Uranus

Algiz – Heimdall

The symbol, reversed, might be used to access the realm of the dead, giants, and the unconscious.

T – Tyr

The study of the runes and their meaning is a study of personal development, spiritual growth and the spread of consciousness throughout human societies and into the universe. The Elder Futhark Runes are a complete system of magic, and the oldest form of western wisdom.

Rune Secrets 

Cybele

Janus

Aker

Aker was an Ancient Egyptian earth and death deity. In several inscriptions, wall paintings and reliefs, Aker was connected to the horizon of the North and the West, forming a mythological bridge between the two horizons with his body.

Aker was first depicted as the torso of a recumbent lion with a widely opened mouth. Later, he was depicted as two recumbent lion torsos merged with each other and still looking away from each other.

From Middle Kingdom onwards Aker appears as a pair of twin lions, one named Duaj (meaning “yesterday”) and the other Sefer (meaning “tomorrow”). Aker was thus often titled “He who’s looking forward and behind”.

When depicted as a lion pair, a hieroglyphic sign for “horizon” (two merged mountains) and a sun disc was put between the lions; the lions were sitting back-on-back. In later times, Aker can also appear as two merged torsos of recumbent sphinxes with human heads.

Aker was first described as one of the earth gods guarding the “gate to the yonder site”. He protected the deceased king against the three demonic snakes Hemtet, Iqeru and Jagw. By “encircling” (i.e. interring) the deceased king, Aker sealed the deceased away from the poisonous breath of the snake demons.

Another earth deity, who joined and promoted Aker’s work, was Geb, the Egyptian god of the Earth. Thus, Aker was connected with Geb. Aker carries the nocturnal bark of Ra. During his journey, in which Aker is asked to hide the body of the dead Osiris beneath his womb, Aker is protected by the god Geb.

In the Heliopolitan Ennead (a group of nine gods created in the beginning by the one god Atum or Ra), Geb is the husband of Nut, the sky or visible daytime and nightly firmament, the son of the earlier primordial elements Tefnut (moisture) and Shu (’emptiness’), and the father to the four lesser gods of the system – Osiris, Seth, Isis and Nephthys.

In this context, Geb was believed to have originally been engaged with Nut and had to be separated from her by Shu, god of the air. Consequently, in mythological depictions, Geb was shown as a man reclining, sometimes with his phallus still pointed towards Nut. Geb and Nut together formed the permanent boundary between the primeval waters and the newly created world.

In other spells and prayers, Aker is connected with Seth, a god of chaos, the desert, storms, disorder, violence, and foreigners in ancient Egyptian religion, and even determined with the Seth animal. This is interesting, because Seth is described as a wind deity, not as an earth deity.

In the famous Coffin Texts of Middle Kingdom period, Aker replaces the god Kherty, becoming now the “ferryman of Ra in his nocturnal bark”. Aker protects the sun god during his nocturnal travelling through the underworld caverns.

In the famous Book of the Dead, Aker also “gives birth” to the god Khepri, the young, rising sun in shape of a scarab beetle who represents the rising or morning sun, and by extension, the creation and the renewal of life, after Aker has carried Khepri’s sarcophagus safely through the underworld caverns.

Khepri is derived from Egyptian language verb ḫpr, meaning “develop”, “come into being”, or “create”. The god was connected with the scarab beetle (ḫprr in Egyptian), because the scarab rolls balls of dung across the ground, an act that the Egyptians saw as a symbol of the forces that move the sun across the sky. Khepri was thus a solar deity.

Young dung beetles, having been laid as eggs within the dung ball, emerge from it fully formed. Therefore, Khepri also represented creation and rebirth, and he was specifically connected with the rising sun and the mythical creation of the world.

There was no cult devoted to Khepri, and he was largely subordinate to the greater sun god Ra. Often, Khepri and another solar deity, Atum, were seen as aspects of Ra: Khepri was the morning sun, Ra was the midday sun, and Atum was the sun in the evening.

Certain sarcophagus texts from the tombs of Ramesses IV, Djedkhonsuiusankh and Pediamenopet describe how the sun god Ra travels through the underworld “like Apophis going through the belly of Aker after Apophis was cut by Seth”. In this case, Aker seems to be some kind of representation of the underworld itself.

According to the Bible’s creation account, after making the heavens and the earth, God created humankind. The Adam and Eve story in Genesis 2 states that God formed Adam out of the dust of the ground, and then Eve was created from one of Adam’s ribs.

Genesis 2:21–24, NRSV: “So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs[a] and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.”

However, the cosmogenic myth common in Sumer was that of the hieros gamos, a sacred marriage where divine principles in the form of dualistic opposites came together as male and female to give birth to the cosmos.

In the epic Enki and Ninhursag, Enki, as lord of Ab or fresh water (also the Sumerian word for semen), is living with his wife in the paradise of Dilmun.Despite being a place where “the raven uttered no cries” and “the lion killed not, the wolf snatched not the lamb, unknown was the kid-killing dog, unknown was the grain devouring boar”, Dilmun had no water and Enki heard the cries of its goddess, Ninsikil, and orders the sun-god Utu to bring fresh water from the Earth for Dilmun.

The subsequent tale, with similarities to the Biblical story of the forbidden fruit, repeats the story of how fresh water brings life to a barren land. Dilmun was identified with Bahrain, whose name in Arabic means “two seas”, where the fresh waters of the Arabian aquifer mingle with the salt waters of the Persian Gulf.

This mingling of waters was known in Sumerian as Nammu, a primeval goddess, corresponding to Tiamat in Babylonian mythology. Nammu was the Goddess sea (Engur) that gave birth to An (heaven) and Ki (earth) and the first gods, representing the Apsu, the fresh water ocean that the Sumerians believed lay beneath the earth, the source of life-giving water and fertility in a country with almost no rainfall.

In the religion of ancient Babylon, Tiamat is a primordial goddess of the salt sea, mating with Abzû, the god of fresh water, to produce younger gods. The Babylonian epic Enuma Elish is named for its incipit: “When above” the heavens did not yet exist nor the earth below, Apsu the freshwater ocean was there, “the first, the begetter”, and Tiamat, the saltwater sea, “she who bore them all”; they were “mixing their waters”.

It is suggested that there are two parts to the Tiamat mythos, the first in which Tiamat is a creator goddess, through a sacred marriage between salt and fresh water, peacefully creating the cosmos through successive generations.

In the second Chaoskampf Tiamat is considered the monstrous embodiment of primordial chaos. Some sources identify her with images of a sea serpent or dragon. She is referred to as a woman, and described as the glistening one. She is the symbol of the chaos of primordial creation.

It is thought that female deities are older than male ones in Mesopotamia and Tiamat may have begun as part of the cult of Nammu, a female principle of a watery creative force, with equally strong connections to the underworld, which predates the appearance of Ea-Enki.

Nammu is not well attested in Sumerian mythology. She may have been of greater importance prehistorically, before Enki took over most of her functions. According to the Neo-Sumerian mythological text Enki and Ninmah, Enki is the son of An and Nammu. Nammu is the goddess who “has given birth to the great gods”. It is she who has the idea of creating mankind, and she goes to wake up Enki, who is asleep in the Apsu, so that he may set the process going.

The Atrahasis-Epos has it that Enlil requested from Nammu the creation of humans, and Nammu told him that with the help of Enki (her son) she can create humans in the image of gods.

Atra-Hasis (“exceedingly wise”) is the protagonist of an 18th-century BC Akkadian epic recorded in various versions on clay tablets. The Atra-Hasis tablets include both a creation myth and a flood account, which is one of three surviving Babylonian deluge stories.

The name “Atra-Hasis” also appears on one of the Sumerian king lists as king of Shuruppak in the times before a flood. At the end of the Jemdet Nasr period (3100-2900 BC), there was an archaeologically attested river flood in Shuruppak. Polychrome pottery from a destruction level below the flood deposit has been dated to the Jemdet Nasr period that immediately preceded the Early Dynastic I period.

Enki had eaten forbidden flowers and was then cursed by Ninhursaga, who was later persuaded by the other gods to heal him. Ninhursag takes Enki’s Ab (water, or semen) into her body, and gives birth to gods of healing of each part of the body: Abu for the jaw, Nintul for the hip, Ninsutu for the tooth, Ninkasi for the mouth, Dazimua for the side, Enshagag for the limbs.

The last one, Ninti (Lady Rib; Sumerian Ti means rib and to live), is also a pun on Lady Life, a title of Ninhursag herself. Ninti is the eight goddesses of healing who was created by Ninhursag to heal Enki’s body. Her specific healing area was the rib.

The story thus symbolically reflects the way in which life is brought forth through the addition of water to the land, and once it grows, water is required to bring plants to fruit. It also counsels balance and responsibility, nothing to excess.

Ninti, the title of Ninhursag, also means “the mother of all living”, and was a title later given to the Hurrian goddess Heba. The name may be transliterated in different versions – Khepat with the feminine ending -t is primarily the Syrian and Ugaritic version. In modern literature the sound /h/ in cuneiform sometimes is transliterated as kh.

She is also a Queen of the deities. The mother goddess is likely to have had a later counterpart in the Phrygian goddess Cybele. Ma was a local goddess at Ma and a Phrygian alternative name for Cybele. Ma is a Sumerian word meaning “land” that in Sumerian mythology was also used to regard Primordial Land.

Ma was a local goddess at Comana in Cappadocia. Her name Ma means “Mother”, and she also had the epithets “Invincible” and “Bringer of Victory”. She has been compared to Cybele and Bellona. The ancient Greeks compared Ma to the goddess Enyo and Athena.

Ma has been interpreted as a mother goddess, but at the same time as a warrior goddess, as her name and epithets indicate both. She was associated with the transition of adulthood of both genders, and sacred prostitution was practiced during her biennial festivals.

The mother of all living is also the title given in the Bible to Eve, the Hebrew and Aramaic Ḥawwah, who was made from the rib of Adam, in a strange reflection of the Sumerian myth, in which Adam – not Enki – walks in the Garden of Paradise.

The olive, known by the botanical name Olea europaea, meaning “European olive”, is a species of small tree in the family Oleaceae. It is found in the Mediterranean Basin from Portugal to the Levant, the Arabian Peninsula, and southern Asia as far east as China, as well as the Canary Islands and Réunion.

The olive’s fruit, also called the olive, is of major agricultural importance in the Mediterranean region as the source of olive oil; it is one of the core ingredients in Mediterranean cuisine.

The importance of olive manipulation has been well defined previously by Colin Renfrew (1972), suggesting that the rise of civilizations may have been made possible by the development of a polycultural triad of wheat, vineand olive in the Aegean Early Bronze Age.

Although the palynological evidence from Greece still seems debatable this far-reaching statement demonstrates the importance ascribed to olive exploitation. Fossil evidence indicates the olive tree had its origins some 20–40 million years ago in the Oligocene, in what is now corresponding to Italy and the eastern Mediterranean Basin.

The olive plant later was first cultivated some 7,000 years ago in Mediterranean regions. The edible olive seems to have coexisted with humans for about 5,000 to 6,000 years, going back to the early Bronze Age (3150 to 1200 BC).

Its origin can be traced to the Levant based on written tablets, olive pits, and wood fragments found in ancient tombs. As for the southern Levant, the period in which the manipulation of olives began is being reviewed.

It is evident that some type of olive oil production existed in many sites belonging to the Ghassulian Chalcolithic period. According to finds from several submerged sites along the Mediterranean coast, it seems that the use of olives for their oil started as early as the sixth millennium BC.

The ample remnants of olive found in archaeological contexts, together with other finds such as pottery vessels, oil lamps, and olive oil installations, indicate that the earliest widespread use of olives in Israel was noticed in the Early Bronze Age.

However, the archaeological data indicate that widespread use of olives in ancient Israel and adjacent regions should be dated not later than the Chalcolithic.

As for the domestication of olives, to date, it is still questioned whether the olives used in this very unripe industry were previously domesticated in earlier periods, such as what some authors called the Late Neolithic and others the Early Chalcolithic (sixth to fifth millennia BC).

It has been suggested that the domestication of olives occurred previously in the Chalcolithic. The palynological evidence indicates that the utilization of olives most probably began in the Chalcolithic period, when much higher olive pollen values are documented in several southern Levantine pollen spectra.

Some of these studies considered that the dramatic rise in Olea pollen reflected the spread of olive cultivation in the region, i.e. domestication of olives. However, this has been rejected by others.

According to new research the thin, small and bitter wild fruit first gave way to oil-rich, larger olives on the border between Turkey and Syria. From there the olive tree was brought into Palestine ca 4000 BC and spread to Mediterranean and North Africa.

The urban development of Canaan lagged considerably behind that of Egypt and Mesopotamia and that of Syria, where from 3,500 BCE a sizable city developed at Hamoukar.

Hamoukar is a large archaeological site located in the Jazira region of northeastern Syria (Al Hasakah Governorate), near the Iraqi and Turkish borders. The early settlement dates back to the 5th millennium BCE, and it existed simultaneously with the Ubaid and the early Uruk cultures.

It was a big centre of obsidian production. In the 3rd millennium, this was one of the largest cities of Northern Mesopotamia. It is now believed that Hamoukar was thriving as far back as 4000 BC and independently from Sumer.

The origins of urban settlements has generally been attributed to the riverine societies of southern Mesopotamia (in what is now southern Iraq). This is the area of ancient Sumer, where around 4000 BC the Mesopotamian cities such of Ur and Uruk emerged.

