In the sanctuary right next to the throne room in Knossos, the excavators came across two statues of women with wide, superimposed skirts, huge, free breasts, unusual headdresses with a big cat on top and above all snakes in both hands. No doubt: they were goddesses or priestesses who performed rituals with snakes - probably a kind of snake dance. We don't know how dangerous such a ritual was. Just as little as to which god should be meant or conjured up by it. But the statues of the snake dancers in the palace shrine show that the snake dance was a central part of the Minoan religion.