Ana Vazquez Hoys

Pues si no lo leo, ni me entero.Ya decia yo que esta sala era nueva...
En cuanto a los frescos, son preciosos, reales, tecnicamente parece
que se pintaron ayer tarde.Gracias Joanna.
En mi defensa dire que como
me van cambiando las cosas, pensaba que estaba cerrada y no la habia
visto. En fin:Despistes aparte, me habia compredo el libro y hecho fotos de
todo, lo que dice mucho en favor del Museo Britanico:Puedes hacer las fotos
que quieras, con flash, sin flash, cerca, lejos...que nadie te dice nada ni te molesta.
En el Louvre lo mismo. Pero creo que ultimamente se han puesto tontos en el Museo de
El Cairo.Que le vamos a hacer.Sera cuestion de no volver.

New Egyptian Gallery at the British Museum.
he Michael Cohen Gallery dedicated to the stunning Nebamun tomb paintings opens
.

© Trustees of the British Museum

Opens 21 January 2009

Room 61

Admission free

In early 2009 the British Museum will open a new Ancient Egyptian gallery

centred round the spectacular painted tomb-chapel of Nebamun.

The paintings are some of the most famous images of Egyptian art, and come from the now lost

tomb-chapel of Nebamun, an accountant in the Temple of Amun at Karnak who died

c. 1350 BC, a generation or so before Tutankhamun. They show him at work and at

leisure - surveying his estates and hunting in the marshes. An extensive

conservation project – the largest in the Museum’s history – has been undertaken

on the eleven large fragments which will go on public display for the first time

in nearly ten years.

The tomb-paintings were acquired by the Museum in the 1820s and were

constantly on display until the late 1990s. Since then, the fragile

wall-paintings have been meticulously conserved, securing them for at least the

next fifty years. The project has provided numerous new insights into the superb

technique of the painters called by one art-historian ‘antiquity’s equivalent to

Michelangelo’ - with their exuberant compositions, astonishing depictions of

animal life and unparalleled handling of textures. New research and scholarship

have enabled new joins to be made between the fragments, allowing a better

understanding of their original locations in the tomb.

They will now be re-displayed together for the first time in a setting designed to recreate their

original aesthetic impact and to evoke their original position in a small

intimate chapel. The gallery will include another fragment for the same

tomb-chapel on loan from the Egyptian Museum, Berlin. Drawing on the latest

research and fieldwork at Luxor, a computer ‘walk-through’ of the reconstructed

tomb-chapel will be available in gallery with an interactive version online.

Next to the paintings, 150 artefacts show how the tomb-chapel was built, how

it remained open for visitors, and also the nature of Egyptian society at the

time.

Most of the objects are contemporary with Nebamun and reflect those

depicted in his paintings.

http://mathildasanthropologyblog.wordpress.com/2008/page/17/

Some, however, contrast with the idealised world-view

that is shown on elite monuments like the tomb-chapel and show that most

people’s experience of life was not necessarily all about leisure and prestige

as in the paintings. Spectacularly luxurious objects, such as a glass perfume

bottle in the shape of a fish, are juxtaposed with crude tools of basic

survival, such as a fishing net, to suggest that most of what we know of Ancient

Egypt is about the small wealthy elite.

The gallery is on the upper floor of the Museum next to the galleries of

Ancient Egyptian funerary archaeology (the ‘mummy rooms’) which are the most

popular galleries in the museum. This gallery will provide a new ‘must-see’

highlight for the Egyptian collections. The gallery is generously supported by

the R & S Cohen Foundation.

For further information or images please contact Hannah Boulton on 020 7323

8522 or [email protected]

For public information please telephone 020 7323 8000 / 8299

Notes to Editors:

· Publications on the tomb-paintings include a new book by Richard

· Parkinson, The Painted Tomb-Chapel of Nebamun (London and Cairo: British

· Museum Press and American University in Cairo Press 2008, £14.99), and a book

· for children by Meredith Hooper, The Tomb of Nebamun:

Explore an Ancient· Egyptian Tomb (London: British Museum Press 2008, £6.99). Also available is A.