In 2007, following the discoveries at Hamoukar, some archaeologists have argued that the Cradle of Civilization could have extended further up the Tigris River and included the part of northern Syria where Hamoukar is located.

It is evident that some type of olive oil production existed in many sites belonging to the Ghassulian Chalcolithic period. Ghassulian refers to a culture and an archaeological stage dating to the Middle and Late Chalcolithic Period in the Southern Levant (c. 4400 – c. 3500 BC).

The Ghassulian stage was characterized by small hamlet settlements of mixed farming peoples, who had immigrated from the north and settled in the southern Levant – today’s Jordan, Israel and Palestine.

The Ghassulian culture correlates closely with the Amratian of Egypt and also seems to have affinities (e.g., the distinctive churns, or “bird vases”) with early Minoan culture in Crete. It was Greece however, through Phoenician merchants, who brought it in the European Mediterranean area – Italy, France, Spain, Portugal- from where it spread to America and Australia.

The findings are based on the genetic analysis of nearly 1,900 samples from around the Mediterranean Sea. Olive Trees have been a part of everyday life in the area since the beginning of civilisation.

After that first cultivation, modern-day domesticated olives came mostly from three hotspots: the Near East (including Cyprus), the Aegean Sea and the Strait of Gibraltar. They were then gradually spread throughout the Mediterranean with the rise of civilization. The many resources that the olive tree has to offer cannot be understated. It is believed to have contributed to the rise and power of the ancient Greek and Roman empires.

As far back as 3000 BC, olives were grown commercially in Crete; they may have been the source of the wealth of the Minoan civilization. Archaeological data and historical findings confirm that during the Minoan period (3000-1000 BC) olive cultivation and olive oil trading was widespread in Crete, which also accounts partly for the economic boom that occurred on the island during this period.

In the Palace of Knossos pottery (jars) and cisterns of stone for olive oil storage have been found, while at Phaistos one can see findings of an oil mill of that time.

In the Greek tradition, when a child is born, an olive tree is planted. The olive tree and the child will grow up together and when the child will become 6 years old, the olive tree will give its first fruit. It will grow with the family, survive through decades, and will still be there for all the coming generations to always remind us the continuity and the evolution of life.

They loved and deified the olive tree and attributed a religious and sacrosanct character to its origin, condemning to death anyone who destroyed an olive tree. Messengers would come to conclude peace carrying an olive branch, while the only award for the winners at the Olympic Games was a wreath from an olive branch.

Many Greek philosophers studied the medicinal properties of this sacred tree. Dioscorides, Diocles, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Hippocrates; the Hippocratic code features more than 60 olive treatments.

Olive oil has long been considered sacred. No fruit bearing tree in our land has been praised, painted, sung, as much as the olive tree. The olive branch was often a symbol of abundance, glory, and peace. Over the years, the olive has also been used to symbolize wisdom, fertility, power, and purity.

The olive tree’s powerful symbolism in many cultures and religions is rooted in history and tradition. It is referred to as the “blessed” tree and represents eternal life, wisdom, peace, hope and longevity and much more.

According to the Old Testament, when Noah released a dove to see if the floods had receded, it returned with an olive leaf in its beak. Genesis 8:11 in the King James Bible says, “And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.”

How far that dove must have flown to find an olive branch is beyond the scope of my knowledge and imagination. In 1974, Yasser Arafat, in a historic speech at the UN General Assembly said, “I come bearing an olive branch in one hand and a freedom fighter’s gun in the other. Do not let me drop the olive branch.” It was the first time that a non-state representative addressed the United Nations.

The leafy branches of the olive tree were ritually offered to deities and powerful figures as emblems of benediction and purification, and they were used to crown the victors of friendly games and bloody wars. Today, olive oil is still used in many religious ceremonies.

According to Greek mythology the olive tree was brought into being by the goddess Athena who won a contest with Poseidon god of the sea. The prize was the patronage of a great city and would be won by whoever presented the city with the best gift.

Poseidon struck the ground with his mighty trident and created a sea which although impressive, was too salty to drink. Athena, in less dramatic style knelt and planted something in the ground which grew into an olive tree. This turned out to be a much more useful gift. The tree produced not only food but oil for lighting, and wood for heat and building.

Athena won the contest and consequently the great city was named in her honour – Athens. Even today, an olive tree stands where this legendary contest took place, and it is said that all the olive trees in Athens are descended from the olive tree grown by Athena.

The olives produced are highly prized and a wreath made from its branches travels to the opening ceremony of each Olympic Games since the Athens games in 2004.

Olive trees can live for many years and carbon dating has revealed some to be over a thousand years old. The expected life of an olive tree is 300 to 600 years, yet there are olive trees more than 1,000 years old.

One of the oldest living olive trees in the world grows in Crete and is estimated to be more than 3000 years old. It has been growing and bearing fruit since Biblical times and has been declared a national monument.

The al Badawi olive tree in Bethlehem, which researchers peg to somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 years old, is likely the oldest living olive tree in the world. Though the tree is exceedingly old, in this ancient region of the Middle East the practice of squeezing oil from olives is even older.

According to finds from several submerged sites along the Mediterra-nean coast, it seems that the use of olives for their oilstarted as early as the sixth millennium BC. According to new archaeological research, the people were producing olive oil in the region as far back as 8,000 years ago.

In a dig at the site of the Bronze Age town of Ein Zippori, just over a mile west of Nazareth, researchers unearthed shards of broken pottery containers. According to Live Science, chemical analyses of the pottery shards revealed the traces of ancient olive oil.

Of the nearly two dozen pottery containers found at the site, two dated to around 5,800 BC. The find pushes back, by several centuries, the onset of olive oil production. The find may mark the earliest known case of olive oil production in the Mediterranean basin.

Realizing the value of the olive oil, the Romans contributed to the spread of the olive tree throughout the territories of their empire. Trade grew even more and Roman ships were carrying large quantities of oil in areas where olive trees were not cultivated, or in areas where there was a lack of olive oil due to low production.

It was the period when new olive extraction techniques were developed and great progress was made in the dissemination of the olive-related knowledge. In Byzantine times the traditional olive cultivation centers were maintained, while the olive groves of the Christian monasteries accounted for a large part of the total production.

Olive oil distribution followed the ancient schemes: it was stored in special jars, loaded onto vessels and led to major urban centers or wherever there was an increase of demand.

The need for light (illumination of temples, palaces and houses), alongside other uses, created a rising demand, meaning the Empire was continuously deficient in olive oil. It is not surprising therefore that quite often the authorities would prohibit exports, even though the Byzantine Empire was the largest exporter of olive oil worldwide. The Spanish spread the olive tree to the American continent.

In the years of the Ottoman Empire a further rise of olive oil trade occurred and maritime transportation was developed, facilitating the sea routes from the Aegean Sea to Western Europe. In the era of the Ottoman occupation, not only did oil trade reinforce local economies, but also boosted soap production, which in turn created dynamic manufacturing units.

In oil producing regions such as Crete, consulates of European countries were gradually settled. In the 1800 century oil exports supply the European markets not only with an edible product, but also with the raw material for the production of soap.

After suffering years of discrimination and forced assimilation, the Ainu people have finally been recognised as “indigenous” Japanese people, giving them the right to support for their communities and a boost to local economies.

The official number of the Ainu is 25,000, but unofficially is estimated at 200,000, as many Ainu have been completely assimilated into Japanese society and have no knowledge of their ancestry.

The Ainu have often been considered to descend from the Jōmon people, who lived in Japan from the Jōmon period (c. 14,000 to 300 BCE). One of their Yukar Upopo, or legends, tells that “[t]he Ainu lived in this place a hundred thousand years before the Children of the Sun came”.

Researchers suggests that the Ainu retain a certain degree of uniqueness in their genetic make-up, while having some affinities with other regional populations in Japan as well as with the Nivkhs of the Russian Far East.

Recent research suggests that the historical Ainu culture originated in a merger of the Okhotsk culture with the Satsumon, one of the ancient archaeological cultures that are considered to have derived from the Jōmon-period cultures of the Japanese archipelago.

The Okhotsk culture is an archaeological coastal fishing and hunter-gatherer culture of the lands surrounding the Sea of Okhotsk (600–1000 in Hokkaido, until 1500 or 1600 in the Kuril Islands): the Amur River basin, Sakhalin, northern Hokkaido, the Kuril Islands, and Kamchatka.

It appears to have spread outwards from the Amur River region, only to be partially absorbed or pushed back by the Satsumon culture spreading north from Japan, but nevertheless surviving, for example, in the Nivkh of Sakhalin and the Amur and in Itelmen of Kamchatka.

The historical Ainu people appear to have retained a strong element of the Okhotsk, but the Satsumon culture, and perhaps language, appears to have dominated the mix of people who contemporaneously became known as the Ainu. Fundamental Okhotsk elements remained, however, such as the bear cult.

Jōmon people is the generic name of people who lived in the Japanese archipelago during the Jōmon period. Today most Japanese historians believe that the Jomon were not a single homogeneous people but were at least two or three groups.

The Jōmon shared some physical characteristics, such as relatively abundant body hair and light skin, with Caucasians, but anthropological genetics shows them to derive from a separate genetic lineage from that of Europeans.

It is suggested that they belong to the Proto-Mongoloid type, similar to Native Americans. A research, analysing the autosomal DNA of several Jomon bones, suggest an origin of the Jomon people in Siberia or northeastern Central Asia near lake Baikal.

Mark J. Hudson posits that Japan was settled by a Paleo-Mongoloid population in the Pleistocene who became the Jōmon, and that their features can be seen in the Ainu and Ryukyuan people.

The Ryukyuan people are the indigenous peoples of the Ryukyu Islands between the islands of Kyushu and Taiwan. Although unrecognized, Ryukyuans constitute the largest ethnolinguistic minority group in Japan.

They are not a recognized minority group in Japan, as Japanese authorities consider them just a subgroup of the Japanese people, akin to the Yamato people and Ainu.

Their languages make up the Ryukyuan languages, considered to be one of the two branches of the Japonic language family, the other being Japanese and its dialects.

Currently (2019) it is not known what language or languages were spoken during the Jomon period. Suggested languages are: The Ainu language, Japonic languages, Tungusic languages, Austronesian languages, Paleosiberian languages or unknown and today extinct languages.

It is thought that the haplogroups D1b and C1a1 were frequent in Jōmon people. Haplogroup D1b is found in about 38% and haplogroup C1a1 in about 10% of modern Japanese people.

Haplogroup D-M174 is common in modern Japanese, Tibetans, Pumi, Nakhi and Andamanese tribes. A medium distribution of haplogroup D is also found in Central Asia and other minority groups in southern China.

Haplogroup C1a1 is found in Jomon people, modern Japanese, Paleolithic and Neolithic Europe. It is suggested that it reached Japan via the Korean Peninsula via Altai Mountains from South-west Asia.

The culture of the Jomon people is known as “Jōmon culture”. They used stoneware and pottery, and lived in a pit dwelling. Some elements of modern Japanese culture may come from one or more of the Jomon groups.

The Jōmon pottery is a type of ancient earthenware pottery which was made during the Jōmon period in Japan. The term “Jōmon” means “rope-patterned” in Japanese, describing the patterns that are pressed into the clay.

Japanese are one of the largest ethnic groups in the world. Worldwide, approximately 129 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 125 million are residents of Japan.

Japanese people are a nation and an ethnic group that is native to Japan and makes up 98.5% of the total population of the country. The modern Japanese language includes native Japanese words and a large number of words derived from the Chinese language.

Currently, the most well-regarded theory is that present-day Japanese are descendants of both the indigenous Jōmon people and the immigrant Yayoi people. The Yayoi period is an Iron Age era in the history of Japan traditionally dated 300 BC–300 AD. Since the 1980s, scholars have argued that a period previously classified as a transition from the Jōmon period should be reclassified as Early Yayoi.

The period is named after the neighborhood of Tokyo where archaeologists first uncovered artifacts and features from that era. Distinguishing characteristics of the Yayoi period include the appearance of new Yayoi pottery styles and the start of an intensive rice agriculture in paddy fields.

A hierarchical social class structure dates from this period and has its origin in China. Techniques in metallurgy based on the use of bronze and iron were also introduced from China over Korea to Japan in this period.

The origin of Yayoi culture has long been debated. During the Yayoi period, cultural features from China and Korea arrived in this area at various times over several centuries, and later spread to the south and east. This was a period of mixture between immigrants and the indigenous population, and between new cultural influences and existing practices.

There are many similarities in the remains from the Yayoi and the Jiangsu, an eastern-central coastal province of China. During the earliest Chinese dynasties, the area that is now Jiangsu was far away from the center of Chinese civilization, which was in the northwest Henan; it was home of the Huai Yi, an ancient ethnic group.

During the Zhou dynasty more contact was made, and eventually the state of Wu (centered at Gusu, now Suzhou) appeared as a vassal to the Zhou dynasty in south Jiangsu, one of the many hundreds of states that existed across northern and central China at that time.

Near the end of the Spring and Autumn period, Wu became a great power under King Helu of Wu, and defeated in 484 BC the state of Qi, a major power in the north in modern-day Shandong province, and contest for the position of overlord over all states of China.

The state of Wu was subjugated in 473 BC by the state of Yue, another state that had emerged to the south in modern-day Zhejiang province. Yue was in turn subjugated by the powerful state of Chu from the west in 333 BC. Eventually the state of Qin swept away all the other states, and unified China in 221 BC.

