General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20267 min read

Shahmaran

Shahmaran (Turkish and Kurdish: Şahmaran or Şahmeran; Persian-derived name combining shah, king, and maran, serpents) is a mythological figure of Anatolian, Mesopotamian and Iranian folklore, depicted as a being whose upper body is human and lower body is serpent, and known as the queen or king of the snakes¹. Although the word shah is a male title, the figure appears as a woman in the recorded versions of the legend². She is generally portrayed as wise, benevolent and immortal, keeper of humanity's secrets and of healing knowledge, and her story centers on betrayal by the human she trusted³. The legend remains a living element of folk belief in Anatolia and has been repeatedly adapted to literature, cinema and, most recently, a Netflix television series⁴.

Key fact	Detail
Figure	Half-human, half-serpent being, queen of the snakes; wise, benevolent, and keeper of secrets and healing knowledge¹^•³
Name	Persian shah (king) + maran (serpents), though the figure is female in the recorded legends¹^•²
Core story	Betrayal of Shahmaran by the human lover Camsab (Camısan); according to legend the snakes still do not know she was killed²^•⁵
Geographic centers	Legends told around Adana, Tarsus and Mardin, with local variants elsewhere in Anatolia⁶
Folk belief	Painted on glass-over pictures (camaltı), carpets, copper and silver as a household talisman believed to bring abundance and protect against illness and the evil eye⁷
Screen adaptations	Films by Rahmi Kafadar (1972) and Zülfü Livaneli (1993), a 2011 documentary, and the Netflix series Şahmaran (2023–2024)³^•⁴
Netflix series	Premiered January 20, 2023; 2 seasons, 14 episodes; final episode August 8, 2024⁸

The legend

The Shahmaran legends carry traces of Indian, Persian, Greek, Hebrew and Arabic sources, and the stories have entered daily life in Anatolia to the degree that they hold a firm place in folk belief⁶. The best-known variants are told in the vicinity of Adana, Tarsus and Mardin, and the tale is told in different forms across Anatolia's regions⁶^•⁹.

In the Tarsus version, Shahmaran is an intelligent and compassionate being who lives in a seven-layered underground land with the wise snakes called Meran². A young man, Camsab (in some variants Camısan, the son of Lokman Hekim), descends into this hidden world and encounters her²^•⁹. He stays with her for years, then asks leave to return to the world of humans; Shahmaran lets him go on condition that he keep her secrets, and he betrays that trust⁵. She is killed as a result, and according to the legend the snakes have never learned of her death; a prophecy holds that one day they will find out and invade Tarsus². The narrative is generally read as a story of human betrayal, with Shahmaran representing healing and goodness³.

Scholarly readings place the figure in a wider symbolic system. In folk-art depictions her ornate crown carries a crescent, a fertility and abundance symbol, and the ram's horns adorned with jewelry that appear in Shahmaran pictures symbolize fertility, linking the figure to the mother-goddess tradition¹⁰. One comparative study reads the narrative as an allegory of spiritual initiation, in which the hero's descent into the goddess's sacred domain and access to her esoteric wisdom marks his maturation¹¹.

Folk belief and visual culture

The belief that every Anatolian house has a serpent-shaped guardian who protects the household from illness and the evil eye, and brings abundance, has been widespread⁷. Folk artists paint Shahmaran in a nearly identical form: the face of a young and beautiful girl on the body of a giant snake, most often with six snake-shaped legs⁷. These images are worked into camaltı pictures (reverse-glass paintings), carpets, copper and silver, and the talisman survives today also as a decorative object⁷^•¹². In Tunceli, the tale is the region's best-known folk story, told on long winter nights, and a carpet depicting Shahmaran hangs on the wall of virtually every home there⁹. The figure also appears in home decor, carpet patterns and glasswork across Turkish heritage³.

Modern retellings

The folk tale has fed modern Turkish literature repeatedly. Retellings include Tomris Uyar's "Şahmeran Hikâyesi" (1973), Murathan Mungan's "Şahmeran'ın Bacakları" (1993), Hilmi Yavuz's Kuyu (1994), Erhan Bener's Şahmeran Öyküsü (1998) and Şahmeran (2000), and Sennur Sezer's Şahmaran (2006)¹³. Erhan Bener's play version reworked both the form and the meaning of the story, an example of how a folkloric product continues to exist in contemporary texts¹⁴.

On screen, the legend was adapted as a film directed by Rahmi Kafadar in 1972 and as Zülfü Livaneli's 1993 film Şahmaran, and the figure has since appeared in cinema and television projects³. A 2026 study of the figure's circulation across Turkish media maps three institutional regimes of value attribution: artistic production (Livaneli's 1993 film), heritage-oriented discourse (the 2011 documentary Yarısı İnsan Yarısı Yılan, "Half Human Half Snake"), and platform-mediated popular media (the Netflix series)⁴.

The Netflix series

Şahmaran is a Turkish fantasy-drama series produced by Tims&B Productions for Netflix, directed by Umur Turagay and written by Pınar Bulut with Hakan Karahan¹⁵^•¹⁶. Season 1, eight episodes of roughly 48 to 59 minutes, premiered in full on January 20, 2023; season 2, six episodes, was released on August 8, 2024, completing a 14-episode run⁸^•¹⁷.

The series follows Şahsu (Serenay Sarıkaya), a PhD candidate and lecturer from Istanbul who travels to Adana to give a guest lecture and to confront her estranged grandfather Davut (Mustafa Uğurlu), who abandoned her mother decades earlier¹⁸. She falls in with the Mar, a mysterious community descended from Shahmaran who believe she is the chosen girl of an ancient prophecy, and she cannot resist her attraction to their guide Maran (Burak Deniz)¹⁹. Season 2 brings the prophecy to completion as Shahmaran awakens in Şahsu's body, and introduces Lilith, who emerges from the well where she was cursed to take revenge for a betrayal suffered for love²⁰. Mert Ramazan Demir plays Cihan, and the supporting cast includes Mahir Günşiray, Ebru Özkan, Saadet Işıl Aksoy and Hakan Karahan¹⁶.

Reception. The series reached an international audience: it entered the Netflix US Top 10, ranking #9, a notable result for non-English content²¹. Its IMDb rating stands at 5.5/10 from about 24,000 users²², and Rotten Tomatoes records a 91% average audience score on its Popcornmeter¹⁶. Critics described a patient, character-driven take on genre television; reviewers praised the blending of folklore, romance and fantasy while noting slow pacing, and the season 2 critic consensus called it a fitting ending to the duology¹⁸^•²³. The production won Best Series awards from Yıldız Technical University and Hacettepe University¹⁵.

The adaptation took liberties with its source. The villain Lilith, Shahmaran's sister in the series, does not appear in the mythology, and the fate of Davut, described in the mythological material as immortal, differs from the legend²⁴. The series belongs to a recent wave of Turkish Netflix fantasy rooted in Anatolian folklore rather than Islamic traditions, alongside Hakan: Muhafız (2018–2020) and Atiye (2019–2020)²⁵.

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › International serial drama and telenovelas › Turkish, Middle Eastern, and African serials › Contemporary Turkish serial dramas (dizi)

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

Notice something wrong?