· Middleton and K. Uprichard (eds.), The Nebamun Wall Paintings: Conservation,

· Scientific Analysis and Display at the British Museum (London, Archetype,

· 2008).

· The British Museum has teamed up with the Open University to offer a

· special course on the Nebamun tomb-paintings. The course uses graphic visual

· close-ups of the details of the paintings along with interviews with curator

· Richard Parkinson, podcasts and film clips to develop understanding of Ancient

· Egypt.

The course will be open for registrations, priced around £300, from

· October 2008 and a taster will be available on the OU and British Museum

· websites from July.

· New photographs of the conserved paintings are available in the collections database.

Facsimile of a scene depicting an estate (Tomb of Nebamun, ca. 1375 B.C.), ca. 1928
Charles K. Wilkinson, Graphic Section, Egyptian Expedition of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Tempera on paper; H. 39 in. (99 cm)
Rogers Fund, 1930 (30.4.57)

A Garden Pool Fragment of wall painting from the tomb of Nebamun
Thebes, Egypt
18th Dynasty, around 1350 BC

he Nebamun paintings are among the most famous images of Egyptian art, published in nearly every fancy illustrated book of ancient Egypt. These “jewels” of the British Museum have been part of the Egyptian collection since 1820. They depict different aspects of the idealized daily life of an 18th Dynasty noble, his family and friends in work and leisure activities concerning a man of his social status, such as surveying his estates, inspecting cattle and geese, enjoying banquets and hunting in the marshes. The Nebamun paintings are not merely a decoration of his tomb, but an account of his successful life and a recreation for his ka to enjoy for all eternity.

Replica by Ben Morales-Correa

Little is known about the man himself. His mummy has never been found. His tomb is now lost. By what may be surmised from the paintings, Nebamun (Amen is Lord) was a wealthy official, the “scribe who counts the grain in the granary of divine offerings”, an accountant from the Temple of Amen at Karnak, who lived under the reign of either Thutmose IV or Amenhotep III, at the peak of Egypt’s glory. One painting shows that Nebamun owned horses and chariots, quite a luxury fit only for royalty. But we must understand that ancient Egyptians did not consider actual facts as the only dimension of reality. Since life did not end at the moment of death, another possible explanation for the presence of these costly items in the tomb paintings is to represent property that the deceased wanted to own and enjoy in the afterlife. For all we know, Nebamun, whether filthy rich or not, might have been a nice fellow who befriended the best of painters and builders to create for him a small but truly beautiful house of eternity.

The Lost Tomb of Nebamun

Giovanni d’Athanasi found Nebamun’s tomb-chapel in the necropolis of the nobles on the west bank at Luxor in the autumn of 1820. The astonishingly beautiful and well preserved paintings were quickly removed and shipped to the British Museum, eleven painting fragments in total. The private journal of d’Athanasi disappeared soon after being written, and with it the actual location of the tomb, believed to be under the dwellings that presently populate the area.

Research at the British Museum and clearance and excavation work in Luxor might finally reveal the location of the lost tomb of Nebamun. At Luxor, villages are being bulldozed and their dwellers moved to new housing projects provided by the government with allegedly better living conditions, though there is resentment among the villagers. Once this area is clear and excavations begin, one of the tombs then unearthed might be that of Nebamun. At London, the mud plaster and fragments of the base rock of the Nebamun paintings are carefully studied to pinpoint the area where this exact type of soil exists in the excavation field. The composition of the pigments might also provide clues to the final identification of the lost tomb of Nebamun among possible sites.

NEBAMUN FOWLING IN THE MARSHES: A Masterpiece of Ancient Egyptian Design

Replica by Ben Morales-Correa

The artist develops a special theme dear to Nebamun as lord of his surroundings, a fowling scene in the marshes of his estate. The Osiris Nebamun is standing on a light boat and, in perfect balance, captured birds in one hand and throw-stick in the other, proceeds to enter into the thicket of papyrus where some birds have already noticed the intention of the intruder, while others tend to their nests on top of the flowers. Nebamun is not alone. Between his feet we see the small figure of his daughter, seated with one arm grabbing the strong leg of his father for protection, while picking lotus flowers. The child has no intention of being witness to the killing his father is about to commit and thus turns her head in the opposite direction where her mother, standing at the stern, seems passive but aware of the entire event. Her figure is poised as a second axis parallel to that of her husband, bringing perfect equilibrium to the composition. The fact that she is dressed as if to attend a formal banquet, while her husband is wearing a princely collar and fine kilt, betrays the fact that this scene is not an accurate representation of the sport, but a blissful recreation for the deceased, so he may be accompanied by his family as he wishes it to be forever in the afterlife.

