ARCHAEOLOGY DAY

Snakes wind along the sides of a silverplated standard dedicated to a snake goddess: the goddess is at center.  The standard was discovered in a 14th century B.C.E. temple at Hazor, leading excavator to conclude that it was used as a ritual object. 

Depictions of snakes were common in Eyptian culture and were meant to war off the danger of actual snakes. The feature of Egyptian life carried over into Israelite culture Numbers 21:4-9 records that God sent snakes to bite the Israelites, who had lamented that they had left Egypt and were stranded in the desert with miserable food to eat.  To cure the Israelites of the bite, God ordered Moses to fashion the Nechushtan--a bronze serpent--and place it on a pole; any Israelite looking at the Nechushtan (which is simply the Hebrew word for "snake" or "serpent" would be cured.  

So esteemed was the Nechushtan that after the Israelites settle in Canaan.  It was place in the Jerusalem Temple.  But centuries later the Nechushtan fell victim to King Hezekiah's religious reforms.  Hezekiah (c.727-698 B.C.E.) destroyed various Canaanite relious objects, including bamot (high places) matzevot (sacret pillars) and the asherah(sacred post); he also smashed the Nechushtan.   

A snake for protection rises from the forehead of the golden burial mast of Psusennes 1 (1039-991 B.C.E., the third king of the 21 Dynasty.  the Uraeus, an Egyptian symbol of royalty worn on the headdress of pharaohs and deities, acted as a safeguard.  On a diadem, it protected the pharaoh from his enemies; on an amulet it shilded its wearer from other snakes.

  Recognizing the Egyptian origins of the snake symbol, the accompanying article argues, helps us understand King Hezekiah's motive in destroying the Nechustan in the Jerusalem Temple.  Hezekiah's act came in the wake of Assyria's devastating  attack on Judah in the late eighth century B.C.E., an onslaught that left Hezekiah greatly weakened and which forced him to payh tribute to Assyria.  The destruction of the Nechustan, and also the abandonment of the winged symbols on royal jar handles in favor of rosettes, an Assyrian symbol are now understandable; Hezekiah and the kings of Judah who followed him were demonstrating their loyalty to Assyria by destroying symbols that came from Egypt, Assyria's long time enemy.

THE TIMNA SERPENT was discovered in a 13rth or 12th century B.C.E. temple at Timna in southern Israel.  This copper snake with its gilded head stretches 5 inches and evokes the Biblical Nechushtan