesopotamian, Elamite, Avestan, and Vedic Indian evidence. Ancient attitudes towards snakes are reviewed with the aim of confirming or eliminating one or more of these traditions as the likeliest cultural context for the snake sacrifices of Bahrain.