This red-figure vase, circa 420 BC, depicts the birth of the 'Earth-born One' (Erichthonios). Earth (Gaia) presents the new-born child to Athena who represents the reborn serpent-friendly Eve after the Flood. The figure to the left of Gaia and the child is Hephaistos, the eldest son of Zeus and Hera, the deified Kain. According to the myth surrounding this event, Athena obtained the sperm, or seed, of Hephaistos (Kain), and placed it into the Earth, and out of Earth sprang the rejuvenated line of Kain after the Flood. The essence of ancient Greek religion is very simple. After the Flood which caused the line of Kain to disappear into the Earth, Athena, the reborn serpent-friendly Eve, nurtures the reborn line of Kain which re-emerges from the Earth into which it had disappeared.

Delphi, Greece, Oracle of Delphi, Apollo