The Good and Evil Serpent (17 page)

Some possibly undetected ophidian objects may have been recovered in the tombs. A bracelet has two animal heads facing one another; these are oxidized but look like triangularly pointed serpent heads.
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A ring looks as if it might be a base with a raised serpent on it, but it also is too oxidized for us to be certain.
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Gezer

Rising prominently above the Coastal Plain is a high hill or tell that commands virtually a 360-degree sweep of the area from Ashdod in the southwest to nearly Mount Carmel in the northwest and the Judean hills to the east. It is about 11 kilometers southeast of Ramleh. Gezer is thus a strategic lookout and ideally suited to guard the main route that leads up to and from Jerusalem and Jericho (and other more eastern parts of the world) from the via maris that connected Egypt and Babylon, passing below Megiddo. The site is also blessed by the fertility of the region, along with abundant springs near its base.

A small bronze serpent, perhaps a cobra, was found at Gezer in the high place. The body is wavy, but without any detail, and the head is raised, but no eyes are marked. It is about 18 centimeters long.
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The object is dated to the Late Bronze Age.
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R. A. S. Macalister suggested that, despite the “wild words that have been written about serpent worship,” there was certainly some worship of the serpent in the Jerusalem Temple, as 2 Kings 18:4 demonstrates. Macalister opined that the “bronze serpent from Gezer may well be a votive model of some such image.”
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These informed reflections should be kept in mind when we study the biblical texts.

A second ophidian object was found at Gezer in Cave 15 IV. It is a curved ornament in the form of a serpent. The head is especially prominent and triangular, but no eyes or skin are indicated. The cave and its contents date to the “Second Semitic Period” that is from the thirteenth to the eighteenth Egyptian Dynasty, or sometime before 1400
BCE
.
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Macalister suggested that this object “may have been a sympathetic prophylactic against the bite of these creatures.”
⁶³

At Gezer in 1969–1971, archaeologists, under the direction of W. G. Dever, discovered another impressive example of serpent iconography. It is a copper/bronze serpent found in LBII Stratum 9, which is a mixed fill also containing material from MBIIC and MBIIC/LBI.
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It is a crude object, showing little detail; there are no eyes indicated and no dots. It may have been intended as a cobra.
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The nose is excessively elongated; perhaps the artist wanted the observer (or worshipper) to think about the cobra’s deadly tongue. As with the uraeus, the serpent has an upraised head. The body has one main semicircular curve.
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If this stratum was looted in antiquity, it is possible that more impressive serpent objects had once been present.

Six of the Cypriot Base Ring I jugs found at Gezer in Field I Caves may contain an artist’s attempt at a stylized serpent.
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Each of the jars, in various stages of preservation, has an image that is formed from the bottom left and continues in a clockwise fashion until it circles back and ends well beyond the right side of the circle created. No decoration is added to the image to help the observer discern that it is a serpent. Yet the “raised molding” is serpentine and may be an idealized ophidian image. These bibil jugs date from the Late Bronze Period and are imported probably from Cyprus.
⁶⁸

Archaeologists have found additional examples of ophidian symbolism at Gezer, and these date from the Iron Age. One, a Qadesh type,
⁶⁹
depicts erect serpents on a clay plaque that can be dated to 1000–550
BCE
. They seem to be celebrating the fertility goddess Asherah. Upraised serpents with faces turned toward the goddess are depicted on each side of Asherah.
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A second clay plaque that may represent serpents was found at Gezer. It shows a goddess with serpentine artwork ascending from her shoulders and over her head.
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These serpentine features may denote serpents since similar iconography was found at Hazor. It is difficult to date the second ophidian object because it was found in nonstratified waste. Since some serpents rise up before Asherah, it is apparent that they may well denote the phallus, a symbol of fertility, sex, and regeneration.

Hazor (Tel el-Qedah)

Hazor is located north of the Sea of Galilee in Upper Galilee and in the Huleh Valley. It was clearly not only one of the major Canaanite cities but also a prominent trade center in the Fertile Crescent. Hazor is massive. The mound proper occupies 12 hectares, while the lower settled areas extend over 70 hectares. The upper city of Hazor was settled in the Early Bronze Age. The lower city was occupied sometime near the beginning of the second millennium
BCE
.
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Two small incised bronze serpents were found at Hazor in the “holy of holies” in the temple of Area H (Locus 2113), and in Strata 2 and 1A,
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which are dated to LBIIA and B, or 1400–1200
BCE
.
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One, 7 centimeters long, is rather straight (339:5 [H179]); it may have been a pendant for wearing around the neck since it has a hole in it. Five straight lines are found on the head and four angular ones on the body. The other, 11.2 centimeters long (339:6 [H1350]), has eyes indicated and is curved in a serpentine fashion, with perhaps four curves, probably to suggest motion.
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A third object that appears to be a bronze serpent was found at Hazor. It has six curves and the head is upraised.
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It has virtually no decorations that would prove it to be a serpent—that is, it has no tongue, eyes, or dots. The object was found in Area A in Phase 9A or LBI. The object—probably a serpent—was thus found in the temple area of the upper city. This temple may have been where the upper echelon of Hazor worshipped; a monumental building (L. 389) was discovered near the Area A Temple.