What is truly remarkable about this masterpiece of the Egyptian style is the design, the proper arrangement of the elements in harmonious proportion where the interaction of positive and negative space reinterprets the arcane rules of hieratic representation and converts it into a living expression of shape, color, drawing and texture. Every element of the composition plays within the setting as a “perfect picture moment”. We can tell we are close to the end of the breeding season. A few birds are still sitting on the nests they have built on the papyrus reeds swayed by the winds, while others are flying about seeking food for their young. The cat is looking up to his master with a captured bird in its mouth, the large butterflies flutter wildly about the place, as the fish swim calmly unperturbed. The integration of the hieroglyphic characters with the composition is absolutely brilliant.

February 11, 2009

• Books / Magazines / Publications • Discoveries / Research / Lectures • Egypt Fun / Oddities • Egypt Tourism • Egyptian Culture • Exhibitions / Museum News • Films / Documentaries • Islamic Egypt / Coptic Egypt • Legendary Egypt • Modern Egypt

The paintings from Nebamun’s tomb chapel are among the greatest and most famous of the British Museum’s treasures, yet much about them remains mysterious. The Painted Tomb-Chapel of Nebamun is concerned with the detective work undertaken to help us to understand and see them properly displayed in a new permanent gallery. Richard Parkinson discusses each painting fully, with reconstructions and translations of the hieroglyphic texts, a discussion of the other known fragments (now in Berlin and Avignon) and a reconstruction of the whole tomb chapel. Every fragment is fully illustrated in color, doing full justice to an artist who has been described as ‘antiquity’s equivalent of Michelangelo’.

Back to top

©2006-2008 All-About-Egypt / Ben Morales-Correa

Excavated from the tomb-chapel of Nebamun, now lost, the 11 paintings represent a pinnacle in Egyptian two-dimensional representation of fauna and flora. Created before the advent of more naturalistic art from the short-lived reign of the religiously revolutionary pharaoh Amenhotep IV/Akhenaten (r. 1353-1336 B.C.), they’re joined by one additional fragment loaned to the prestigious London institution by Berlin’s Ägyptisches Museum.

Nebamun and His Tomb-chapel

Hieroglyphic inscriptions reveal that Nebamun (died ca. 1350 B.C.) was an accountant in the temple of the Theban god Amun at Karnak. His spectacularly painted tomb-chapel dates to a generation or so before the reign of Pharaoh Tutankhamun (r. 1332-1322 B.C.). The British Museum’s wall paintings depict the official both at work and at leisure, surveying his estates and hunting.

Hunting in the Marshes

On a small boat, the exuberant Nebamun is shown pursuing fowl in the Nile River’s fertile marshes, a place of rebirth in the ancient Egyptian cosmology. The official, his wife and young daughter are arranged in hieratic scale (according to social importance), Nebamun being the largest of the three figures. The water in the left-hand section of the composition overflows with blossoming lotus buds, delicate symbols of rejuvenation that recur throughout ancient Egyptian art and architecture.

Recent Conservation

Nebamun’s fragile tomb paintings, acquired by the British Museum in the 1820s, were on display through the 1990s. Almost a decade ago, an extensive conservation project, the largest undertaken in the British Museum’s history, required meticulous efforts by a cadre of scholars to secure the famous paintings’ fragments for at least another half-century.

In the 19th Century, the paintings were mounted in plaster and placed in glass-enclosed boxes. Water vapor and salt migration during the plaster’s setting destabilized the ancient works’ ground and their water-sensitive layer of paint.

