Dragons in Greek mythology placed it in the heavens as the constellation Cancer. After slaying the serpent, Heracles buried the immortal head under a rock and dipped his arrows in the creature's blood to make them fatal to his enemies. In one version, the poisoned arrows would eventually prove to be the undoing of his centaur tutor Chiron, who was placed in the heavens as the constellation Centaurus. In Greek mythology Python was the earth-dragon of Delphi, always represented in the vase-paintings and by sculptors as a serpent. Various myths represented Python as being either male or female (a drakaina). Python was the chthonic
Lerna a "salpinx," while a lamb was cast into the waters as an offering for the "Keeper of the Gate." The keeper of the gate to the Underworld that lay in the waters of Lerna was the Hydra. Excavations at the site were initiated under John L. Caskey in 1952, whose efforts initiated the series of publications of Bronze Age Lerna, "Lerna" I-V, inspiring many other publications. Lerna was occupied in Neolithic times, as early as the fifth millennium BCE, then was abandoned for a time before the sequence of occupation from the Early Bronze Age (Helladic period through the Mycenaean).