A bronze statuette, c.425-400 BC, of Vanth, the Etruscan angel of death, shown winged and striding, with bearded snakes coiled around her arms. Found near Mount Vesuvius. British Museum.

I call Vanth an "angel of death," not only because she is usually shown with wings and, together with her male counterpart Charun conducts the souls of the dead into the Underworld, but because, unlike Charun, who usually carries a wooden mallet or hammer in a way that suggests he is ready to deliver a mercy blow, a "coup de grace," but also because she seems, unlike him, and unlike a Greek Fury, a kinder, gentler guide of the dead. And this despite the fact that Vanth, even more than Charun, is often seen with a pair of snakes coiled around her arms.

Even though those snakes often show the round dots of asps, a snake famous throughout the ancient world for its deadly venom, Vanth may not necessarily be threatening the deceased with a mortal bite. Why would she, since she only appears to guide those who are already dead safely into the Underworld? So, like the Greek bearers of the dead, the twins Hypnos and Thanatos, there may be something of the angel of mercy about her also? Unlike the hawk-nosed, snake-haired and pop-eyed Charun, Vanth is always seen as an attractive young woman, often bare-breasted and never angry and frightful like a hissing nail-sharp Fury or hound of hell. Indeed, the bronze statuette of her with snakes coiled around her arms is not very different from many Roman statues of Hygeia, the daughter of Ascelepius who was worshipped as the Goddess of Good Health, and who is sometimes shown squeezing venom from a snake to be used as "apotropaic" medicine to heal the sick - a practice used by doctors today to slowly build immunity one sting at a time to protect patients who would die if attacked by swarms of hornets, wasps or bees.

So what about those snakes encircling Vanth's arms? The most striking thing about them may be, not that they are poisonous asps, but that they are bearded. BEARDED snakes? Yes, and there seems to be such a creature or asp in that part of the world, though I haven't been able to find a photo of one. And so are the snakes often seen on the arms or shoulders of Charun. Here, for example, is an old drawing of a of a wall painting of him in the Tomb of Orcus:


See George Dennis, "Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria" (Volterra), pp 189-90

Though the snakes around Charun's ankles seem to have no beards, the one on his shoulder definitely does. Here's a photo of this now much damaged painting of him from the wall of the Orcus Tomb - worth seeing even if the area around the snake's head is too damaged to see its head and beard:



A similar but more frightful underworld demon, Tuchulcha, is painted in the same tomb threatening the stupefied hero Theseus with a bearded snake:



One of the clearest tomb paintings of a bearded snake is found in the Tomb of the Blue Demons, where one of the demons waves one in each hand:



Some say the Etruscans painted so many of their Underworld demons blue because that is the color of rotting skin, the color of corpses. Others claim their blue skin is caused by snake venom, and is therefore a symptom of snake bite.

Here is a drawing of the back of an Etruscan lady's silver mirror engraved with a handsome Greek archer, Philoctetes, who became disabled while on his way to fight the Trojans when he was bitten in the ankle by the bearded snake at his feet:



This Etruscan mirror in Bologna shows Machaon, a surgeon son of Aesculapius, healing Philoctetes' wounded ankle. The story was told by Sophocles, and in Roman times by Virgil, Pindar, Seneca, Quintilian, and Ovid. Philoctetes had been one of the suitors of Helen of Troy and they had all taken vows to protect her; so when she ran off with Paris, her husband Menelaus called on Philoctetes to help bring her back. But the snake bite on his foot festered and had a terrible stink, so Odysseus removed Philoctetes from the Greek camp and stranded him on an island for the whole ten years of the war. John Franklin Hall, author of "Etruscan Italy: Etruscan Influences on the Civilization of Italy," says of this mirror: "The slender, heroically nude archer … holds a bow in his left hand and behind his left foot is a bearded snake with a large head, presumably the cause of his wound."

Here's a Pompeian fresco of the wine god Bacchus (Dionysus) covered with grapes before Mt. Vesuvius, with a large bearded snake in the foreground. Is it just by chance that this volcano, with its fiery links to the Underworld, is also where the bronze statuette of Vanth with the bearded snakes on her arms was found?



Ready now to face three vicious bearded snakes in a dark Etruscan tomb?
Which tomb it is, I'm not sure yet, but here they come!



Do such snakes still exist? And if so where? In lieu of a photo of one, I submit this fine photo of one tatooed on a man's leg - an image that would not have been out of place on the arm or leg of an Etruscan demon.