During modern conservation, the artworks’ wooden cases were carefully dismantled. The plaster was painstakingly detached from each image’s original mud-straw backing. A foam resin was applied to each image. Once cured, the paintings became capable of display. As a result of this valiant undertaking, Egyptologists gained valuable insights into the ancient painters’ techniques, including their handling of textures. Experts were then able to reasonably reconstruct the fragments’ original order of presentation inside Nebamun’s tomb-chapel.

Reinstallation

Adjacent to the British Museum’s Nebamun paintings, 150 artifacts contribute to one’s understanding of the tomb-chapel’s construction and its original appearance. Examples of lustrous glassware from Nebamun’s era reflect objects depicted in the wall paintings on view. A nearby computer simulation recreates Nebamun’s funerary chapel and its setting.

An Egyptian Tomb
The Tomb of Nebamun

Meredith Hooper

Click to view a larger
image

The stories and secrets of the finest tomb paintings from ancient Egypt.

An Egyptian Tomb examines fragments of the remarkable wall paintings found in the tomb of Nebamun, a government official living in the Egyptian city of Thebes almost 3,500 years ago. Like the pharaohs, he wanted a beautiful tomb where his body would be kept safely after he died. Nebamun, whose job was to pay workers in grain, was neither important nor rich. Working for the government, however, he knew the right people and made the right connections. So he had a superb tomb built for his remains.

Meredith Hooper describes the many details of the construction of Nebamun’s tomb and its vivid, story-telling decorations. Photographs of the tomb’s walls and artifacts reveal the remarkable skill of Egyptian craftsmen. Hieroglyphics describe Nebamun “enjoying himself, looking at good things.” Other detailed illustrations reflect the hopes Nebamun had for his afterlife: enjoying a party with family and friends, hunting in the desert, and being with his daughter and his cat.

The Painted Tomb-Chapel of

 Nebamun

by Richard Parkinson

An Egyptian Tomb features photographs of the artifacts and tomb fragments that are held in the British Museum’s Egyptology collection, considered the world’s finest. Children will be fascinated by the stories and secrets held in the walls of this tomb, and will appreciate Nebamun’s wish for a happy afterlife.

Meredith Hooper is an award-winning historian and full-time writer of non-fiction and fiction. She is the author of many books for children on a wide variety of topics, including Who Built the Pyramids and Pebble in My Pocket.

Sources:

• Parkinson, Richard. The Painted Tomb-Chapel of Nebamun. London and Cairo: British Museum Press and American University in Cairo Press, 2008.
• Russmann, Edna R., et al. Eternal Egypt: Masterworks of Ancient Art from the British Museum (exh. cat.). New York: American Federation of Arts, 2001, 28-32.
• Shaw, Ian (ed.), et al. The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000, 260-271.

Al principio de muchas mitologias e incluso hasta la Edad Media europea, serpiente gigantescas y dragones son un continuum, un topos, mitico hasta ahora, en que la arqueologia comienza a descubrir que a lo mejor no fueron producto de la imaginacion popular y estos tremendos y poderosisimos animales existieron en realidad .La ahora encontrada en Colombia es hasta hoy la mayor serpiente conocida de todos los tiempos - un monstruo tan grande como un Tiranosaurio Rex que acechaba en las húmedas selvas de América del Sur tras la desaparición de los dinosaurios y comía cocodrilos para desayunar, comer y cenar.Tal vez la prueba de que la mitica madre Tiamat o la biblica Behemot no eran pura fantasia y que San Jorge tuvo de verdad enfrente su adversario serpentiforme.

Un equipo internacional de científicos anunció el miércoles el descubrimiento en el norte de Colombia de los restos fósiles de la serpiente más grande jamás encontrada. Se llama ‘Titanoboa cerrejonensis’, que significa boa titánica de Cerrejón, la mina de carbón a cielo abierto donde se hallaron los fósiles.

.

Esta es enana en comparacion con la descubierta ahora

La Titanoboa medía al menos 13 metros, pesaba 1.140 kg y su enorme cuerpo tenía al menos un metro de anchura, según la publicación Nature.