The rulers of the State of Wu had the surname Ji, the same as the Zhou royal family. The Zhou dynasty was a Chinese dynasty that followed the Shang dynasty and preceded the Qin dynasty.

The military control of China by the royal house, surnamed Ji, lasted initially from 1046 until 771 BC for a period known as the Western Zhou and the political sphere of influence it created continued well into Eastern Zhou for another 500 years.

The Yayoi followed the Jōmon period and Yayoi culture flourished in a geographic area from southern Kyūshū to northern Honshū. Archaeological evidence supports the idea that during this time, an influx of farmers from the Asian continent to Japan absorbed or overwhelmed the native hunter-gatherer population.

According to Hanihara, modern Japanese lineages began with Jōmon people, who moved into the Japanese archipelago during Paleolithic times from their homeland in southeast Asia, followed by a second wave of immigration, from northeast Asia to Japan during the Yayoi period.

Following a population expansion in Neolithic times, these newcomers then found their way to the Japanese archipelago sometime during the Yayoi period.

As a result, admixture was common in the island regions of Kyūshū, Shikoku, and Honshū, but did not prevail in the outlying islands of Okinawa and Hokkaidō, and the Ryukyuan and Ainu people of Jōmon ancestry continued to dominate there.

Mark J. Hudson claims that the main ethnic image of Japanese people was biologically and linguistically formed from 400 BCE to 1,200 CE. Currently, the most well-regarded theory is that present-day Yamato Japanese are descendants of both the indigenous Jōmon people and the immigrant Yayoi people.

A 2017 study on ancient Jōmon aDNA from the Sanganji shell mound in Tōhoku estimated that the modern mainland (Yamato) Japanese inherited <20% of Jōmon peoples’ genomes. The population found to be closest to the Jōmon was the Ainu, followed by the Ryukyuans and then the mainland (Yamato) Japanese.

The Yamato people (also in older literature “Yamato race”) and Wajin (literally “Wa people”) are an East Asian ethnic group and nation native to the Japanese archipelago. The term came to be used around the late 19th century to distinguish the settlers of mainland Japan from minority ethnic groups who have settled the peripheral areas of Japan.

The ethnic groups include the Ainu, Ryukyuans, Nivkh, Oroks, as well as Koreans, Taiwanese, and Taiwanese aborigines who were incorporated into the Empire of Japan in the early 20th century.

People of Yamato Province incorporated native Japanese as well as Chinese and Korean migrants. Clan leaders also elevated their own belief system that featured ancestor worship into a national religion known as Shinto.

The name was applied to the Imperial House of Japan or “Yamato Court” that existed in Japan in the 4th century, and was originally the name of the region where the Yamato people first settled in Yamato Province (modern-day Nara Prefecture).

Generations of Japanese historians, linguists, and archeologists have debated whether the word is related to the earlier Yamatai. The Yamato clan set up Japan’s first and only dynasty.

Yamatai-koku or Yamato-koku (c. 1st century – c. 3rd century) is the Sino-Japanese name of an ancient country in Wa (Japan) during the late Yayoi period (c. BC 300 – c. 300 AD).

In the 6th century, the Yamato dynasty founded a state modeled on the Chinese states of Sui and Tang, the center of East Asian political influence at the time. As the Yamato influence expanded, their Old Japanese language became the common spoken language.

The earliest textual references to Japan are in Chinese classic texts. Wa (“Japan, Japanese”, from Chinese Wō or Wa) is the oldest recorded name of Japan.

Possibly the earliest record of Wō “Japan” occurs in the Shan Hai Jing “Classic of Mountains and Seas”. The textual dating of this collection of geographic and mythological legends is uncertain, but estimatas range from 300 BCE to 250 CE. Within the official Chinese dynastic Twenty-Four Histories, Japan is mentioned among the so-called Dongyi “Eastern Barbarians”.

The Chinese as well as Korean and Japanese scribes regularly wrote it in reference to Yamato (ancient Japanese nation) with the Chinese character until the 8th century, when the Japanese replaced it with “harmony, peace, balance.”

Goddess Nina

Lagash

Lagash (modern Al-Hiba) is an ancient city located northwest of the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers and east of Uruk, about 22 kilometres (14 mi) east of the modern town of Ash Shatrah, Iraq. Lagash was one of the oldest cities of the Ancient Near East.

From inscriptions found at Girsu such as the Gudea cylinders, it appears that Lagash was an important Sumerian city in the late 3rd millennium BC. It was at that time ruled by independent kings, Ur-Nanshe (24th century BC) and his successors, who were engaged in contests with the Elamites on the east and the kings of Kienĝir and Kish on the north.

Some of the earlier works from before the Akkadian conquest are also extremely interesting, in particular Eanatum’s Stele of the Vultures and Entemena’s great silver vase ornamented with Ningirsu’s sacred animal Anzu: a lion-headed eagle with wings outspread, grasping a lion in each talon.

With the Akkadian conquest Lagash lost its independence, its ruler or ensi becoming a vassal of Sargon of Akkad and his successors; but Lagash continued to be a city of much importance and above all, a centre of artistic development.

After the collapse of Sargon’s state, Lagash again thrived under its independent kings (ensis), Ur-Baba and Gudea, and had extensive commercial communications with distant realms. According to one estimate, Lagash was the largest city in the world from c. 2075 to 2030 BC.

According to his own records, Gudea brought cedars from the Amanus and Lebanon mountains in Syria, diorite from eastern Arabia, copper and gold from central and southern Arabia, while his armies were engaged in battles with Elam on the east.

His was especially the era of artistic development. We even have a fairly good idea of what Gudea looked like, since he placed in temples throughout his city numerous statues or idols depicting himself with lifelike realism.

At the time of Gudea, the capital of Lagash was actually in Girsu. The kingdom covered an area of approximately 1,600 square kilometres (620 sq mi). It contained 17 larger cities, eight district capitals, and numerous villages (about 40 known by name).

Soon after the time of Gudea, Lagash was absorbed into the Ur III state as one of its prime provinces. There is some information about the area during the Old Babylonian period. After that it seems to have lost its importance; at least we know nothing more about it until the construction of the Seleucid fortress mentioned, when it seems to have become part of the Greek kingdom of Characene.

Girsu

Nearby Girsu at the site of modern Tell Telloh, Dhi Qar Governorate, Iraq, about 25 km (16 mi) northwest of Lagash, was the religious center of the Lagash state. Girsu was possibly inhabited in the Ubaid period (5300-4800 BC), but significant levels of activity began in the Early Dynastic period (2900-2335 BC).

From inscriptions found at Girsu such as the Gudea cylinders, it appears that Lagash was an important Sumerian city in the late 3rd millennium BC. At the time of Gudea, during the Second Dynasty of Lagash, Girsu became the capital of the Lagash kingdom and continued to be its religious center after political power had shifted to city of Lagash.

During the Ur III period, Girsu was a major administrative center for the empire. After the fall of Ur, Girsu declined in importance, but remained inhabited until approximately 200 BC.

It’s main temple was the E-Ninnu, dedicated to the god Ningirsu, also known as Ninurta, an ancient Mesopotamian god associated with farming, healing, hunting, law, scribes, and war who was first worshipped in early Sumer.

Ninurta was worshipped in Mesopotamia as early as the middle of the third millennium BC by the ancient Sumerians, and is one of the earliest attested deities in the region. His main cult center was the Eshumesha temple in the Sumerian city-state of Nippur, where he was worshipped as the god of agriculture and the son of the chief-god Enlil.

In the earliest records, he is a god of agriculture and healing, who releases humans from sickness and the power of demons. In later times, as Mesopotamia grew more militarized, he became a warrior deity, though he retained many of his earlier agricultural attributes. He continued to be seen as a healer and protector, and he was commonly invoked in spells to protect against demons, disease, and other dangers.

Though they may have originally been separate deities, in historical times, the god Ninĝirsu, who was worshipped in the Sumerian city-state of Girsu, was always identified as a local form of Ninurta. Ninĝirsu was honored by King Gudea of Lagash (ruled 2144–2124 BC), who rebuilt Ninĝirsu’s temple in Lagash. As the city-state of Girsu declined in importance, Ninĝirsu became increasingly known as “Ninurta”

Nina

The ancient site of Nina (modern Surghul) is around 10 km (6.2 mi) away and marks the southern limit of the state. The tell Surghul was inhabited from the period of Ubaid, around 5000 BC, until the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC.

A Tello brick with the text: « For Nina (the goddess), Gudea, Lagash’s patési, do all that is right: In Nina, her beloved city, her temple Sirara, which rises higher than the others, he built» shows that Sirara is the name of the temple, while Nina is both the name of the goddess and of the town. However, specialists consider that the reading of the hieroglyphs is uncertain as regards the designation of the city, “Nigin” is prefer to “Nina”.

15 bricks and 11 cones covered with hieroglyphs were exhumed there. They advanced the knowledge of the places. Indeed, the writings commemorate, as was usual at this time, the construction of the temple Sirara for the goddess Nanshe (or Nina) by Gudea of Lagash.

Nanshe was the daughter of Enki (god of wisdom, magic and water) and the earth and mother goddess Ninhursag. According to tradition, Enki organized the universe and placed her in charge of fish and fishing.

Nanshe was also described as a divine soothsayer and dream interpreter. Although at times overshadowed by her sister Inanna (Akkadian: Ishtar), Nanshe was, nevertheless, important in her own geographic area, and many rulers of Lagash record that they were chosen by her.

She was a goddess of social justice, prophecy, fertility and fishing. Like her father, she was heavily associated with water. She held dominion over the Persian Gulf and all the animals within. Her seat of power was the Sirara temple, located in the city of Nina. Her consort was Nindara.

Nanshe has two major symbols, both of which are also seen in Christian folklore. The fish represents her original role as a water and fishing goddess. The pelican, said in folklore to rip open its own chest to feed its young, represents her role as a protector and caregiver.

Ninevhe

Nineveh (Akkadian: URUNI.NU.A Ninua) was an ancient Assyrian city of Upper Mesopotamia, located on the outskirts of Mosul in modern-day northern Iraq. It is located on the eastern bank of the Tigris River, and was the capital of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Today it is a common name for the half of Mosul which lies on the eastern bank of the Tigris.

Nineveh was one of the oldest and greatest cities in antiquity. The area was settled as early as 6000 BC during the late Neolithic. The deep sounding at Nineveh uncovered layers now dated to early Hassuna culture period. By 3000 BC, the area had become an important religious center for the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar.

The original meaning of the name is unclear but may have referred to a patron goddess. The English placename Nineveh comes from Latin Ninive and Septuagint Greek Nineuḗ under influence of the Biblical Hebrew Nīnewēh, from the Akkadian Ninua (var. Ninâ) or Old Babylonian Ninuwā.

The cuneiform for Ninâ is a fish within a house (cf. Aramaic nuna, “fish”). This may have simply intended “Place of Fish” or may have indicated a goddess associated with fish or the Tigris, possibly originally of Hurrian origin. The city was later said to be devoted to “the goddess Ishtar of Nineveh” and Nina was one of the Sumerian and Assyrian names of that goddess.

Goddess Nina

A very ancient mother Goddess figure in Mesopotamia, Nina has many powers, including healing, herb magic, dream interpretation, magic and meditation, cooperation and helping civilization along when needed. Her symbols are lions, fish and serpents (Her sacred animals).

Nina is another name of the Goddess Inanna. Nina, in Assyro-Babylonian mythology, was the daughter of Ea, the god of water, wisdom and technical skill.  Nina is also the Goddess [of] Ninevah, the capital city of ancient Assyria.

Nowhere else is this more true than in the case of The Oldest One, Serpent Goddess of the Oracles, Mistress of Unfathomable Decrees, Interpreter of Dreams, Prophetess of Deities, Queen Nina, or, if you prefer, Nana, of the Sumerians. However, because Nin prefixes many goddesses’ names (some researchers have even translated nin to mean goddess.

The list of her other names doesn’t stop there: In the cities of Harran and Ur, they called her Ningal or Nikkal; in Nippur, Ninlil; and, at the shrine at Al Ubaid, she was Ninhursag. When spoken of in conjunction with Nammu and the myth of the formation of the people of the Earth, she was Ninmah.

The Goddess Nina has been described as She who assigned the destinies of lives while swimming as a fish, and it was also said that … the sacred sign that spelled Her name [was] the same as the sign of the City of Nineveh…

In her capacity as Comforter of Orphans, Caretaker of the Elderly and the Ill, Shelterer of the Homeless and Feeder of the Hungry, She was called Nanshe; on the plains of Khafajah, Ninti or Nintu; on the Isle of Dilmun, Nin Sikil.

When she provided: healing herbs, Ninkarrak, Gula or Bau; dream interpretation, Ninsun or Ninsunna; beer and wine for holy rites, Ninkasi, or, as She arose from the deep waters of the primordial sea, simply: Ama Gal Dingir, the Mother Great Goddess.

Closely related to Nina, too, is the Babylonian “Great Mother of the Sea”, Tiamat (although the epic, Enuma Elish appears to be the only piece of literature that survives containing any reference to a goddess specifically by that name).

The mermaid

The legends of the existence of aquatic creatures that are half-human and half-fish have their roots in the dim and distant past. The word mermaid is a compound of the Old English mere (sea), and maid (a girl or young woman). The male equivalent of the mermaid is the merman, also a familiar figure in folklore and heraldry.

