Just another Ibiza 'character' you think. That near-naked far-out looking man over in the corner with the beard and belly clutching a snake and waving what appears to be a sword over his head. Too much sun, sangria and herds of tourists tipping him over the edge. But appearances can often be misleading.
He's been here longer than any of us, even those other near-naked far-out looking men who insist that they first came here as part of Hendrix's trippy entourage and never left. His name is Bes, first worshipped by the ancient Egyptians as protector of households, mothers and children, snake-killer and general evil-spirit repellant. He also came to symbolize the good things in life: music, dance and sexual pleasure. It has been said that tattoos of his image could be seen on the thighs of dancers and musicians in Egypt well over 3000 years ago. The Phoenicians then adopted him later as their own and with unintentional prescience brought these beliefs with them when they came to alight on the shores of the Balearics.
Working the Mediterranean trade routes and building their fortune through, among other things, their monopoly of a highly-prized purple dye extracted from carnivorous sea snails ('Tyrian purple'), they are said to have settled here around the middle of the 7th century BC. They valued these islands for their strategic location and raw materials and seeing that this one was uninhabited chose to stay.
As legend has it, they quickly noticed a distinct absence here of any species of venomous snake. To their Punic minds this meant only one thing. Not only had they clearly been eradicated by the hand of their beloved snake-botherer Bes but they believed this must in fact be his own home island.
So in honour of this they named it Iboshim, the original etymology of 'Ibiza'. The raves here today must be prosaic echoes of the wingdings held by those original Bes-besotted devotees. An island and a legend was born.
No comments:
Post a Comment