The enigma of the “Snake Goddess” tablet
It is painted on a terracotta slab and was discovered in Athens. The goddess is flanked by snakes and holds her hands above her head. The image was made in reds, yellows and green-blues and only the head of the goddess seems to have been made in three dimensions.
An unusual artifact was found in a pile of gravel and other terracotta fragments collected in 1932, in what was once the agora (square) of ancient Athens.
According to archaeologists, it could be Demeter, the Greek goddess of the harvest.
The problem, however, is that the serpent goddess is not native to the agora.
The pile of gravel and other terracotta shards was used as filling material by the workers of the 7th century BC and imported from an unknown place that archaeologists intend to reconstruct. In short, who is the snake goddess ?
Together with the slab of the goddess, small terracotta votive figurines were also found, representing human beings, chariots, shields and ceramic discs, so small that you could hold them in the palm of your hand.
Probably the figurines were used in shrines as offerings to the gods and goddesses. Generally, votive offerings were considered sacred objects, at least as long as the sanctuary existed. After that, they were buried in the ground and left to rest underground.
While it is not unusual to find misplaced artifacts in Athens, which has been built over thousands of years, archaeologists say it is strange that votive objects were used as road fill. Identifying the origin of the source material is far from an easy task.
In a similar previous case, archaeologists were able to trace the provenance of some votive statues, thanks to their similarity to some artefacts found in a Bronze Age tomb outside the city. But those found in the current pile do not correspond to any site near the Athenian agora, Laughy explains.
It could be Demeter
The most plausible hypothesis is that it is Demeter, the goddess of agriculture and grain, or Athena, daughter of Zeus and goddess of wisdom, as the painting of the serpent goddess shows many correspondences with the iconography of these two divinity.
Demeter, in particular, is the strongest candidate, given that a 7th century sanctuary exists near the agora built in honor of her.
The destruction of the sanctuary may have produced a quantity of waste material which was then used to fill the roadbed. But this is only a hypothesis. The problem lies in the fact that the icon of Demeter is rarely associated with the symbol of the serpent.
Therefore, the mystery surrounding the enigmatic snake goddess, at least for the moment, seems to remain unsolved. Who does the image on the plate represent? Where is she from? And what culture created it?
Either way, according to Laughy, it's an amazing work of art. From an archaeological point of view, it is one of the first sacred icons made in polychrome.