Marduk enfrentadose a Tiamat, la serpiente primordial, cilindro-sello babilonio

Vivió hace entre 58 y 60 millones de años, cuando el reino animal que habitaba en la Tierra todavía se recuperaba de la extinción masiva que condenó a los dinosaurios y a otras muchas criaturas hace 65 millones de años cuando un asteroide chocó contra la costa mexicana del Yucatán. Podría haber sido la criatura vertebrada no oceánica más grande entonces sobre la Tierra.

San Jorge y el dragon

“Es una serpiente inimaginablemente grande”, dijo el paleontólogo Jason Head, de la Universidad de Toronto Mississauga, en una entrevista telefónica.

El paleontólogo Jonathan Bloch del Museo de Historia Natural de la Universidad de Florida, dijo: “Cuando la gente piensa en el Tiranosaurio Rex y lo grande que era, pues esto realmente está en la magnitud del Tiranosaurio Rex en términos de longitud y en términos de calibre gigantesco”.

.

La Titanoboa era el habitantes más grande de la calurosa y exuberante selva tropical y probablemente cazaba cocodrilos, peces grandes y tortugas acuáticas. No era venenosa y probablemente su forma de vida se podía comparar con la de las anacondas de hoy, que envuelven con sus anillos a sus desafortunadas presas.

“Se trata de un comedor de cocodrilos, que los capturaba y los comía en el agua”, dijo Head.

Su ecosistema era similar a la selva amazónica de hoy día, pero más calurosa. Los investigadores estiman que una serpiente de su tamaño debería haber necesitado una temperatura media de entre 30 y 34 grados centígrados para sobrevivir.

De entre las serpientes modernas, la Titanoboa es la más cercana a la boa constrictor, exceptuando que tiene el tamaño de un autobús.

Los científicos han recuperado vértebras y costillas, pero no la calavera ni los dientes, de 28 individuos distintos. Piensan que la Titanoboa más grande podría haber medido 15 metros o más.

Las serpientes aparecieron por primera vez hace 99 millones de años

Diosa-serpiente india

REFERENCES

Jason J. Head, Jonathan I. Bloch, Alexander K. Hastings, Jason R. Bourque, Edwin A. Cadena, Fabiany A. Herrera, P. David Polly, Carlos A. Jaramillo (2009). Giant boid snake from the Palaeocene neotropics reveals hotter past equatorial temperatures Nature, 457 (7230), 715-717 DOI: 10.1038/nature07671

Makarieva, A. M., Gorshkov, V. G.&Li, B.-L. (2005)Gigantism, temperature and metabolic rate in terrestrial poikilotherms. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 272, 2325–2328.

Makarieva, A. M., Gorshkov, V. G. & Li, B.-L. (2005b)Temperature-associated upper limits to body size in terrestrial poikilotherms. Oikos 111, 425–436

Titanoboa and paleophidiothermometry

Tal vez no existio esta gran serpiente solo en Colombia.Recordemos que el mas antiguo culto descubierto, de hace unos 70.000 anos fue a una gigantesca serpiente

December 3, 2006

70,000 years old python sanctuary in Botswana [Religion, Visual arts, Mammals, Reptiles, Archaeology] — Administrator @ 10:07 pm

From Archaeo News:

Snake carving in Botswana may be first sign of worship

A new archaeological find in Botswana shows that our ancestors in Africa engaged in ritual practice 70,000 years ago — 30,000 years earlier than the oldest finds in Europe.

This sensational discovery strengthens Africa’s position as the cradle of modern man.

Associate Professor Sheila Coulson, from the University of Oslo, can now show that modern humans, Homo sapiens, have performed advanced rituals in Africa for 70,000 years.

She has, in other words, discovered mankind’s oldest known ritual.

The archaeologist made the surprising discovery while she was studying the origin of the San people.

A group of the San live in the sparsely inhabited area of north-western Botswana known as Ngamiland.

Coulson made the discovery while searching for artifacts from the Middle Stone Age in the only hills present for hundreds of kilometers in any direction.

This group of small peaks within the Kalahari Desert is known as the Tsodilo Hills and is famous for having the largest concentration of rock paintings in the world.

The Tsodilo Hills are still a sacred place for the San, who call them the “Mountains of the Gods” and the “Rock that Whispers”.

