7 x headed serpent + Man bags

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Across the world there's a lot of weird similarities across ancient cultures that have no connection to each other, I want to start with the 7 x headed serpent

The Seven-headed Serpent is a recurring figure in myth and folklore across various cultures, symbolizing power, water, and fertility. In Sumerian religion, the Seven-headed Serpent was a monstrous creature defeated by the god Ninurta. In Greek mythology, the Lernaean Hydra, a serpentine lake monster, is a well-known example. In Buddhism, the seven-headed Naga Muchalinda protected the Buddha from a storm.

1. Sumerian Religion:
The Seven-headed Serpent was a creature slain by the god Ninurta, according to Wikipedia.
Its body was hung on Ninurta's chariot.
The theme of defeating a seven-headed serpent was used by other gods to establish their power and superiority.
2. Greek Mythology:
The Lernaean Hydra, a serpentine lake monster with multiple heads, was a fearsome adversary in Greek and Roman myths.
Its lair was the lake of Lerna in the Argolid.
3. Buddhism:
King Muchalinda, a seven-headed Naga, is depicted sheltering the Buddha from a storm and rising floods.
The motif of Buddha protected by the seven-headed Naga is a common theme in Buddhist art, according to the Art Gallery of NSW.
4. Other Contexts:
The Seven-headed Serpent is also found in Greek fairy tales.
The term "naga" in Sanskrit refers to a serpent and can represent power, water, and fertility in many Hindu texts.
NCpedia notes that the Khmer adopted and elaborated on Hindu myths about the naga.
The Seven-headed Serpent is also a recurring motif in art, including stone balustrades at Angkor Wat.
In the miniatures tabletop wargame Trench Crusade, there is a faction called the Court of the Seven-Headed Serpent.
The National Museums Scotland notes that the serpent god Sheshnaaga is sometimes depicted with seven heads.

then there's man bags
https://www.ancient-origins.net/artifac ... ags-021191
Sumeria




Paleolithic turkey


South America

Laotian custom says the Naga live in the Mekong River.
Seeing this picture I can understand why.


Only one head though.

this is even more impressive - one is a statue from Gobleke tepe 15,000 years old, the other seperated by thousands of miles and thousands of years in remote Easter Island in the middle of the pacific, South America and Africa. Note the hands coming round the navel.









and it gets more impressive - both Easter Island and Gobleke tepe statues were covered in birds







And now Easter Island Birdman cult

I'm not certain all those cultures had no connection with each other. In the ancient world ideas could be exchanged along long distances, sometimes following trade routes.

I'll admit that Easter Island was totally isolated. But the Eurasian lands weren't isolated from each other

Adding to that, some of the cultures CD is comparing aren't just connected by trade, but also linguistically and culturally.

Like, why should we be shocked that two Indo-European speaking civilizations both had a seven-headed snake? They share a lot more than just that one entity.

Seven is also pretty commonly used as a magical number in both Indo-European and Semitic cultures.

Sumerians, South Americans and Easter Islanders were not part of the Indo-European or Semitic tribal confederacy and never crossed paths.

There is also the obvious 7 days in a week that come from the story of creation in Christianity, so that's another 7.

Plus, George Costanza in Seinfeld thought that Seven would be a good name. This one is meant as a joke because it's not a culturally significant characteristic :p

But for real, maybe there's something inherent to or that was partially evolving in humans that makes the number/quantity 7 special to us. Similarly, spiders and snakes seem to be almost universally feared. Like that, but instead of feared, 7 is appealing for some reason.

I'd like to add this coincidence I noticed regarding 7. Humans are naturally logarithmic counters. With lower discrete quantities, we can tell the difference between them precisely and automatically. Think the difference between 1, 2, & 3. We can tell those apart almost instantly. However, the larger the quantities, the less precise we get. We can tell the difference between 10 & 20, but 40 & 50 would be much more difficult without focused analysis (ie counting). Seven is the first prime number that is beyond the first three instantly discernable quantities. In other words, we can easily tell the difference between the first prime numbers 2 & 3. The number 7 is getting into the quantities that overwhelm our capacity to automatically count without purposeful attention. It might give it a little more of an odd or mysterious feeling compared to the other numbers around it. Six and 8 are easily divisible by multiple factors. I wonder if that uniqueness makes 7 more interesting to people that want to make weird stories or makes it more interesting to people in general so the weird stories that include 7 stick around and the other stories fade away.

FYI: Sumerians were conquered by Semitic peoples. Prior to that many of their neighbours were Semitic speakers.

Although that's not related to my earlier comment about Greeks and Indians.

You seem to like to argue against things that weren't said because you don't wish to address what actually was said CD.

I am pointing out there is something strange in that Sumerians came up with their beliefs prior to being invaded and Sumerians could not have met Easter Islanders or Incas or Mayans unless they were capable of ocean travel.

Yes I acknowledge that Indo-European tribes share common religious iconography of they sky father throwing bolts of lightning.

Serpents are universally associated with creation. Even in the bible the serpent was the keeper of knowledge and wisdom and associated with healing (the ancient Greeks symbol of serpents entwined around a staff is even today the universal symbol of medicine).

Australian aborigines are among the oldest people who continued their stone age way of life uninterrupted for 40,000 years. In many Aboriginal Dreamtime beliefs/myths the Pleiades constellation, also known as the Seven Sisters, represents the journey of seven sisters fleeing a man who was pursuing them. This story, told in various forms across different language groups, emphasizes themes of pursuit, escape, and the power of sisterhood. The sisters, who are often portrayed as ancestral beings or sky people, are said to have turned into stars to escape their pursuer and now reside in the sky, being chased by Orion.

Coincidentally in Hindu mythology, the Pleiades are known as Kṛttikā, a star cluster in the constellation Taurus. They are associated with the Saptamatrika (Seven Mothers). The Pleiades are also linked to the seven wives of the seven sages (rishis) and are often associated with the god of fire, Agni.

Very hard to see these as coincidences.

Your opening post (the one about the 7 headed snake) didn't mention South America or Easter Island. It was all Eurasian cultures.

Your second post did but that was about man bags, not 7 headed snakes (honestly they look more like buckets to me).

As for the first post, ancient cultures in Eurasia were pretty interconnected. The Persians influenced the Greeks. The Greeks influenced the Arabs. The Arabs influenced south-east Asia and Africa and India. The Indians influenced the Arabs and the Chinese and other parts of east Asia, etc.

Like, if an Indian religion can be practiced in 6th century Japan, I'm sure the 7 headed snake motif can spread far and wide.

that's the interesting part...how did it all spread out?

Probably through humans sharing stories, the same way trade goods spread except ideas are free and don't weigh anything so they're even easier to spread.

Cultures tend to be conservative though. or example Most of east Asia as once Hindu prior to Buddhism. Sharing ideas is on thing, but wholesale cultural change is something nobody can explain.

I'm not sure one can say cultures are universally conservative.

Like, think of how the English language spread across Britian, including among most native British (replacing both Latin and Brittonic languages). The locals were dealing with a societal collapse, which made it easy for the arriving English to assimilate them into their much more intact society.

Foreign ideas can often be seen as prestigious, which makes them more likely to be adopted.
Foreign ideas can also be assimilated, gradually making them less foreign.

I'm also not sure anything you've discussed so far involved a wholesale cultural change, although they're not unheard of; think of how all of Europe abandoned their traditional religions for Christianity (or how Christian Britain adopted Germanic paganism for hundreds of years before reconverting back to Christianity).