The object — a 2,800-year-old seal — provides a “missing link” in the evolution of a popular motif that appears in the Bible and Greek mythology, according to a study published in the journal of Near Eastern Archaeology.The theme of the battle of a god with a seven-headed dragon appears in Mesopotamian literature, Ugaritic, the Hebrew Bible, the Book of Revelation, and (not mentioned in either article) Syriac Odes of Solomon 22.
The underlying article in Near Eastern Archaeology 87.1 (2024) is online, but behind a subscription wall.
Mastering the Seven-Headed Serpent: A Stamp Seal from Hazor Provides a Missing Link between Cuneiform and Biblical Mythology (Christoph Uehlinger, pp. 14–19)For lots more on the archaeology of the site of Hazor in northern Israel, start here and follow the links.Abstract
The Stamp Seals from the Southern Levant (SSSL) project is based on a comprehensive corpus, big data, and complex historical scenarios. Sometimes, though, an individual artifact stands out as a highlight in its own right. Such is the case with a stamp seal discovered recently at Tel Hazor. It is unusual in several respects, but mainly because of its spectacular base engraving. The main scene represents a hero fighting a coiled, seven-headed serpent; it is enhanced by a series of mixed creatures and secondary motifs. This article offers a description and analysis of the object, situating its iconography in the long history of combat myths spanning from mid-third-millennium southern Mesopotamia through second-millennium northern Syria to first-millennium Phoenicia and Israel. Most significant for a historian of Near Eastern mythology, the seal provides a visual missing link in the main motif’s literary transition from Late Bronze Age Ugarit to the Hebrew Bible.
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