Python Stone. Photo Sheila Coulson

www.lifeinthefastlane.ca/…/comment-page-1

The python is one of the San’s most important animals.

Sheila Coulson’s find shows that people from the area had a specific ritual location associated with the python.

Snake cults once common in Middle East

Snake worship originated in India then spread to the Middle East (Image: iStockphoto)

The Snake God Naga and his consort. Photo taken at the cave temples
clusters of Ajanta, Maharastra, India. Photo Pratheepps / Wikipedia

The 8 famous snakes in Hindu mythology include:
1. Shesha (Adisesha, Sheshnaga, or the 1,000 headed snake) which upholds the world on his many heads and said to be used by Lord Vishnu to rest. Shesha also sheltered Lord Krishna from a thunderstorm during his birth.
2. Vasuki allowed himself to be coiled around Mount Mandara by the Devas and Asuras to churn the milky ocean creating the ambrosia of immortality.
3. Kaliya poisoned the Jamuna / Yamuna river where he lived. Krishna subdued Kaliya by dancing on him and compelled him to leave the river.
4. Manasadevi is the queen of the snakes.
5. Ananta is the endless snake who circles the world.
6. Padmanabha (or Padmaka) is the guardian snake of the south.
7. Astika is half Brahmin and half naga.
8. Kulika
Lord Shiva also wears a snake around his neck

Nag Panchami is an important Hindu festival associated with snake worship held on the 5th day of Shravana. Snake idols are offered gifts of milk and incense to help the worshipper to gain knowledge, wealth, and fame.

Krishna dancing over snake Kaliya. Photo Pratheepps / Wikipedia

Various animals’ status is assigned in different religions. In Christianity, snakes have a more dubious role, tempting Adam and Eve to taste the forbidden fruit in the book of Genesis, but in Hinduism, snakes are worshipped with a divine status.

Eva Meyerowitz wrote of an earthenware pot in 1940 that was stored at the Museum of Achimota College in Gold Coast. The base of the neck of the pot is surrounded by the Rainbow Snake. The creature’s legend tells that the snake only emerged from its home when it was thirsty. Keeping its tail on the ground the snake would raise its head to the sky looking for the rain god. As it drank great quantities of water, the snake would spill some which would fall to the earth as rain.

The pot bears 4 other snakes on its sides: Danh – gbi, the life giving snake, Li, for protection, Liwui, which was associated with Wu, god of the sea, and Fa, the messenger of the gods. The first 3 snakes were all worshipped at Whydah, Dahomey where the serpent cult originated. The Dahomeans feared the spirit of the serpent was one that was unforgiving. They believed that the serpent spirit could manifest itself in any long, winding objects such as plant roots and animal nerves. They also believed it could manifest itself as the umbilical cord, making it a symbol of fertility and life.

A motif of snake goddess. Carving on volcanic rock at the Kailash Temple,
Ellora, India. Photo Pratheepps / Wikipedia

The chief centre of serpent worship was Dahomey in Africa, but the cult of the python appears to have been of exotic origin, dating back to the first quarter of the 17th century. By the conquest of Whydah, the Dahomeyans began adoption of serpent worship after contact with a people of serpent worshippers, which they first despised. Some 50 snakes reside at a serpent temple at the chief center Whydah. Each python of the danh-gbi kind must be treated with respect — penalty for killing one, even by accident is certain death.

Danh-gbi took part in a public procession until 1857 in which a python was carried around the town in a hammock possibly as a ceremony to expel evil, from which the wicked were excluded.

The rainbow-god of the Ashanti was said to be a small variety of boa, but only certain individuals — not the entire species — were sacred. The serpent is considered the incarnation of deceased relatives in many parts of Africa. Certain species among the Amazulu and the Betsileo of Madagascar, are assigned as the domicile of certain classes. But the Maasai regard each species as the habitat of a particular family of the tribe.

