Caduceus ?

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JauneFlammee
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Caduceus ?

Post by JauneFlammee »

Caduceus - the staff of Hermes: (two serpents wound around a rod touching noses at the top).

Not sure if the C is Chi or Kappa; this was the english transliteration I found and do not have a greek dictionary handy.

Please help, I'm looking for information on this and I have a multitude of conflicting sources, not the least of which is the fact that seems to be an important occult symbol (so there is a lot of complete garbage that overwhelms search attempts).

I have two very vague sources I found via google; one mentions that it came into being via Tiserias - the unhelpful seer in Oedipus, and was later passed onto Hermes. Something about Tiserias being turned into woman for seven years after separating two copulating snakes.

Another website mentions that it was Hermes himself who seperated the two snakes.

Another website mentions it was given to Hermes by Apollo.

Can someone point me in the right direction to research this topic further. .

Thanks

Eureka
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Post by Eureka »

Chi is always transliterated into "ch", so it must start with a kappa.

Also, the ending "us" implies the Greek word probably ended in ος, not υς.


(I don't know if this was the main point of your post, but I can't really help with the rest of your post.)

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benissimus
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Post by benissimus »

Actually, the word 'caduceus' is Latin according to a search through the dictionary. It is apparently an alteration of Greek [size=150]καρυκειον[/size] from [size=150]καρυχ[/size] "a herald". (courtesy of www.dictionary.com ).
flebile nescio quid queritur lyra, flebile lingua murmurat exanimis, respondent flebile ripae

Emma_85
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Post by Emma_85 »

As for the conflicting information on where the staff comes from... well maybe their are different version of the story, but I'm sorry I can't really help, as all I could to is search google myself.
Maybe you can find something on the perseus website?

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