Vyala Yaksha - Circa 1st Century BCE - ACCN 42-2944 - Government Museum - Mathura 2013-02-24 6175

The Anguiped (

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...

: ''angui'', 'snake'; ''ped-'', 'foot') is a kind of divinity that is often found on magical

amulet An amulet, also known as a good luck charm or phylactery, is an object believed to confer protection upon its possessor. The word "amulet" comes from the Latin word amuletum, which Pliny's ''Natural History'' describes as "an object that protect ...

s from the Greco-Roman period, and is characterized by having serpents for legs.

Abraxas Abraxas ( grc-x-biblical, ἀβραξάς, abraxas, variant form romanized: ) is a word of mystic meaning in the system of the Gnostic Basilides, being there applied to the "Great Archon" (), the princeps of the 365 spheres (). The word is fo ...

, the most common kind of Anguiped, is depicted as a creature with the head of a

rooster The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated junglefowl species, with attributes of wild species such as the grey and the Ceylon junglefowl that are originally from Southeastern Asia. Rooster or cock is a term for an adu ...

and

snake Snakes are elongated, limbless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes . Like all other squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more j ...

s for legs, symbolism thought to be of Persian origin. Sometimes inscribed below is ''Iao'', a form of the

Tetragrammaton The Tetragrammaton (; ), or Tetragram, is the four-letter Hebrew theonym (transliterated as YHWH), the name of God in the Hebrew Bible. The four letters, written and read from right to left (in Hebrew), are '' yodh'', '' he'', '' waw'', an ...

– the four letters used to represent the name of the God of

Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the ...

. Such amulets, as well as the repeated usage of the name ''Iao'' in magical papyri, curse tablets, gems, and other amulets, provide evidence of syncretic cults combining elements of Judaism with paganism. In the

Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law ('' halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...

, people who turned away from Judaism to such cults are referred to as '' minim'' – often translated as "

heretics Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important religi ...

" or "

apostate Apostasy (; grc-gre, ἀποστασία , 'a defection or revolt') is the formal disaffiliation from, abandonment of, or renunciation of a religion by a person. It can also be defined within the broader context of embracing an opinion that i ...

s". In Graeco-Roman art, both

Typhon Typhon (; grc, Τυφῶν, Typhôn, ), also Typhoeus (; grc, Τυφωεύς, Typhōeús, label=none), Typhaon ( grc, Τυφάων, Typháōn, label=none) or Typhos ( grc, Τυφώς, Typhṓs, label=none), was a monstrous serpentine giant an ...

and the giants (after around 380 BCE) are often conventionally depicted as anguipeds. A common religious motif in Roman Germany and eastern

Gaul Gaul ( la, Gallia) was a region of Western Europe first described by the Romans. It was inhabited by Celtic and Aquitani tribes, encompassing present-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, most of Switzerland, parts of Northern Italy (only durin ...

depicts an equestrian

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousandt ...

riding down an anguipedal giant.

See also

References

Further reading