Skip to content

Rankenfrau from Palmyra

Rankenfrau, the snake/vegetal-legged goddess

Relief from the Temple of Bel in Palmyra with depiction of local deities.
Photo by Gianfranco Gazzetti

Relief with the snake-legged goddess is a part of an architrave from the Temple of Bel, the chief-god of Palmyra, with depiction of the Rankenfrau, Bel riding on a horse, four other local deities in Roman military attire, and Hercules on the far right. 

Relief from the Temple of Bel. Picture Credit Natasha Sheldon (2008)
Reliefs from the Temple of Bel. Picture Credit Natasha Sheldon (2008)
Gold sewn-on plaque plaque from the Kul-Oba kurgan, Scythian royal burial in Crimea, Ukraine
Photo State Historical Museum, Moscow after D. Zhuravlev
Silver plate with the image of Rankenfrau. 
Stanitsa Mariinskaya, Kuban region. 
Random find. SHM Moscow
Photo by I.A. Sedenkov after D. Zhuravlev

  1. D. Zhuravlev, E. Novikova. A plaque with an image of Rankenfrau from Kul-Oba barrow = Д.В.Журавлев, Е.Ю.Новикова, Бляшка с изображением Rankenfrau из кургана Куль-Оба. 2012 https://www.academia.edu
  2. “Snake-legged goddess” or Rankenfrau: about one plaque from the Kul-Oba burial mound; D. Zhuravlev https://blog.mediashm.ru/?p=4962 
  3. M. Treister, A Silver Plaque with the image of „Rankenfrau“ https://www.academia.edu
  4. Kul-Oba kurhan in the Hermitage http://edu.hermitage.ru