Mermaids appear in the folklore of many cultures worldwide, including the Near East, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Depictions of entities with the tails of fish, but upper bodies of human beings appear in Mesopotamian artwork from the Old Babylonian Period onwards. These figures are usually mermen, but mermaids do occasionally appear.

The name for the mermaid figure may have been kuliltu, meaning “fish-woman”. Such figures were used in Neo-Assyrian art as protective figures and were shown in both monumental sculpture and in small, protective figurines.

Atargatis

The first known mermaid stories appeared in ancient Assyria c. 1000 BC, in which the goddess Atargatis or Ataratheh, the chief goddess of northern Syria in Classical antiquity and mother of Assyrian queen Semiramis, transformed herself into a mermaid out of shame for accidentally killing her human lover.

The earliest representations of Atargatis showed her as a fish with a human head and arm, similar to the Babylonian god Enki. However, she loved a mortal (a shepherd) and unintentionally killed him. Ashamed, she jumped into a lake and took the form of a fish, but the waters would not conceal her divine beauty. Thereafter, she took the form of a mermaid.

She has been called “the great mistress of the North Syrian lands”. The Greeks recognized Atargatis under the name Derketo. Ctesias also used the name Derketo for her, and the Romans called her Dea Syria, or in one word Deasura.

Her chief sanctuary was at Hierapolis, modern Manbij, northeast of Aleppo, Syria. She is sometimes described as a mermaid-goddess, due to identification of her with a fish-bodied goddess at Ascalon. However, there is no evidence that Atargatis was worshipped at Ascalon, and all iconographic evidence shows her as anthropomorphic.

Her epithets included “Pure,” “Virgin,” “Savior,” and “Mother of the Gods”, and her iconography connected her particularly to Cybele, the Great Mother. Like her, Atargatis was often depicted riding or accompanied by a lion. Often she sat on a throne flanked by two sphinxes or two lions.

Primarily she was a goddess of fertility, but, as the baalat (“mistress”) of her city and people, she was also responsible for their protection and well-being. Her consort is usually Hadad. As Ataratheh, doves and fish were considered sacred to her: doves as an emblem of the Love-Goddess, and fish as symbolic of the fertility and life of the waters.

Her headdress was usually topped by a crescent moon and draped with a veil. In her hands she carried various objects: a plate or cup, a scepter or staff, and ears of grain, but most often she held a spindle and a mirror.

Sometimes doves or fish were near or actually on her. In some places Atargatis was associated with dolphins. At other places, the eight-pointed star emphasized her association with the planet Venus.

The name Atargatis derives from the Aramaic form ʿAtarʿatheh, which comes in several variants. It has also been proposed that the element -gatis may relate to the Greek gados “fish”. (For example, the Greek name for “sea monster” or “whale” is the cognate term ketos). So Atar-Gatis may simply mean “the fish-goddess Atar”.

The goddess Atargatis maintained a presence at the temple of Ascalon on the Mediterranean Coast, famous for its dove cotes and as a shrine of oracular prophesy. Whether Atargatis came ashore from the Mediterranean at Ascalon, or was born of the waters of the Tigris, is a matter for debate. That she bore a daughter who walked on two feet, Shammuramat, is not. Also, it is known that upon her altars, her priestesses and devotees sacrificed to her fish.

Atargatis is considered to be quite possibly connected to the early Sumerian images of Nina or Nammu because of her association with the city of Nineveh (on the Tigris River) and her primary image as a goddess of the sea — depicted with the tail of a fish.

The snake and the feminine principle

In the Sumerian goddesses’ family tree, we find Nammu, whose sign is identical to that used for ”the sea”. As a dragon she is linked with Tiamat. The Sumerian goddess Nidaba is symbolized as a serpent or woman with a serpent’s tail. The close association between the ancient “Mother Goddess” religion and the symbol of the fish is undeniable.

Throughout history the connection between the snake and the feminine principle has been profound and intimate. From east to west, serpents have always tempted, personified, accompanied, awakened, transformed, and empowered women and goddesses.

This accounts from Eve to the Serpent Lady of Ashtoreth and Kadesh. From Ishtar, the Babylonian Lady of Vision to the Serpent Goddess of Crete, from Kebhut, the goddess of freshness who played a part in Egyptian funerary ceremonies to the asp that transported Cleopatra to the afterlife, from Greece’s ancient Earth Mother Gaea to the Golden Age’s Queen, Hera, and her step-daughter Athena, goddess of wisdom.

A snake is one of the most versatile of all creatures. It can live in the ground or in a tree, in the desert or in the water, but it is primarily considered a chthonic creature, i.e. as pertaining to the earth and the spirits of the underworld.

This accounts for its association with the physical death of the body; however, because it periodically sheds its skin and emerges as if reborn, it is also seen as a symbol of transformation and the perpetual capacity for renewal.

Those goddesses that are described as having a connection to serpents include Lilith, known in the Epic of Gilgamesh as having lived within the huluppu tree, around which a serpent did entwine, Amo Usum Gal Ana, also known as “Great Mother Serpent of Heaven” and “Indunna’s Eye”, and Bealat, known in prayers that invoked her as “The Serpent Lady”.

Later, when invaders with a more patriarchal-centered society conquered the goddess-worshipping Middle East, she and her symbol were reduced to the respective roles of dupe and trickster (i.e., Eve and the Serpent) and “cast out”– eventually to be buried, completely, in the shifting sands of time…

This apostasy of the formerly matriarchal theology is well-illustrated in the legend of the mythical murder of Tiamat by Marduk. In that myth, the reptilian goddess is killed by the strong king and her body made into the heavens and the earth.

Tiamat possessed the Tablet of Destinies and in the primordial battle she gave them to Kingu, the deity she had chosen as her lover and the leader of her host, and who was also one of her children.

The deities gathered in terror, but Anu, first extracting a promise that he would be revered as “king of the gods”, overcame her, armed with the arrows of the winds, a net, a club, and an invincible spear. Anu later became replaced by the god Enlil and in the late version that has survived after the First Dynasty of Babylon by Marduk, the son of Ea.

Slicing Tiamat in half, he made from her ribs the vault of heaven and earth. Her weeping eyes became the source of the Tigris and the Euphrates, her tail became the Milky Way. With the approval of the elder deities, he took from Kingu the Tablet of Destinies, installing himself as the head of the Babylonian pantheon.

Kingu was captured and later was slain: his red blood mixed with the red clay of the Earth would make the body of humankind, created to act as the servant of the younger Igigi deities.

The principal theme of the epic is the justified elevation of Marduk to command over all the deities. “It has long been realized that the Marduk epic, for all its local coloring and probable elaboration by the Babylonian theologians, reflects in substance older Sumerian material,” The exact Sumerian prototype, however, has not turned up so far.

This surmise that the Babylonian version of the story is based upon a modified version of an older epic, in which Enlil, not Marduk, was the god who slew Tiamat, is more recently dismissed as “distinctly improbable”. In fact, Marduk has no precise Sumerian prototype.

It is generally accepted amongst modern Assyriologists that the Enûma Elish, the Babylonian creation epic to which this mythological strand is attributed, was written as political and religious propaganda rather than reflecting a Sumerian tradition.

The dating of the epic is not completely clear, but judging from the mythological topics covered and the cuneiform versions discovered thus far, it is likely to date to the 15th century BC.

Astarte

Atargatis is seen as a continuation of Bronze Age goddesses. These shared many traits with each other and may have been worshipped in conjunction or separately during 1500 years of cultural history.

In many cases Atargatis, ‘Ashtart, and other goddesses who once had independent cults and mythologies became fused to such an extent as to be indistinguishable. Not unnaturally she is identified with the Greek Aphrodite.

At Ugarit, cuneiform tablets attest the three great Canaanite goddesses: ʾAṭirat, described as a fecund “Lady Goddess of the Sea” and identified with Asherah, the war-like virgin goddess ʿAnat, and the goddess of love ʿAțtart, the namesake of the Phoenician goddess ʿAštart, called Astarte in Greek.

Some 58 miles south of Nineveh, evidence of a goddess named Asherah was found at a temple later renamed for Ishtar. The Imagery of Asherah, as suggested in the tablets of Ugarit, is reminiscent of the traditions of the traditions of Atargatis — as Asherah is called “the Goddess Who Walks the Sea”.

Linked with Atargatis by the location of her temple upon the Euphrates River, in the Syrian holy city of Hieropolis, was the goddess Ashtart, “The Ancient Serpent Lady”, and Astarte, who is depicted with snakes coiled about her neck.

Ashtart was said to have fallen from the sky into the water linked, herself, with the holy one of the sea (probably Nina) at the sacred lake of Heiropolis where her pilgrims bathed near to an altar stone [which] rose out of the center of the water, with fish glowing with golden lines swimming all about them.

Astarte is the Hellenized form of the Middle Eastern goddess Astoreth (Northwest Semitic), a form of Ishtar (East Semitic), worshipped from the Bronze Age through classical antiquity. The name is particularly associated with her worship in the ancient Levant among the Canaanites and Phoenicians.

She was also celebrated in Egypt following the importation of Levantine cults there. The name Astarte is sometimes also applied to her cults in Mesopotamian cultures like Assyria and Babylonia.

Some ancient sources assert that in the territory of Sidon the temple of Astarte was sacred to Europa. According to an old Cretan story, Europa was a Phoenician princess whom Zeus, having transformed himself into a white bull, abducted, and carried to Crete.

Some scholars claim that the cult of the Minoan snake goddess who is identified with Ariadne (the “utterly pure”) was similar to the cult of Astarte. Her cult as Aphrodite was transmitted to Cythera and then to Greece.

Herodotus wrote that the religious community of Aphrodite originated in Phoenicia and came to Greeks from there. He also wrote about the world’s largest temple of Aphrodite, in one of the Phoenician cities.

Inanna

Inanna is an ancient Mesopotamian goddess associated with love, beauty, sex, desire, fertility, war, justice, and political power. Her husband was the god Dumuzid (later known as Tammuz) and her sukkal, or personal attendant, was the goddess Ninshubur (who later became the male deity Papsukkal).

She was originally worshipped in Sumer and was later worshipped by the Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians under the name Ishtar. She was known as the “Queen of Heaven” and was the patron goddess of the Eanna temple at the city of Uruk, which was her main cult center. She was associated with the planet Venus and her most prominent symbols included the lion and the eight-pointed star.

Inanna appears in more myths than any other Sumerian deity. Many of her myths involve her taking over the domains of other deities. She was believed to have stolen the mes, which represented all positive and negative aspects of civilization, from Enki, the god of wisdom. She was also believed to have taken over the Eanna temple from An, the god of the sky. Alongside her twin brother Utu (later known as Shamash), Inanna was the enforcer of divine justice.

Inanna-Ishtar’s most famous myth is the story of her descent into and return from Kur, the ancient Sumerian Underworld, a myth in which she attempts to conquer the domain of her older sister Ereshkigal, the queen of the Underworld, but is instead deemed guilty of hubris by the seven judges of the Underworld and struck dead.

Three days later, Ninshubur pleads with all the gods to bring Inanna back, but all of them refuse her except Enki, who sends two sexless beings to rescue Inanna. They escort Inanna out of the Underworld, but the galla, the guardians of the Underworld, drag her husband Dumuzid down to the Underworld as her replacement. Dumuzid is eventually permitted to return to heaven for half the year while his sister Geshtinanna remains in the Underworld for the other half, resulting in the cycle of the seasons.

Inanna was worshipped in Sumer at least as early as the Uruk period (c. 4000 BC – c. 3100 BC), but she had little cult prior to the conquest of Sargon of Akkad. During the post-Sargonic era, she became one of the most widely venerated deities in the Sumerian pantheon, with temples across Mesopotamia.

The cult of Inanna-Ishtar, which may have been associated with a variety of sexual rites, including homosexual transvestite priests and sacred prostitution, was continued by the East Semitic-speaking people who succeeded the Sumerians in the region. She was especially beloved by the Assyrians, who elevated her to become the highest deity in their pantheon, ranking above their own national god Ashur.

Inanna-Ishtar is alluded to in the Hebrew Bible and she greatly influenced the Phoenician goddess Astarte, who later influenced the development of the Greek goddess Aphrodite. Her cult continued to flourish until its gradual decline between the first and sixth centuries AD in the wake of Christianity, though it survived in parts of Upper Mesopotamia as late as the eighteenth century.

Pisces

Inanna in her aspect as Anunītu was associated with the eastern fish of the last of the zodiacal constellations, Pisces. Her consort Dumuzi was associated with the contiguous first constellation, Aries.

Pisces (Ancient Greek: Ikhthyes) is the twelfth astrological sign in the Zodiac. It spans 330° to 360° of celestial longitude. Under the tropical zodiac the sun transits this area between February 19 and March 20. In Sidereal astrology, the Sun currently transits the constellation of Pisces from approximately March 12 to April 18.

Pisces is a dim constellation located next to Aquarius, and Aries. While the astrological sign Pisces per definition runs from ecliptical longitude 330° to 0, this position is now mostly covered by the constellation of Aquarius, due to the precession from when the constellation and the sign coincided.

Pisces originates from some composition of the Babylonian constellations Šinunutu “the great swallow” in current western Pisces, and Anunitum the “Lady of the Heaven”, at the place of the northern fish. In the first-millennium BC texts known as the Astronomical Diaries, part of the constellation was also called DU.NU.NU (Rikis-nu.mi, “the fish cord or ribbon”).

