Shahmaran is the serpent queen of Anatolian and Mesopotamian telling: woman above the waist, snake below. She lives in a cave underground with her serpents and knows the secret of healing.
In the best-known branch a young man named Camsab falls into the cave. Shahmaran keeps him for years and finally lets him go, on one condition: he will tell no one. The secret gets out, she is killed, and healing is taken from her flesh. So the story is one of friendship and of betrayal at once.
Her image is still painted under glass around Tarsus and Mardin.
In Balbal, Shahmaran's Cave is the third floor of the Underworld: scaled patterns on the walls, green phosphor light and heavy fog.