This small statue, only 34 centimetres tall, is one of the most mysterious objects in all of ancient history. This is the Snake Goddess of Knossos, found in Crete, Greece, and now kept in the Heraklion Archaeological Museum. She is 3500 years old. She was made by the Minoans, the first civilization of Europe. Look at her carefully. She is holding two snakes, one in each hand. She is wearing a long flounced skirt, with layers like a modern dress. Her chest is bare. And on top of her head, she is wearing a tall hat, and on top of that hat, there is a small cat sitting. Why snakes? Why a cat? No one knows for sure. That is what makes her so powerful. The Minoans did not worship gods like Zeus or Apollo, who came later. They worshipped a Mother Goddess. She was the goddess of nature, of fertility, of life and death. Snakes were sacred to them, because snakes shed their skin and are reborn. They are connected to the earth, to the underworld, to healing. The figurine is made of faience, a kind of glazed ceramic, not gold or marble. It was found in 1903 by Sir Arthur Evans, inside a small pit in the palace of Knossos, along with other sacred objects. Evans believed it was a goddess of the household, protecting the home. But the most interesting part is her dress. Look at the pattern. It is tight at the waist, flared at the bottom, with an apron. It is almost exactly like a dress a woman would wear in Paris in 1900. When Evans found it, people were shocked, because women in 1900 were wearing the same style. The Minoans were 3500 years ahead in fashion. Her face is calm, her eyes are wide, her arms are raised. She is not scared of the snakes. She is controlling them. In Minoan art, women were not in the background. They were the priests, the leaders, the main figures. Minoan women had more power than women in Egypt, Greece, or Rome at that time. Some historians say there were two Snake Goddesses. One is in Heraklion Museum, the other is in the British Museum and other museums have copies. This is why you have seen her in many places. The most important question is: why is she holding snakes? Was she a goddess, or was she a priestess doing a ritual? Was this a ceremony for fertility, or for protection from earthquakes? Crete has many earthquakes, and snakes were thought to predict them. Today, the Snake Goddess is the symbol of Crete. She is the symbol of the Minoans. She is the symbol of a civilization where women held snakes and men painted bulls. va Secrets of the Past #SnakeGoddess #Minoans #HeraklionMuseum #Goddess #HERstory

Shakespeare, The Lady, Sufis, Linguistics and expanding this conversation now, The Cannabis - #CXS xitter.cf/infiniluc/status/21139…

Mark Twain Loved Cats More Than People - Mark Twain, also known as Samuel Clemens, was a famous American writer who truly loved cats. He was a "cat person" through and through. He once said, "I just can’t resist a cat, especially a purring one. They are the cleanest, cleverest, and smartest things I know – other than the girl you love, of course." At one point, Twain had up to 19 cats! Each had a unique name, like Apollinaris, Beelzebub, Blatherskite, Buffalo Bill, Satan, Sin, Sour Mash, Tammany, Zoroaster, Soapy Sal, and Pestilence. Twain loved cats more than most people, and he didn’t understand why everyone else didn’t feel the same way. "When a man loves cats, I am his friend and comrade, no introduction needed," he once said. One of his cats, named Bambino, went missing once. Bambino was a black cat that originally belonged to Twain’s daughter, Clara. Twain was so eager to find him that he put an ad in the *New York American*, offering a $5 reward for Bambino’s return to his home on 5th Avenue in New York City. Twain described Bambino as "large and intensely black, with thick, soft fur and a little white patch on his chest." Even though many people showed up with cats that didn’t match, Bambino eventually found his way home. From his early years in Hannibal, Missouri, to his last days in Connecticut, Twain was always surrounded by cats, and they even appeared in some of his books, like *The Innocents Abroad*, *Roughing It*, *The Adventures of Tom Sawyer*, *A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court*, and *Pudd’nhead Wilson*. #archaeohistories

THE TENTH LETTER Around 200 AD, the Roman scholar Serenus wrote a fever cure: ABRACADABRA, one letter lost per line, until the sickness shrank to nothing. Now count. 11 letters, 10 steps down to one. Roman X = V over Λ = 5+5 = 10. Yod, י = 10. This week the healers' own systems got sick. Quest Diagnostics confirmed a break-in that reached patient lab records. In Cleveland, University Hospitals pulled its systems offline after "unusual activity." What small flame will you grow from? As above, so below. ⛈️

"Iamblichus beautifully observes, 'exhibitions [of Baubo uncovering and displaying the secret parts of her body] of this kind in the mysteries were designed to free us from licentious passions, by gratifying the sight, and at the same time vanquishing desire, through the awful sanctity with which these rites were accompanied: for the proper way of freeing ourselves from the passions is, first, to indulge them with moderation, by which means they become satisfied; listen, as it were, to persuasion, and may thus be entirely removed.' This doctrine is indeed so rational, that it can never be objected to by any but quacks in philosophy and religion. For as he is nothing more than a quack in medicine who endeavours to remove a latent bodily disease before he has called it forth externally, and by this means diminished its fury; so he is nothing more than a pretender in philosophy who attempts to remove the passions by violence, instead of moderate compliance and gentle persuasion." -Thomas Taylor, "On the Eleusinian Mysteries"