Archaeologists in Taiwan have unearthed a snake-shaped piece of pottery delicately molded about 4,000 years in the past and certain utilized by a prehistoric shaman in historic rituals.
The artifact was discovered amongst sand dunes close to the island’s northwest coast by researchers from Taiwan’s National Tsing Hua University. Associate Professor Hung-Lin Chiu, who made the invention in 2023, informed Hyperallergic that the piece is probably going a indifferent deal with that was formed and hardened at a low temperature.
It “has a vivid figure, like a cobra, with its head raised and the skin folds of its head and neck bulging,” Chiu mentioned. “We believe this incomplete artifact may have been pottery used for ritual purposes.”
Carbon relationship revealed the piece was created throughout the Middle Neolithic Age. It’s not the primary prehistoric artifact to be discovered within the space: As indicated by a beforehand found assortment of three,000-year-old stone fragments, the location, generally known as Baishatun within the Guanyin District, was additionally as soon as home to a serious stone device manufacturing web site.
Unlike a stone device, although, the newly found artifact suggests little utilitarianism. Instead, its rigorously crafted form represents ceremony and lore. Researchers consider the deal with might have been hooked up to a sacrificial vessel utilized in rituals carried out by tribal shamans way back.
“Ancient societies incorporated animal images into ritual sacrificial vessels to demonstrate their beliefs and cognitive systems,” Chiu mentioned.
When it involves snakes, this zoological allegory isn’t restricted to East Asia. From Mesoamerica’s snakeline deity Quetzalcoatl to the Garden of Eden’s reptilian tempter, snakes have lengthy held symbolic that means in faith and mythology worldwide. The ouroboros — a Greek identify for the picture of a serpent consuming its personal tail — spans iconography from Ancient Egypt, Hinduism, and European Renaissance alchemy. And in recent years, a carved picket snake present in Finland was decided to be a 4,400-year-old employees that, just like the Taiwanese deal with, belonged to a shaman.
For the traditional individuals who used the not too long ago unearthed snake-shaped deal with, serpents represented “the bridge between heaven and man,” Chiu mentioned. The animals’ ecdysis course of — during which they slough off their outermost layer of pores and skin — symbolized “the transformation of life and death, or the reproduction and transformation of life.”
