The concept is simplicity itself. Wrapped around the axis of heaven is the celestial serpent, chasing its own tail for what seemed like an eternity. Generations came and went, civilizations rose, fell, and were entirely forgotten, and still this constellation observed it all from the highest vantage point of creation, secure in its supremacy. The Coiled Serpent. Note the 'holes' which appear throughout the body. End of sixth millennium BC    We have established the trail of the Dragon around the globe and throughout the centuries, but how far back does this notion really extend? While we cannot pinpoint a precise time of origin, we do find archaeological evidence which indicates a far earlier date than most people realize. If one cares to entertain this hypothesis for a moment, then it begins to make perfect sense that the serpent would be associated with the rains. It commands the center of the skies, the source of all rain. We can observe why the spiral is the motif associated with the snake, as the serpent spirals around the pole on a daily basis. And it explains why it is associated with eternity, because even the vernal equinox holds sway over a constellation for only two thousand years, while the celestial serpent has watched as at least three or four of these have come and gone...    With all this in mind, we quote from Marija Gimbutas, in her classic work, The Gods and Goddesses of Old Europe, 7000 - 3500 BC. The italics are added to emphasize both these notions, and the themes of duality we examined last week.    "The snake and its abstracted derivative, the spiral, are the dominant motifs of the art of Old Europe, and their imaginative use in spiraliform design throughout the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods remained unsurpassed by any subsequent decorative style until the Minoan civilization, the sole inheritor of Old European lavishness... This art reached its peak of unified symbolic and aesthetic expression c. 5000 BC." The Serpent Bowl Top View    "Symphonies of snakes' appear in colours and in graphite or white-encrusted incisions on cult vases, lamps, altar tables, hearth panels and house walls... Snakes, their bodies marked by dots or comb-like stamps (the stars, -Ed), have been found incised on a number of vases from the Vinca mound."   "The mysterious dynamism of the snake, its extraordinary vitality and periodic rejuvenation, must have provoked a powerful emotional response in the Neolithic agriculturists, and the snake was consequently mythologized, attributed with a power that can move the entire cosmos. Compositions on the shoulders of cult vases reveal pairs of snakes with opposed heads,' making the world roll' with the energy of their spiralling bodies... The organization of the motifs demonstrates that the imagery is genuinely cosmogonic: the... snake compositions appear in bands occupying the middle of the vases, associated with the belts of the upper skies containing rain clouds... On some vases snake coils in the upper bands have diagonal stripes, probably to indicate torrents of rain. In some cases the snake is portrayed winding across the cosmic double-egg."   "The snake was the vehicle of immortality. Some vases flaunt a gigantic snake winding or stretching over 'the whole universe', over the sun or moon, stars and rain torrents..."   Simplicity itself, reflected on a vase or bowl, each in themselves a mirror of the vault of heaven. The Serpent Bowl Side View End of sixth millennium BC Coils of the Serpent    This bowl, found in central Bulgaria, is dated from the end of the 6th millennium BC. The holes in the vessel would make it ineffective as a vessel to hold liquid, but could represent a ceremonial object reflecting both the stars, and the rains of heaven when filled with water.   The spiral, as a stylistic motif, wonderfully captures the nightly motion of the great heavenly serpent among the stars.    For those that would claim that this is not an accurate reflection of the constellation as it appears in heaven, we would counter that this is the essential essence of fable; to take the picture, and embelish it. It is the product of poetic liscense, not scientific tabulation. As has been said before, this is myth, not math.

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