Pisces is associated with Aphrodite and Eros, who escaped from the monster Typhon by leaping into the sea and transforming themselves into fish. In order not to lose each other, they tied themselves together with rope. The Romans adopted the Greek legend, with Venus and Cupid acting as the counterparts for Aphrodite and Eros. The knot of the rope is marked by Alpha Piscium (α Psc), also called Al-Rischa (“the cord” in Arabic).

In classical interpretations, the symbol of the fish is derived from the ichthyocentaurs, who aided Aphrodite when she was born from the sea. According to one Greek myth, Pisces represents the fish, sometimes represented by koi fish, into which Aphrodite (also considered Venus) and her son Eros (also considered Cupid) transformed in order to escape the monster Typhon. Typhon, the “father of all monsters,” had been sent by Gaia to attack the gods, which led Pan to warn the others before himself changing into a goat-fish and jumping into the Euphrates.

A similar myth, one in which the fish “Pisces” carry Aphrodite and her son out of danger, is resounded in Manilius’ five volume poetic work Astronomica: “Venus ow’d her safety to their Shape.” Another myth is that an egg fell into the Euphrates river. It was then rolled to the shore by fish. Doves sat on the egg until it hatched, out from which came Aphrodite. As a sign of gratitude towards the fish, Aphrodite put the fish into the night sky.

Because of these myths, the Pisces constellation was also known as “Venus et Cupido,” “Venus Syria cum Cupidine,” “Venus cum Adone,” “Dione,” and “Veneris Mater,” the latter being the formal Latin term for mother. Divine associations with Pisces include Poseidon/Neptune, Christ, Aphrodite, Eros, Typhon, Vishnu and the Sumerian goddess Inanna.

Armenia is a country in the highlands surrounding the mountains of Ararat with an ancient cultural heritage. Located in Western Asia on the Armenian Highlands, it is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia to the north, the de facto independent Republic of Artsakh and Azerbaijan to the east, and Iran and Azerbaijan’s exclave of Nakhchivan to the south.

The Halaf culture is a prehistoric period which lasted between about 6100 BC and 5100 BC. The Halaf period was succeeded by the Halaf-Ubaid Transitional period which comprised the late Halaf (c. 5400-5000 BC), and then by the Ubaid period.

The Halaf period is a continuous development out of the earlier Pottery Neolithic and is located primarily in south-eastern Turkey, Syria, and northern Iraq, although Halaf-influenced material is found throughout Greater Mesopotamia.

The Hassuna culture is a Neolithic archaeological culture in northern Mesopotamia dating to 6000 BC. It is named after the type site of Tell Hassuna in Iraq. Other sites where Hassuna material has been found include Tell Shemshara.

The Shulaveri-Shomu culture is dated to mid-6th or early-5th millennia BC and is thought to be one of the earliest known Neolithic cultures. Archaeological surveys in 2010 and 2011 at the Areni-1 cave complex have resulted in the discovery of the world’s earliest known leather shoe, skirt, and wine-producing facility.

Many of the characteristic traits of the Shulaverian material culture (circular mudbrick architecture, pottery decorated by plastic design, anthropomorphic female figurines, obsidian industry with an emphasis on production of long prismatic blades) are believed to have their origin in the Near Eastern Neolithic (Hassuna, Halaf).

The technology and typology of bone-based instruments are similar to those of the Near East Neolithic material culture. The similarities between the macrolithic tools and the use of ochre also bring Shulaveri-Shomu culture closer to the culture of Halaf. Pestles and mortars found in Shulaveri-Shomu sites and Late Neolithic layers of Tell Sabi Abyad in Syria are also similar to each other.

Previously, the Syrian plains were not considered as the homeland of Halaf culture, and the Halafians were seen either as hill people who descended from the nearby mountains of southeastern Anatolia, or herdsmen from northern Iraq.

However, those views changed with the recent archaeology conducted since 1986 by Peter Akkermans, which have produced new insights and perspectives about the rise of Halaf culture.

A formerly unknown transitional culture between the pre-Halaf Neolithic’s era and Halaf’s era was uncovered in the Balikh valley, at Tell Sabi Abyad (the Mound of the White Boy).

Currently, eleven occupational layers have been unearthed in Sabi Abyad. Levels from 11 to 7 are considered pre-Halaf; from 6 to 4, transitional; and from 3 to 1, early Halaf. No hiatus in occupation is observed except between levels 11 and 10.

The new archaeology demonstrated that Halaf culture was not sudden and was not the result of foreign people, but rather a continuous process of indigenous cultural changes in northern Syria, that spread to the other regions.

There is evidence of an early civilisation in Armenia in the Bronze Age and earlier, dating to about 4000 BC. Aratta is a land that appears in Sumerian myths surrounding Enmerkar and Lugalbanda, two early and possibly mythical kings of Uruk also mentioned on the Sumerian king list.

It has been suggested by early 20th century Armenologists that Old Persian Armina and the Greek Armenoi are continuations of an Assyrian toponym Armânum or Armanî.

There are certain Bronze Age records identified with the toponym in both Mesopotamian and Egyptian sources. The earliest is from an inscription which mentions Armânum together with Ibla as territories conquered by Naram-Sin of Akkad in c. 2250 BC.

Urartu (Ararat) was established in 860 BC and by the 6th century BC it was replaced by the Satrapy of Armenia. In the trilingual Behistun Inscription, carved in 521 or 520 BC by the order of Darius I, the country referred to as Urartu in Akkadian is called Arminiya in Old Persian and Harminuia in the Elamite language.

A large cuneiform lapidary inscription found in Yerevan established that the modern capital of Armenia was founded in the summer of 782 BC by King Argishti I. The Kingdom of Armenia reached its height under Tigranes the Great in the 1st century BC and became the first state in the world to adopt Christianity as its official religion in the late 3rd or early 4th century AD. The official date of state adoption of Christianity is 301.

The ancient Armenian kingdom was split between the Byzantine and Sasanian Empires around the early 5th century. Under the Bagratuni dynasty, the Bagratid Kingdom of Armenia was restored in the 9th century.

Declining due to the wars against the Byzantines, the kingdom fell in 1045 and Armenia was soon after invaded by the Seljuk Turks. The Battle of Manzikert was fought between the Byzantine Empire and the Seljuk Empire on 26 August 1071 near Manzikert, theme of Iberia (modern Malazgirt in Muş Province, Turkey).

Although the Byzantine Empire had remained strong and powerful in the Middle Ages, it began to decline under the reign of the militarily incompetent Constantine IX and again under Constantine X.

About 1053 Constantine IX disbanded what the historian John Skylitzes calls the “Iberian Army”, which consisted of 50,000 men. By demobilizing these soldiers Constantine did catastrophic harm to the Empire’s eastern defenses.

Constantine made a truce with the Seljuks that lasted until 1064, but a large Seljuk army under Alp Arslan attacked the theme of Iberia and took Ani; after a siege of 25 days, they captured the city and slaughtered its population.

Muhammad bin Dawud Chaghri was the second Sultan of the Seljuk Empire and great-grandson of Seljuk, the eponymous founder of the dynasty. As Sultan, Alp Arslan greatly expanded Seljuk territory and consolidated power, defeating rivals to his south and northwest.

His victory over the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 ushered in the Turkish settlement of Anatolia. For his military prowess and fighting skills he obtained the name Alp Arslan, which means “Heroic Lion” in Turkish.

Between 961 and 1045, it was the capital of the Bagratid Armenian kingdom that covered much of present-day Armenia and eastern Turkey. At its height, Ani was one of the biggest cities in the world, and its population was probably on the order of 100,000.

Called the “City of 1001 Churches”, Ani stood on various trade routes and its many religious buildings, palaces, and fortifications were amongst the most technically and artistically advanced structures in the world.

Ani is a widely recognized cultural, religious, and national heritage symbol for Armenians. According to Razmik Panossian, Ani is one of the most visible and ‘tangible’ symbols of past Armenian greatness and hence a source of pride.

The city took its name from the Armenian fortress-city and pagan center of Ani-Kamakh located in the region of Daranaghi in Upper Armenia. Ani was also the diminutive name of ancient Armenian goddess Anahit who was seen as the mother-protector of Armenia.

The fallout from Manzikert was disastrous for the Byzantines, resulting in civil conflicts and an economic crisis that severely weakened the Byzantine Empire’s ability to adequately defend its borders. This led to the mass movement of Turks into central Anatolia.

The decisive defeat of the Byzantine army and the capture of the Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes played an important role in undermining Byzantine authority in Anatolia and Armenia, and allowed for the gradual Turkification of Anatolia.

It was the first time in history a Byzantine Emperor had become the prisoner of a Muslim commander. Many of the Turks, who had been, during the 11th century, travelling westward, saw the victory at Manzikert as an entrance to Asia Minor.

In antiquity, Cilicia was the south coastal region of Asia Minor and existed as a political entity from Hittite times into the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia during the late Byzantine Empire.

Extending inland from the southeastern coast of modern Turkey, Cilicia is due north and northeast of the island of Cyprus and corresponds to the modern region of Çukurova in Turkey.

The Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, also known as the Cilician Armenia, Lesser Armenia, or New Armenia, was an independent principality formed during the High Middle Ages by Armenian refugees fleeing the Seljuq invasion of Armenia.

Located outside the Armenian Highland and distinct from the Armenian Kingdom of antiquity, it was centered in the Cilicia region northwest of the Gulf of Alexandretta.

The kingdom had its origins in the principality founded c. 1080 by the Rubenid dynasty, an alleged offshoot of the larger Bagratid family, which at various times had held the thrones of Armenia and Georgia. Their capital was originally at Tarsus, and later became Sis.

In 1095, Pope Urban II called for the First Crusade in a sermon at the Council of Clermont. He encouraged military support for the Byzantine Empire and its Emperor, Alexios I, who needed reinforcements for his conflict with westward migrating Turks colonizing Anatolia.

One of Urban’s aims was to guarantee pilgrims access to the Eastern Mediterranean holy sites that were under Muslim control but scholars disagree as to whether this was the primary motive for Urban or those who heeded his call.

Urban’s strategy may have been to unite the Eastern and Western branches of Christendom, which had been divided since the East–West Schism of 1054 and to establish himself as head of the unified Church.

The initial success of the Crusade established the first four Crusader states in the Eastern Mediterranean: the County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch, the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the County of Tripoli.

The enthusiastic response to Urban’s preaching from all classes in Western Europe established a precedent for other Crusades. Volunteers became Crusaders by taking a public vow and receiving plenary indulgences from the Church.

Some were hoping for a mass ascension into heaven at Jerusalem or God’s forgiveness for all their sins. Others participated to satisfy feudal obligations, obtain glory and honour or to seek economic and political gain.

Cilicia was a strong ally of the European Crusaders, and saw itself as a bastion of Christendom in the East. It also served as a focus for Armenian nationalism and culture, since Armenia proper was under foreign occupation at the time.

Cilicia’s significance in Armenian history and statehood is also attested by the transfer of the seat of the Catholicos of the Armenian Apostolic Church, spiritual leader of the Armenian people, to the region.

In 1198, with the crowning of Leo the Magnificent of the Rubenid dynasty, Cilician Armenia became a kingdom. In 1226, the crown was passed to rival Hethumids through Leo’s daughter Isabella’s second husband, Hethum I.

As the Mongols conquered vast regions of Central Asia and the Middle East, Hethum and succeeding Hethumid rulers sought to create an Armeno-Mongol alliance against common Muslim foes, most notably the Mamluks.

In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Crusader states and the Mongol Ilkhanate disintegrated, leaving the Armenian Kingdom without any regional allies.

After relentless attacks by the Mamluks in Egypt in the fourteenth century, the Cilician Armenia of the Lusignan dynasty, mired in an internal religious conflict, finally fell in 1375.

Leo V or Levon V (occasionally Levon VI; Levon V; 1342 – 29 November 1393), of the House of Lusignan, a royal house of French origin, was the last Latin king of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia. He ruled from 1374 to 1375.

The House of Lusignan ruled at various times several principalities in Europe and the Levant, including the kingdoms of Jerusalem, Cyprus, and Armenia, from the 12th through the 15th centuries during the Middle Ages. It also had great influence in England and France.

The last king of Cilicia, from the French Lusignan line, found it impossible to withstand the siege on the capital Sis by the Egyptian Mamelukes – a powerful sultanate of the time – less than a year after his own coronation.

He was kept in captivity in Cairo until 1382, when he was ransomed with the generosity of Spanish kings. He was given the title of Chief Magistrate of Madrid, Villareal, and Andujar.

Although nothing much came out of that “Señoria” (“Lordship”) over Madrid, in fact being somewhat controversial for the local population, there still exists a Calle León V de Armenia in the Spanish capital today.

The exiled King Leo spent much of the following years going from court to court in Western Europe. He tried to serve as a diplomat mediating between France and England, in the hopes of leading a drive to liberate Cilicia, without success. He died in 1393.

The remains of the last Armenian king were desecrated during the French Revolution four hundred years later, but his tomb was later relocated to the Basilica of St. Denis, alongside other members of French monarchy, where it rests to this day.

Et mikrokosmos ligger gjemt inni hver og enkel av oss som er identisk med det makrokosmos som vi finner rundt oss. Mytologien omhandler på mange måter det altomfattende univers som befinner seg rundt oss, men handler samtidig om vår indre reise i oss selv.

