To quote the immortal film Conan the Barbarian, "Five years ago, it was just another snake cult."
Buried beneath utterly dreary headlines about Oldest Form of Worship and suchlike is this story: "An archaeologist claims to have found evidence of what may have been mankind’s earliest rituals: worship of the python, 70,000 years ago in Africa." The most sober and informative article I've found is here. Located in San (Bushman) territory in Bostwana, the site features what is allegedly a stone "carved to enhance its resemblence to a snake." Unfortunately the photographs are insufficient to judge for oneself, for me at least. What's more,
Hundreds of small notches, widely spaced in some places and closer together in others, covered the rock. Entrants to the cave apparently made these markings to enhance the snake illusion by creating the impression of scales and movement. "When flickering light hits it, it very much looks like the snake is flexing," Coulson says.An aspect of rock art you don't hear much about is the carving of stones to enhance their resemblance to something. I recall that such was the exegesis of one stone in Fremont Indian State Park in Utah: it had had a few marks added to make it look like a bird with its head tucked beneath a wing.San mythology holds that mankind descended from the python. Ancient, arid streambeds around the hills are said to have been made by the snake as it circled, ceaselessly seeking water.
More rock art coming.
