Shahmaran

Shahmaran is a mythical creature, half-snake and half-woman, portrayed as a dual-headed creature with a crown on each head, possessing a human female head on one end, and a snake's head on the other, possibly representing a phallic figure. The human part is also decorated with a large necklace.

The first human Shahmaran encounters is a young man named Jamasp (Persian: Jāmāsp جاماسپ), who is also known by Yada Jamsab (other spellings are Jambs, Camasb, and Jamisav).Jamasp gets stuck in a cave after he tries to steal honey with a few friends, his friends leave him alone in the cave. He decides to explore the cave and finds a passage to a chamber that looks like a mystical and beautiful garden with thousands of off-white colored snakes and the Shahmaran living together harmoniously. At this point Shahmaran and Jamasp fall in love and live in the cave chamber, and the Shahmaran teaches him about medicines and medicinal herbs. Jamasp misses living above ground and wants to leave, he tells the Shahmaran he will not share the secret of her living there. Many years pass.

The king of the town of Tarsus becomes ill and the vizier discovers the treatment of his condition requires Shahmaran's flesh. Jamasp tells the townspeople where Shahmaran lives, according to the legend Shahmaran says, "blanch me in an earthen dish, give my extract to the vizier, and feed my flesh to the sultan." They bring her to the town and kill her in a bath called, "Şahmaran Hamam". The king eats her flesh and lives, the vizier drinks the extract and dies. Jamasp drinks the water of Shahmaran and becomes a doctor, by gaining the Shahmaran's wisdom.