Kundalini (kuṇḍalinī, som på sanskrit betyr «sammenrullet som en slange», er ifølge tantriske tradisjoner en urenergi som strømmer fra den nederste del av ryggsøylen, (rotchakra) til issen (kronechakra).

En kroppslig energi som for de fleste er en ubevisst, instinktiv og libidinal kraft lokalisert nederst i ryggraden. Den blir forestilt enten som gudinnen Shakti eller som en sovende slange tre og en halv gang omslynget korsbeinet.

Energien kan aktiveres spontant eller ved hjelp av spesielle yoga-teknikker. Når Kundalini-energien vekkes f.eks. gjennom spirituelle øvelser, søker den å stige opp delvis eller fullstendig, gjennom en trang energikanal (sushumna nadi) i ryggsøylen.

Langs sushumna ligger seks energipunkter (chakraer). Når kundalinikraften stiger opp fullstendig igjennom sushumna nadi, aktiveres chakraenes forskjellige energier. Når kundalinienergien stiger helt opp til krone-chakraet (sahasrara) på toppen av hodet, har personen oppnådd spirituell opplysthet eller fullkommenhet, ‘unio mystica’, nirvana eller nirvikalpa samadhi, og man er fri fra karmaets hjul.

Nirvana er en ideell tilstand av ro, harmoni, fred, stabilitet eller glede; det som helt av seg selv er når uro, ufred, forvirring og lidelse opphører. I de indiske religionene betyr nirvāna bokstavelig talt å «dø ut» eller «slukke», og er høydepunktet for yogiens streben etter frigjøring. Hinduisme og jainisme bruker ordet nirvana også for å beskrive en tilstand av moksha, og ordet er omtalt i flere hinduistiske, tantiske tekster foruten Bhagavad Gita.

Nirvana innebærer (i buddhismen) at innbilninger og forutinntatthet, grådighet, hat, lidelse, arroganse og misunnelse – de såkalte sinnsgiftene – utslukkes, det vil si det som binder og styrer menneskesinnet i vanemessige tanke- og handlingsmønstre, og som er den egentlige årsaken til lidelse.

Når sinnsgiftene opphører, forsvinner samtidig årsakene til lidelse. Veien til å realisere denne frigjøringen, nirvana, heter den åttedelte vei. En som har oppnådd Nirvana i dette livet, kan etter sin død velge å bryte ut av samsara og aldri mer bli gjenfødt. Det kalles å gå inn i parinirvana.

Nirvana er ikke sammenlignbart med kristendommens begrep for «himmelen», det vil si et personlig evig liv etter ens fysiske død. Nirvana er derimot den virkeligheten som et menneske som har kvittet seg med sinnsgiftenes illusjoner befinner seg i, noe som er høyst mulig mens man lever.

Buddha omtalte denne endelige tilstanden kun med negasjoner: «Det uskapte», «det ubetingede», «det ufødte», «det udødelige». Det ville være å misoppfatte nirvanas transcendente, absolutte natur å tilskrive det affirmative begrensende egenskaper.

Karma (Sanskrit: kárma, kárman- «gjerning», «handling», «utførelse») betegner filosofien rundt handling, gjerning og kausalitet i indiske religioner. Karma er etter hinduisk tro årsakene bak menneskets plass i livet.

De handlingene et menneske gjør i dette livet vil være med å bestemme hvordan det skal gå i det neste liv. Tanken om at karma opprettholder liv er i Upanishadene kombinert med tanken om gjenfødelse og reinkarnasjon. 

Karma er innen visse religioner og åndelige lærer den virkning som handlinger har på ens nåværende og senere liv. De handlingene et menneske gjør i dette livet, vil være med å bestemme hvordan det skal gå i det neste. Det er først og fremst motivet bak handlingen og selve handlingen som er det viktige.

Motivene bak alt vi gjør, skaper enten god eller dårlig karma. God karma er det samme som frigjøring fra karma. Karma betyr gjerninger, og skapes av tankehandlinger, språkhandlinger eller kroppslige handlinger, men innebærer også konsekvensene av alle disse gjerningene. Frigjøring fra karma skaper et varmt og godt lys rundt et menneske. Den betydningen går igjen i vårt begrep om sjarm.

Ved å gjøre gode gjerninger, kan menneskets sjel – atman – bli ett med brahman (Gud). Krishna regnes som den store frelseren også i hinduismen, den ypperste personlighet som vil sørge for at alle til syvende og sist blir frelst, og som lærer alle mennesker – Pancas Khrishtaya – at alt er godt i Gud.

Buddhistisk karma skiller seg fra hinduistisk karma i det at resultatene av handlingene kommer med en gang, her og nå. Der man i hinduismen snakker om at handlingene (både gode og dårlige) regnes sammen etter ett liv før det avgjøres hva vedkommende skal gjenfødes til, kan man i buddhismen snakke om noe mer liknende en naturlov.

Alle handlinger – det være seg seg aktive handlinger, valgt passivitet eller tanker – setter fra seg karmiske spor i bevisstheten. Disse sporene vil påvirke alle dine fremtidige tanker og handlinger. Men alle kan bryte ut av dette mekaniske handlingsmønsteret. Man kan til en hver tid ta aktiv stilling i sine valg.

Om man klarer å fullstendig bryte løs fra den karmiske mekanikken, når man det stadiet som i buddhismen kalles opplysning, Nirvana og Moksha i hinduismen. Moksha er friheten innen hinduismen. Det betyr det samme som frelse innenfor kristendommen.

Syndsbegrepet i hinduismen (samt buddhismen og jainismen) er forbundet med samsara, også kalt «Livshjulet», som betyr å flyte eller strømme, men som oversettes med gjenfødelse, og fabrikasjonene som utgjør illusjonene i samsara, og karma.

Før en er frigjort fra forurensningene og forvirringen fortsetter en å gjøre ting som binder en til illusjonenes verden og handlingenes kjedereaksjoner. Dette skjer fordi en ikke erkjenner årsakssammenhengene. Derfor blir en gjenfødt i en av de seks eksistensene. Den verste av disse er Helvetene.

I hinduismen omfatter læren om moksha også dem som har havnet i Helvetene. Moksha er frigjøringen fra synd som fører til at en ikke lenger blir bundet til illusjonene som klenger seg til ens oppfattelsesapparat. Moksha kan oppnås ved å dø i den hellige byen Varanasi eller ved yogisk tilbedelse av en Deva / Devi, som betyr gud / gudinne. Yoga betyr forening.

Som universet ellers har denne sirkelen av gjenfødsler ingen begynnelse eller slutt. Hinduene tror at når man dør vandrer sjelen (atman) inn i nye vesener som fødes. Atman dør ikke. Denne sirkelen av tusener av gjenfødelser kaller hinduene samsara.

Det er alle hinduers mål å komme seg ut av samsara, inkarnasjonssyklusen eller reinkarnasjonen, og oppnå moksha. Dog lærer også hinduer om boddhisattva-prinsippet, som innebærer at de som har oppnådd frelsen blir igjen etter opplysningen eller lar seg gjenføde for å hjelpe andre i full kjærlighet.

Shiva (sanskrit: śiva, devanagari: शिव, «lykkebringeren») er en av de høyeste guddommene i hinduismen. Som Nataraja, «dansens herre», frembringer og tilintetgjør han universet. Han regnes ofte som en del av Trimūrti, en guddommelig treenighet hvor Brahmā er skaperen, Vishnu er opprettholderen og Shiva er ødeleggeren.

Shiva er både en fruktbarhetsgud og en gud for askese. Han fremstilles som en yogi som sitter nedsunket i meditasjon, med langt hår og den nakne kroppen oversmurt med aske — et guddommelig forbilde for utøverne av yoga, slik de finnes i India. Gjennom hans hår renner den hellige elven Ganges ned på jorden.

Han framstilles gjerne som en asket som sitter på kremasjonsplassen ustelt, innsmurt med aske og omgitt av slanger. Som et motstykke til den asketiske siden ved hans person er han forbundet med seksualitet og fruktbarhet.

I kunst og mytologi fremstilles han som tronende på Kailasha-fjellet i Tibet, nord for Himalaya, sammen med sin hustru, gudinnen Parvati, som i rituell sammenheng kalles Shakti. Hans kultus knyttes også til gudinnene Kali og Durga. 

Hans symbol, linga, er en symbolsk fremstilling av kjønnsorganet og har form av en fallos. Lingam, som også kan identifiseres med hans stav, blir sagt å strekke seg fra det dypeste dyp til den øverste himmel.

Ifølge hinduisk tantra representerer guddommene Shiva og Shakti universets to grunnprinsipper, det mannlige og det kvinnelige. Symbolske framstillinger av det mannlige organ “lingam” og det kvinnelige “yoni” kan finnes overalt i India.

Tantrisme er en betegnelse for en bred strømning innen hinduismen, deler av buddhismen og andre indiske og tibetanske religiøse og spirituelle tradisjoner, som oppsto på 400-tallet e.vt. og ble stadig mer dominerende, spesielt i ritualer og yoga.

Hinduisk tantrisme bygger på en litteratur utenfor den vediske, som vil si de eldste kjente hellige skrifter i India. De vediske skriftene representerer det eldste stadium av hinduisk religion. De er skrevet på vedisk, som er et indoarisk språk, den eldste kjente form av sanskrit.

Også buddhistisk tantrisme bygger på andre kilder enn de tidlige skolene, medregnet mahayana. Tantrismen gjennomstrømmer buddhismen i Nepal og Tibet. En egen tantrisk retning er shingon-skolen i Japan.

Tantra betegner en type mentale øvelser og ritualer som kan være svært spesifikke og detaljerte, og som utføres som del av åndelig eller religiøs praksis. Det er ikke en filosofi eller en religion i seg selv.

Typiske kjennetegn ved tantra er kompleks symbolbruk som må ses i en helt spesiell kontekst for at den skal gi mening, at hele eller deler av en øvelse holdes hemmelig for uinnvidde, og at korrekt utførelse av øvelsen krever veiledning fra en kvalifisert lærer.

Tantrismen vil fremfor alt være en praktisk metode til å oppnå overnaturlige evner (siddhi) og frelse (moksha). Den forutsetter at den makt som guddommene har, også finnes latent i mennesket og kan vekkes til live og utnyttes ved hjelp av ritualer, meditasjon og yoga-øvelser.

Viktig i tantrismen er tanken at det store kosmos gjenspeiles i mennesket. Tantrismen er derfor ikke asketisk og verdensfornektende, men gjør bruk av kroppen og menneskets lystfølelse. Også språkets fonemer gjenspeiler såvel guddommen som kosmos, og det blir derfor benyttet kraftladede formler (mantra) som blir resitert i forbindelse med ritualer og meditasjon.

I visse tantriske miljøer blir det lagt vekt på ukonvensjonell opptreden, og i ritualene blir flere av den ortodokse religionens moralbud systematisk brutt: det blir drukket alkohol og spist kjøtt, og i sammenheng med ritualene blir kasteskillene opphevet. I visse kretser blir det praktisert rituelt samleie. Læren blir alltid overlevert direkte fra mester (guru) til elev, og det har blitt lagt vekt på at den skal holdes hemmelig.

Ifølge hinduisk tantra representerer guddommene Shiva og Shakti universets to grunnprinsipper, det mannlige og det kvinnelige. Symbolske framstillinger av det mannlige organ “lingam” og det kvinnelige “yoni” kan finnes overalt i India.

Gudens shakti, «kraft», betraktes som kvinnelig og blir tilbedt som den store Gudinnen. «Kraften» finnes også i mennesket, slumrende nederst i ryggsøylen (ikonografisk fremstilles den som en oppkveilet slange, kundalini). Ved hjelp av yoga-øvelser kan den vekkes til live og gjennomstrømme hele kroppen.

Dingir (usually transliterated DIĜIR) is a Sumerian word for “god.” Its cuneiform sign is most commonly employed as the determinative for religious names and related concepts, in which case it is not pronounced and is conventionally transliterated as a superscript “D” as in e.g. DInanna.

The cuneiform sign by itself was originally an ideogram for the Sumerian word an (“sky” or “heaven”); its use was then extended to a logogram for the word diĝir (“god” or goddess) and the supreme deity of the Sumerian pantheon An, and a phonogram for the syllable /an/.

Akkadian took over all these uses and added to them a logographic reading for the native ilum and from that a syllabic reading of /il/. In Hittite orthography, the syllabic value of the sign was again only an.

The concept of “divinity” in Sumerian is closely associated with the heavens, as is evident from the fact that the cuneiform sign doubles as the ideogram for “sky”, and that its original shape is the picture of a star. The original association of “divinity” is thus with “bright” or “shining” hierophanies in the sky.

Anu or An is the divine personification of the sky, supreme God, and ancestor of all the deities in ancient Mesopotamian religion. His primary role in myths is as the ancestor of the Anunnaki, the major deities of Sumerian religion.

Anu was believed to be the supreme source of all authority, for the other gods and for all mortal rulers, and he is described in one text as the one “who contains the entire universe”.

He is identified with the north ecliptic pole centered in the constellation Draco and, along with his sons Enlil and Enki, constitutes the highest divine triad personifying the three bands of constellations of the vault of the sky.

By the time of the earliest written records, Anu was rarely worshipped, and veneration was instead devoted to his son Enlil, but, throughout Mesopotamian history, the highest deity in the pantheon was always said to possess the anûtu, meaning “Heavenly power”.

His primary cult center was the Eanna temple in the city of Uruk, whose name means “House of Heaven”, but, by the Akkadian Period (c. 2334 – 2154 BC), his authority in Uruk had largely been ceded to the goddess Inanna, the Queen of Heaven.