Some Native American tribes revere the rattlesnake as grandfather and king of snakes, able to give fair winds or cause gale and frightfully horrendous storm. The serpent plays a large part in one of the dances among the Hopi of Arizona. The rattlesnake was worshipped in the Natchez temple of the sun and the Aztec deity Quetzalcoatl was a feathered serpent-god. The serpent was regarded as a portal between 2 worlds in many MesoAmerican cultures. The tribes of Peru are said to have adored great snakes in the pre-Inca days and in Chile the Mapuche made a serpent figure in their deluge beliefs.

Carved representations of cobras (nagas) are offered human food and flowers, and lights are burned before the shrines over a large part of India. A cobra which is accidentally killed is burned like a human being among the Dravidians. The serpent-god’s image is carried in an annual procession by a celibate priestess.

Many prevalent and various renditions of the serpent cult were once located in India. A masculine version of the serpent named Nagaraja — known as the “king of the serpents” was worshipped in northern India, but instead of the renditions, actual live snakes were worshipped in South India. The Manasa-cult in Bengal, India, however, worshipped the human form serpent goddess, Manasa.

The altar where Jory Goddess is worshipped. Photo taken at the main temple
in Belur Karnataka, India. Photo Pratheepps / Wikipedia

Districts of Bengal each celebrated the serpent in various ways, but all celebrated serpent worship each year on the very last day of the Bengali month Sravana (July-August). All families created a clay model of the serpent-deity — usually the serpent-goddess with 2 snakes spreading their hoods on her shoulders. The model was worshipped in their homes, and a goat or a pigeon was sacrificed for the deity’s honor. Before the clay goddess was submerged in water at the end of the festival, the clay snakes were removed from her shoulders. The people believed that the earth these snakes were made from cured illnesses, particularly children’s diseases.

The Bengal districts also worshipped an object known as a Karandi resembling a small house made of cork. The Karandi was decorated with images of snakes, the snake goddess, and snake legends on its walls and roof. The blood of the sacrificed animals was sprinkled on the Karandi and it also was submerged in the river at the end of the festival.

In ancient Europe, Herodotus of the great serpent was said to defend the citadel of Athens. The Roman genius loci took the form of a serpent where a snake was kept and fed with milk in the temple of Potrimpos, an old Slavonic god. Dewi was an Old Welsh god represented by a great red serpent. There is evidence that serpent-worship was part of local religion on the Iberian Peninsula before the introduction of Christianity, and perhaps even before invasions of the Romans.

Numerous counts in popular belief of respect for the snake still carry on today, especially in Germany, which appears to be a survival of ancestor worship, such as what still exists among the Zulus and other tribes. The ‘house-snake’ cares for the cows and the children, and its appearance is an omen of death. The life of a pair of house-snakes is often believed to be bound with the master and mistress themselves. Tradition claims that one of the Gnostic sects, Ophites, caused a tame serpent to coil round the sacramental bread and worshipped it as the representative of the Savior.

egipto1curso-extension-universitaria-09 :Informacion y Boletin de inscripcion

13,14,20 y 21 de marzo, Centro Asociado de Barbastro,Aula de Fraga.Solicitado 1 credito de libre configuracion UNED

Conferencias: Dra.D.Ana Maria Vazquez Hoys,Profesora Titular H.Antigua,UNED

Viernes 13 marzo, 17-20 horas

17-18,30

1.La religion egipcia:Diversos Panteones y creencias

Piedra de Shabaka,Museo Britanico

18,30-20

2.A que llamamos magia.Los principios de la magia egipcia

Heka, la magia y el dios: Energía mágica “Hekau” o magia y cayado.Heka

Sabado 14 marzo, 10-14 h.

10-11,30h.

3.Los egipcios y la inmortalidad

Akh
Ka

11,30-14 h

4.La momificacion y el mundo de ultratumba

—-

Viernes 20 marzo, 17-20 h

17-18,30

5.Los cambios de Akhenaton

18-20 h.

6.Los principales dioses de Egipto

El dios halcon Horus

Sabado 21 marzo

10-11,30 h

7.Mitos y leyendas egipcios

Triada de Osorkon:Horus,Isis y Osiris,Museo del Louvre

12-14 h

8.Egipto despues de Egipto.:La continuidad de la religion egipcia en Occidente

Los nuevos cultos y los antiguos dioses paganos que han “renacido”