A fourth example of ophidian iconography was found on a pottery sherd (A6119); it is dated to MBII.
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The serpent is relatively small and has dots to indicate skin. Its body stretches semihorizontally, and its head is beside a handle on the top of the rim, as if the serpent were blessing or guarding the contents. It was also found in Area A.

Figure 21
. Cult Standard. Hazor. Fourteenth to thirteenth century BCE. Courtesy of the Israel Museum.

A fifth object that is probably a serpent appears to be indicated on the handle of a clay jug (F1454/6); it was found in Area F, Locus 8187, which dates from MBII.
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A sixth ophidian object was found on the remains of a small bowl (H1004/1). An example of ophidian iconography was applied to the body of a “sherd of a very unusual vessel.”
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The object is a clay-sculptured serpent. The serpent has two large dots where the eyes would be located. A small slit indicates its mouth.
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The serpent appears to be looking over the lip of a bowl, perhaps guarding the contents within. It was found in Area H.

A seventh example of ophidian iconography was discovered at Hazor. It proves what has probably already entered the mind of the reader: Hazor was the center of a Canaanite serpent cult. This serpent object is the most important found at Hazor. Yadin’s team found a silver-plated bronze cult stand in Locus 6211. Silver-plated bronze was often the most elegant way to fashion a mirror, but this is a cult stand, and it dates from the Late Bronze Age II, or the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries
BCA
.
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The tang was not plated with silver because it was most likely intended to be hidden by a pole on which the cult stand would be erected. Only a minuscule part of the silver plate can be seen by the naked eye. The object has been on public display in the Israel Museum (Room 307, Case 4, Item 3).

Two serpents in relief are shown rising on each side of, and even above, a woman; she is incised in the center of the sliver-plated bronze object. The serpents have no decorations to indicate skin, eyes, or tongues. The serpent on the left has four curves, and the one on the right has two; these most likely symbolize the serpent’s dynamic quality. The woman’s hair falls downward beside each cheek, ending in curls. A crescent is indicated in relief above the woman; perhaps some connection with the moon is indicated.
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She is most likely a goddess. It is possible, as Yadin imagined, that she is holding the serpents and wearing a necklace (this interpretation is reinforced by minute examination of other iconography, especially that on the scarabs and seals).
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Since the object is constructed of expensive material, though poorly crafted, and since it is a cult standard and found among other cult objects, I have no doubt that the woman is a serpent goddess and like the Qudshu models. The object is similar to the images of a woman holding serpents in both hands;
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this motif may have been intended, but not actually achieved or made less clear, by the silver plating. In the official report of the excavation we read: “This standard of the snake goddess is so far unique among archaeological discoveries. It may be conjectured that it was used in cult processions such as we see on the monuments of Egypt and Mesopotamia.”
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There can be no doubt that when the people with Joshua entered Palestine, goddesses were symbolized as serpents. It is now certain that there were numerous serpent cults in Palestine before Joshua’s time.

The images depicted on the cult stand are clearly serpents.
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I can see no reason why these serpents, or any ophidian iconography found at Hazor, should be associated with an iconography of bulls. Yet Yadin speculated that the temple in Area H was a Canaanite one dedicated to the storm god Baal, Hadad.
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An eighth and a ninth example of ophidian iconography were found at Hazor. Archaeologists discovered two examples of what they judge to be a “snake house.” Similar objects were found at Ugarit and Dan. One “house-shaped vessel,” found in 1957, was well preserved.
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The vessel is spherical, but its small opening is rectangular. It most likely had a door that closed it, since a socket for one appears on the left side. Perhaps the vessel needed to be closed, so as to hinder poisonous snakes from wandering. It is conceivable that the door would have been made of some fabric or basket-weaved plant so that the serpent could breathe. Above the vessel rises a vertical fagade, and the front has a horizontal lip below the opening. The design seems cultic and is reminiscent of a temple. A similar vessel at Ugarit (Ras Shamra), dating from 1500 to 1400
BCE
, has an elegant door that is also rectangular, but extended vertically and not horizontally as are those at Hazor and Dan.
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Perhaps the serpent houses were designed for transporting the serpent to a ceremony since we have iconographical evidence that a serpent cult flourished at Ugarit and Hazor.
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The two serpent houses found at Ugarit are the most elegantly crafted I have studied.

The Hazor snake house was found in the temple of Area H (Locus 2113).
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This is the area in which the bronze serpents were discovered; hence, there is reason to posit that what Yadin called the “house-shaped vessel” should be identified as a “snake house.” Perhaps sacred snakes or serpents were kept in the tiny house that appears too small for a cat.

Another “unique vessel” was found in LBII and in Area C (Locus 6211). The vessel has “a circular aperture in its side” and, although the upper section is lost, the vessel was most likely originally closed.
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In it was found the silver-plated bronze cult standard described earlier (and shown in
Fig. 21
). This connection suggests that the strange vessel is a snake house, and should be so understood in the light of the examples found at Ugarit and elsewhere.