Although the temple was originally dedicated to Anu it was later transformed into the primary cult center of Inanna. After its dedication to Inanna, the temple seems to have housed priestesses of the goddess.

The Amorite god Amurru was sometimes equated with Anu. Later, during the Seleucid Empire (213 BC — 63 BC), Anu was identified with Enmešara and Dumuzid (Tamuz).

Enmesarra, or Enmešarra, in Sumerian and Akkadian mythology is an underworld god of the law. Described as a Sun god, protector of flocks and vegetation, and therefore he has been equated with Nergal.

On the other hand, he has been described as an ancestor of Enlil, and it has been claimed that Enlil slew him. Over time Nergal developed from a war god to a god of the underworld. In the mythology, this occurred when Enlil and Ninlil gave him the underworld.

In ancient Hittite religion, Anu is a former ruler of the gods, who was overthrown by his son Kumarbi, who bit off his father’s genitals and gave birth to the storm god Teshub.

Teshub overthrew Kumarbi, avenged Anu’s mutilation, and became the new king of the gods. This story was the later basis for the castration of Ouranos in Hesiod’s Theogony.

Utu, later worshipped by East Semitic peoples as Shamash, is the ancient Mesopotamian god of the sun, justice, morality, and truth.

Alongside his sister Inanna, Utu was the enforcer of divine justice. Utu was believed to take an active role in human affairs, and was thought to aid those in distress.

He is the twin brother of the goddess Inanna, the Queen of Heaven. In Sumerian texts, Inanna and Utu are shown as extremely close; in fact, their relationship frequently borders on incestuous.

Inanna was an ancient Mesopotamian goddess associated with love, beauty, sex, desire, fertility, war, justice, and political power. She was the patron goddess of the Eanna temple at the city of Uruk, which was her main cult center.

She was originally worshipped in Sumer and was later worshipped by the Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians under the name Ishtar. She was associated with the planet Venus and her most prominent symbols included the lion and the eight-pointed star.

Her husband was the god Dumuzid (later known as Tammuz) and her sukkal, or personal attendant, was the goddess Ninshubur, which means “Queen of the East” in ancient Sumerian.

Much like Iris or Hermes in later Greek mythology, Ninshubur served as a messenger to the other gods. She later became the male deity Papsukkal, the messenger god in the Akkadian pantheon.

Ninshubur was an important figure in ancient Sumerian mythology and she played an integral role in several myths involving her mistress, the goddess, Inanna.

Dumuzid (later known as Tammuz), the god of shepherds, is usually described as Inanna’s husband, but Inanna’s loyalty to him is questionable.

In the myth of her descent into the Underworld, she abandons Dumuzid and permits the galla demons to drag him down into the Underworld as her replacement.

However, in the later myth of The Return of Dumuzid Inanna paradoxically mourns over Dumuzid’s death and ultimately decrees that he will be allowed to return to Heaven to be with her for one half of the year.

The Sumerian hymn Inanna and Utu contains an etiological myth describing how Inanna became the goddess of sex.

At the beginning of the hymn, Inanna knows nothing of sex, so she begs her brother Utu to take her to Kur (the Sumerian Underworld), so that she may taste the fruit of a tree that grows there, which will reveal to her all the secrets of sex.

Utu complies and, in Kur, Inanna tastes the fruit and becomes knowledgeable. The hymn employs the same motif found in the myth of Enki and Ninhursag and in the later Biblical story of Adam and Eve.

Inanna in her aspect as Anunītu was associated with the eastern fish of the last of the zodiacal constellations, Pisces. Her consort Dumuzi was associated with the contiguous first constellation, Aries.

Mercury is the ruling planet of Gemini and is exalted in Virgo and/or Aquarius. In classical Roman mythology, Mercury is the messenger of the gods, noted for his speed and swiftness.

Echoing this, the scorching, airless world Mercury circles the Sun on the fastest orbit of any planet. Mercury takes only 88 days to orbit the Sun, spending about 7.33 days in each sign of the zodiac.

Mercury is so close to the Sun that only a brief period exists after the Sun has set where it can be seen with the naked eye, before following the Sun beyond the horizon.

Under the tropical zodiac, the sun transits this sign between about May 21 and June 21. Gemini is represented by the twins Castor and Pollux, known as the Dioscuri.

When Castor died, because he was mortal, Pollux begged his father Zeus to give Castor immortality, and he did, by uniting them together in the heavens.

Enkidu («Enki’s creation») is a central figure in the Ancient Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh. Enkidu was formed from clay and water by Aruru, the goddess of creation, to rid Gilgamesh of his arrogance.

In the story he is a wild man, raised by animals and ignorant of human society. He embodies the wild or natural world. Though equal to Gilgamesh in strength and bearing, he acts in some ways as an antithesis to the cultured, urban-bred warrior-king.

Enkidu then becomes the king’s constant companion and deeply beloved friend, accompanying him on adventures until he is stricken with illness and dies.

The deep, tragic loss of Enkidu profoundly inspires in Gilgamesh a quest to escape death by obtaining godly immortality.

Geminus is the first epithet in Macrobius’s list. Although the etymology of the word is unclear, it is certainly related to his most typical character, that of having two faces or heads.

In ancient Roman religion and myth, Janus is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, and endings. He is usually depicted as having two faces, since he looks to the future and to the past.

According to Macrobius who cites Nigidius Figulus and Cicero, Janus and Jana (Diana) are a pair of divinities, worshipped as Apollo or the sun and moon, whence Janus received sacrifices before all the others, because through him is apparent the way of access to the desired deity.

A similar solar interpretation has been offered by A. Audin who interprets the god as the issue of a long process of development, starting with the Sumeric cultures, from the two solar pillars located on the eastern side of temples.

Each of pillars mark the direction of the rising sun at the dates of the two solstices: the southeastern corresponding to the Winter and the northeastern to the Summer solstice.

These two pillars would be at the origin of the theology of the divine twins, one of whom is mortal (related to the NE pillar, as confining with the region where the sun does not shine) and the other is immortal (related to the SE pillar and the region where the sun always shines).

Later these iconographic models evolved in the Middle East and Egypt into a single column representing two torsos and finally a single body with two heads looking at opposite directions.

Numa in his regulation of the Roman calendar called the first month Januarius after Janus, according to tradition considered the highest divinity at the time.

Isimud (also Isinu; Usumu (Akkadian)) is a minor god, the messenger of the god Enki, in Sumerian mythology. In ancient Sumerian artwork, Isimud is easily identifiable because he is always depicted with two faces facing in opposite directions in a way that is similar to the ancient Roman god Janus.

The gender of a sukkal always matches the gender of the deity it serves. Thus, Enki’s sukkal Isimud is male, but Ninshubur is female.

In the Sumerian myth of “Inanna and Enki,” Ninshubur is described as the one who rescues Inanna from the monsters that Enki has sent after her. In this myth, Ninshubur plays a similar role to Isimud, who acts as Enki’s messenger to Inanna.

The Twins were regarded as minor gods and were called Meshlamtaea and Lugalirra, meaning respectively ‘The One who has arisen from the Underworld’ and the ‘Mighty King’.

Both names can be understood as titles of Nergal, the major Babylonian god of plague and pestilence, who was king of the Underworld.

In Assyro-Babylonian ecclesiastical art the great lion-headed colossi serving as guardians to the temples and palaces seem to symbolise Nergal, just as the bull-headed colossi probably typify Ninurta.

Utu’s main personality characteristics are his kindness and generosity, but, like all other Mesopotamian deities, he was not above refusing a request which inconvenienced him.

Utu’s main symbol was the solar disc, a circle with four points in each of the cardinal directions and four wavy, diagonal lines emanating from the circle between each point. This symbol represented the light, warmth, and power of the sun.

The Sumerians believed that, as he rode through heaven, Utu saw everything that happened in the world. At night, Utu was believed to travel through the Underworld as he journeyed to the east in preparation for the sunrise.

One Sumerian literary work refers to Utu illuminating the Underworld and dispensing judgement there and Shamash Hymn 31 states that Utu serves as a judge of the dead in the Underworld alongside the malku, kusu, and the Anunnaki.

In the Hurro-Akkadian bilingual Weidner god list, Utu is equated with the Hurrian sun-god Šimigi. In the Ugaritic trilingual version of the Weidner god list, Šimigi and Utu are both equated with Lugalbanda (young/fierce king).

In the Sumerian King List, one of the early kings of Uruk is described as “the son of Utu” and Utu seems to have served as a special protector to several of that city’s later kings.

The authors of the Hebrew Bible generally attempt to portray the sun in a non-anthropomorphic manner, sometimes using it as a symbol of Yahweh’s power.

The Hebrew word for “sun”, šapaš or šemeš, is often substituted for euphemisms, such as the word or, meaning “light”.

These authors appear to have made a conscious effort to avoid implications of sun worship, even of a Yahwistic variety, at all costs. However, the Woman of the Apocalypse in the Book of Revelation, may directly allude to ancient Near Eastern sun goddesses.

Sherida was a goddess of beauty, fertility, and sexual love, possibly because light was seen as inherently beautiful, or because of the sun’s role in promoting agricultural fertility.

They were believed to have two offspring: the goddess Kittu, whose name means “Truth”, and the god Misharu, whose name means “Justice”.

As the Sumerian pantheon formalized, Utu became the primary sun god and the goddess Sherida was syncretized into a subordinate role as an aspect of the sun alongside other less powerful solar deities. Sherida took on the role of Utu’s consort.

By the time of the Old Babylonian Period (c. 1830 – c. 1531 BC), Sherida, and consequently Utu, was associated with nadītu, an order of cloistered women who devoted their lives to the gods.

When the Semitic Akkadians moved into Mesopotamia, their pantheon became syncretized to the Sumerian. Aya in Akkadian mythology was a mother goddess, consort of the sun god Shamash. She developed from Sherida, the consort of Utu.

The Babylonians sometimes referred to her as kallatu (the bride), and as such she was known as the wife of Shamash. Aya is Akkadian for “dawn”, and by the Akkadian period she was firmly associated with the rising sun and with sexual love and youth.

By the Neo-Babylonian period at the latest (and possibly much earlier), Shamash and Aya were associated with a practice known as Hasadu, which is loosely translated as a “sacred marriage.”

Ishara is an ancient deity of unknown origin from northern modern Syria. She first appeared in Ebla and was incorporated to the Hurrian pantheon from which she found her way to the Hittite pantheon. She was associated with the underworld.

Ishara is a pre-Hurrian and perhaps pre-Semitic deity, later incorporated into the Hurrian pantheon. From the Hurrian pantheon, Ishara entered the Hittite pantheon and had her main shrine in Kizzuwatna.

In Hurrian and Semitic traditions, Išḫara is a love goddess, often identified with Ishtar. Ishara is the Hittite word for “treaty, binding promise”, also personified as a goddess of the oath.

Variants of the name appear as Ašḫara (in a treaty of Naram-Sin of Akkad with Hita of Elam) and Ušḫara (in Ugarite texts). In Ebla, there were various logographic spellings involving the sign AMA “mother”. In Alalah, her name was written with the Akkadogram IŠTAR plus a phonetic complement -ra, as IŠTAR-ra.

Ushas is a Vedic goddess of dawn in Hinduism. She repeatedly appears in the Rigvedic hymns where she is “consistently identified with dawn.

She reveal herself with the daily coming of light to the world, driving away oppressive darkness, chasing away evil demons, rousing all life, setting all things in motion, sending everyone off to do their duties.

She is the life of all living creatures, the impeller of action and breath, the foe of chaos and confusion, the auspicious arouser of cosmic and moral order called the Ṛta in Hinduism.

Vedic uṣás is derived from the word uṣá which means “dawn”. This word comes from Proto-Indo-Iranian *Hušā́s (“ušā” in Avestan), which in turn is from Proto-Indo-European *h₂éusōs (“dawn”), and is related to “ēṓs” in Greek and “aušrà” in Lithuanian.

Hausos (Proto-Indo-European: *h₂éwsōs) is the reconstructed name for the Proto-Indo-European goddess of the dawn. The Dawn Goddess is hypothesised to have been one of the most important deities to the Proto-Indo-Europeans.

Her attributes have not only been mixed with those of solar goddesses in some later traditions, but have subsequently expanded and influenced female deities in other mythologies.

Asherah in ancient Semitic religion, is a mother goddess who appears in a number of ancient sources. She appears in Akkadian writings by the name of Ašratu(m), and in Hittite as Aserdu(s) or Asertu(s).

Asherah is generally considered identical with the Ugaritic goddess ʼAṯirat (Athirat). Athirat, called Ashiratum or Ashratum in Old Babylonian texts, was a West Semitic goddess, worshiped in Syria in the second millennium BC.

The different consonants in the Semitic languages; Athirat/Asherah, indicate the lack of any plausible etymological connection between the names.

However, hieroglyphic Egyptian /Ṭ/ may be etymological */Ś/. If this name /Anšar/ is derived from */Anśar/, then it may be related to the Egyptian hieroglyphic /NṬR/.

Shiva (or Siva) is one of the most important gods in the Hindu pantheon and, along with Brahma and Vishnu, is considered a member of the holy trinity (trimurti) of Hinduism.

A complex character, he may represent goodness, benevolence and serve as the Protector but he also has a darker side as the leader of evil spirits, ghosts and vampires and as the master of thieves, villains and beggars.

