Erich Von Daniken - The Gold Of The Gods

1 - The Gold Of The Gods
predominant position in mythology.
There are countless snakes on the gold plaques m the tunnels
underneath Ecuador and Peru, and on Father Crespi's treasures: snakes
crawling up pyramids, striving for the summits, flying in the heavens
with a trail of fire or lying on the heads of the gods. But neither here
nor elsewhere do we see a single snake doing the things men have
always seen them do-wriggling through the grass, hanging from a tree,
swallowing a mouse or writhing about in the mud with other snakes.
Everywhere dragons and even more so snakes stand as symbols for
phenomena from the cosmos.
What do the archaeologists say about all this?
The snake was a symbol of immortality. Why? Because our observant
ancestors had noticed that the reptile shed its skin and constantly
emerged from it renewed. Surely our ancestral students of behavior
observed that in the end the snake died just the same?
The snake was an expression of agility and maneuverability. Would
not birds or butterflies have been better models than this miserable
creature crawling on the ground?
The snake was an emblem of fertility and was honored as such by
primitive peoples-all of whom were afraid of snakes. A strange
stimulus to the production of offspring.
Forest dwellers were afraid of the snake and so they chose it as a god.
Lions, bears or jaguars are much more dangerous-snakes only seize
animals that they want to eat, they do not attack indiscriminately.
Moses gets nearer to the truth (Genesis 3:1) For him the snake is the
messenger of disaster much as in the North Germanic Midgard of early
times, that "farm" between heaven and earth, the snake coils round the
property as the personification of danger and destructive power.