Snakes are particularly associated with healing, fertility and rebirth and are shown wound around the staff of Aesculapius (Toynbee 1973, 223). Their role as a symbol of rebirth made them particularly popular with mystery cults in which adherents strove to reach immortality through salvation (Toynbee 1973, 234). The snake figurines from Britain are normally shown as sinuous beasts, which may be more or less flat to the ground (546), wound into a circle (656), or possibly wound around another object (435). The scales are often depicted by crescentic grooves which can be finely or coarsely spaced.
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