He is also associated with Time, and particularly as the destroyer of all things. Nevertheless, Shiva is also associated with creation. Shiva destroys the universe at the end of each cycle which then allows for a new Creation.

The t-rune ᛏ is named after Týr, and was identified with this god. The reconstructed Proto-Germanic name is *Tîwaz or *Teiwaz. Tiwaz (Stem: Tiwad-) was the Luwian Sun-god. He was among the most important gods of the Luwians.

The name of the Proto-Anatolian Sun god can be reconstructed as *Diuod-, which derives from the Proto-Indo-European word *dei- «shine», «glow»). This name is cognate with the Greek Zeus, Latin Jupiter, and Norse Tyr.

While Tiwaz (and the related Palaic god Tiyaz) retained a promenant role in the pantheon, the Hittite cognate deity, Šiwat was largely eclipsed by the Sun goddess of Arinna, becoming a god of the day, especially the day of death.

In Luwian cuneiform of the Bronze Age, his name appears as Tiwad-. It can also be written with the Sumerogram dUTU («God-Sun»). In Hieroglyphic Luwian of the Iron Age, the name can be written as Tiwad- of with the ideogram (DEUS) SOL («God-Sun»).

Tiwaz was the descendant of the male Sun god of the Indo-European religion, Dyeus, who was superseded among the Hittites by the Hattian Sun goddess of Arinna.

Dyēus or Dyēus Phter (Proto-Indo-European: *dyḗws ph₂tḗr, also *Dyḗus Ph2tḗr or Dyēus Pətḗr, alternatively spelled dyēws) is believed to have been the chief deity in Proto-Indo-European mythology.

Part of a larger pantheon, he was the god of the daylit sky, and his position may have mirrored the position of the patriarch or monarch in Proto-Indo-European society.

This deity is not directly attested; rather, scholars have reconstructed this deity from the languages and cultures of later Indo-European peoples such as the Greeks, Latins, and Indo-Aryans.

According to this scholarly reconstruction, Dyeus was known as Dyḗus Ph2tḗr, literally “sky father” or “shining father”, as reflected in Latin Iūpiter, Diēspiter, possibly Dis Pater and deus pater, Greek Zeus Pater, Vedic Dyáuṣ Pitṛ́.

As the pantheons of the individual mythologies related to Proto-Indo-European religion evolved, attributes of Dyeus seem to have been redistributed to other deities.

In Greek and Roman mythology, Dyeus remained the chief god; however, in Vedic mythology, the etymological continuant of Dyeus became a very abstract god, and his original attributes and dominance over other gods appear to have been transferred to gods such as Agni or Indra.

Dīs Pater was a Roman god of the underworld. Dis was originally associated with fertile agricultural land and mineral wealth, and since those minerals came from underground, he was later equated with the chthonic deities Pluto (Hades) and Orcus.

Dīs Pater was commonly shortened to simply Dīs and this name has since become an alternative name for the underworld or a part of the underworld, such as the City of Dis of Dante’s The Divine Comedy, which comprises Lower Hell.

In De Natura Deorum, Cicero derives the name of Dīs Pater from the Latin dives (“wealth, riches”), suggesting a meaning of “father of riches” (Pater is “father” in Latin), directly corresponding to the name Pluto, Pluto simply being how Plouton is spelled is Latin.

Alternatively, he may be a secondary reflex of the same god as Jupiter (Proto-Indo-European Dyeus Ph₂ter or “Zeus-Pater”).

Pluto was the ruler of the underworld in classical mythology. The earlier name for the god was Hades, which became more common as the name of the underworld itself.

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Pluto represents a more positive concept of the god who presides over the afterlife.

Ploutōn was frequently conflated with Ploutos (Plutus), a god of wealth, because mineral wealth was found underground, and because as a chthonic god Pluto ruled the deep earth that contained the seeds necessary for a bountiful harvest.

The name Ploutōn came into widespread usage with the Eleusinian Mysteries, in which Pluto was venerated as a stern ruler but the loving husband of Persephone.

The couple received souls in the afterlife, and are invoked together in religious inscriptions. Hades, by contrast, had few temples and religious practices associated with him, and he is portrayed as the dark and violent abductor of Persephone.

In Bronze Age texts, Tiwaz is often referred to as «Father» (cuneiform Luwian: tatis Tiwaz, lithuanian tėvas, ‘father’) and once as «Great Tiwaz» (cuneiform Luwian: urazza- dUTU-az), and invoked along with the «Father gods» (cuneiform Luwian: tatinzi maššaninzi).

His Bronze Age epithet, “Tiwaz of the Oath” (cuneiform Luwian: ḫirutalla- dUTU-az), indicates that he was an oath-god. The Luwian verb tiwadani- («to curse») is derived from Tiwaz’s name.

In the Hittite and Hurrian religions the Sun goddess of the Earth played an important role in the death cult and was understood to be the ruler of the world of the dead.

For the Luwians there is a Bronze Age source which refers to the «Sun god of the Earth»: «If he is alive, may Tiwaz release him, if he is dead, may the Sun god of the Earth release him».

The Sun goddess of the Earth was the Hittite goddess of the underworld. Her Hurrian equivalent was Allani and her Sumerian/Akkadian equivalent was Ereshkigal, both of which had a marked influence on the Hittite goddess from an early date.

The Sun god of Heaven was a Hittite solar deity. He was the second-most worshipped solar deity of the Hittites, after the Sun goddess of Arinna. The Sun god of Heaven was identified with the Hurrian solar deity, Šimige.

From the time of Suppiluliuma I (and probably earlier), the Sun god of Heaven played an important role as the foremost oath god in interstate treaties.

As a result of the influence of the Mesopotamian Sun god Šamaš, the Sun god of Heaven also gained an important role as the god of law, legality, and truth.

Shivini which is Utu in Sumeria, Shivini in Hinduism, Mithra in Mithraism, Ra in Egypt while the Armenians called him Artinis was a solar god in the mythology of the Armenian kingdom of Urartu. He is the third god in a triad with Khaldi and Theispas.

The Assyrian god Shamash is a counterpart to Shivini. He was depicted as a man on his knees, holding up a solar disc. His wife was most likely a goddess called Tushpuea who is listed as the third goddess on the Mheri-Dur inscription.

Ar was the sun-god of the Armenians. The oldest cult worshiped an unfathomable higher power or intelligence called Ara, embodied as the sun (Arev); the ancient Armenians called themselves “children of the sun”.

Ra (Ancient Egyptian: r or rˤ; also rˤw; cuneiform: ri-a or ri-ia) or Re (Rēi) is the ancient Egyptian deity of the sun. Ra was believed to rule in all parts of the created world: the sky, the Earth, and the underworld.

By the Fifth Dynasty in the 25th and 24th centuries BC, he had become one of the most important gods in ancient Egyptian religion, identified primarily with the noon sun.

In ancient Roman religion and myth, Mars was the god of war and also an agricultural guardian, a combination characteristic of early Rome. The consort of Mars was Nerio or Neriene, “Valor.” She represents the vital force (vis), power (potentia) and majesty (maiestas) of Mars.

Most of his festivals were held in March, the month named for him (Latin Martius), and in October, which began the season for military campaigning and ended the season for farming.

Mars represented military power as a way to secure peace, and was a father (pater) of the Roman people. In the mythic genealogy and founding myths of Rome, Mars was the father of Romulus and Remus with Rhea Silvia.

His love affair with Venus symbolically reconciled the two different traditions of Rome’s founding; Venus was the divine mother of the hero Aeneas, celebrated as the Trojan refugee who “founded” Rome several generations before Romulus laid out the city walls.

Nergal is a deity that was worshipped throughout ancient Mesopotamia. Nergal seems to be in part a solar deity, sometimes identified with Shamash, but only representative of a certain phase of the sun.

Portrayed in hymns and myths as a god of war and pestilence, Nergal seems to represent the sun of noontime and of the summer solstice that brings destruction, high summer being the dead season in the Mesopotamian annual cycle. He has also been called “the king of sunset”.

Over time Nergal developed from a war god to a god of the underworld. In the mythology, this occurred when Enlil and Ninlil gave him the underworld.

In this capacity he has associated with him a goddess Allatu or Ereshkigal, though at one time Allatu may have functioned as the sole mistress of Aralu, ruling in her own person.

In the late Babylonian astral-theological system Nergal is related to the planet Mars. As a fiery god of destruction and war, Nergal doubtless seemed an appropriate choice for the red planet, and he was equated by the Greeks to the war-god Ares (Latin Mars)—hence the current name of the planet.

Amongst the Hurrians and later Hittites Nergal was known as Aplu, a name derived from the Akkadian Apal Enlil, (Apal being the construct state of Aplu) meaning “the son of Enlil”.

Aplu may be related with Apaliunas who is considered to be the Hittite reflex of *Apeljōn, an early form of the name Apollo.

Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in classical Greek and Roman religion and Greek and Roman mythology.

The national divinity of the Greeks, Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of music, truth and prophecy, healing, the sun and light, plague, poetry, and more.

Apollo is the son of Zeus and Leto, and has a twin sister, the chaste huntress Artemis. Seen as the most beautiful god and the ideal of the kouros (a beardless, athletic youth), Apollo is considered to be the most Greek of all gods.

In Germanic mythology, Týr (Old Norse), Tíw (Old English), and Ziu (Old High German) is a god. Stemming from the Proto-Germanic deity *Tīwaz and ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European deity *Dyeus, little information about the god survives beyond Old Norse sources.

Due to the etymology of the god’s name and the shadowy presence of the god in the extant Germanic corpus, some scholars propose that Týr may have once held a more central place among the deities of early Germanic mythology.

Interpretatio romana, in which Romans interpret other gods as forms of their own, generally renders the god as Mars, the ancient Roman war god, and it is through that lens that most Latin references to the god occur.

Týr is the namesake of the Tiwaz rune, a letter of the runic alphabet corresponding to the Latin letter T. Outside of its application as a theonym, the Old Norse common noun týr means ‘(a) god’ (plural tívar). In turn, the theonym Týr may be understood to mean “the god”.

In Norse mythology, Hel is a being who presides over a realm of the same name, where she receives a portion of the dead.

It has been proposed that she may have been considered a goddess with potential Indo-European parallels in Bhavani, Kali, and Mahakali or that Hel may have become a being only as a late personification of the location of the same name.

Kali’s earliest appearance is that of a destroyer of evil forces. She is the goddess of one of the four subcategories of the Kulamārga, a category of tantric Saivism.

Over time, she has been worshipped by devotional movements and tantric sects variously as the Divine Mother, Mother of the Universe, Adi Shakti, or Adi Parashakti.

Shakta Hindu and Tantric sects additionally worship her as the ultimate reality or Brahman. She is also seen as divine protector and the one who bestows moksha, or liberation.

Kali is often portrayed standing or dancing on her consort, the Hindu god Shiva, who lies calm and prostrate beneath her. She is often regarded as the Shakti of Shiva, and is closely associated with him in various Puranas.

In the religion of ancient Babylon, Tiamat is a primordial goddess of the salt sea, mating with Abzû, the god of fresh water, to produce younger gods. She is the symbol of the chaos of primordial creation.

She is referred to as a woman, and described as the glistening one. Some sources identify her with images of a sea serpent or dragon.

It is suggested that there are two parts to the Tiamat mythos, the first Chaoskampf in which Tiamat is considered the monstrous embodiment of primordial chaos.

In the second Tiamat is a creator goddess, through a sacred marriage between salt and fresh water, peacefully creating the cosmos through successive generations.

In ancient Sumerian mythology, Ereshkigal is the queen of the Underworld. She is the older sister of the goddess, Inanna. Inanna and Ereshkigal represent polar opposites. Inanna is the Queen of Heaven, but Ereshkigal is the queen of Irkalla.

List of Mesopotamian deities

Dingir

Dingir (usually transliterated DIĜIR) is a Sumerian word for “god.” Its cuneiform sign is most commonly employed as the determinative for religious names and related concepts, in which case it is not pronounced and is conventionally transliterated as a superscript “D” as in e.g. DInanna.

The cuneiform sign by itself was originally an ideogram for the Sumerian word an (“sky” or “heaven”); its use was then extended to a logogram for the word diĝir (“god” or goddess) and the supreme deity of the Sumerian pantheon An, and a phonogram for the syllable /an/.

Akkadian took over all these uses and added to them a logographic reading for the native ilum and from that a syllabic reading of /il/. In Hittite orthography, the syllabic value of the sign was again only an.

The concept of “divinity” in Sumerian is closely associated with the heavens, as is evident from the fact that the cuneiform sign doubles as the ideogram for “sky”, and that its original shape is the picture of a star. The original association of “divinity” is thus with “bright” or “shining” hierophanies in the sky.

Anu is identified with the north ecliptic pole centered in the constellation Draco and, along with his sons Enlil and Enki (Ellil and Ea in Akkadian) he formed the highest divine triad personifying the three bands of constellations of the vault of the sky.

Together they constituted a triune conception of the divine, in which Anu represented a transcendental obscurity, Enlil the transcendent and Enki the immanent aspect of the divine. Though Anu was the supreme God, he was rarely worshipped, and, by the time that written records began, the most important cult was devoted to his son Enlil.

In astral theology, the three—Anu, Enlil and Enki—also personified the three bands of the sky, and the contained constellations, spinning around the ecliptic, respectively the middle, northern and southern sky.

These three deities together were the embodiment of all the fixed stars in the night sky. An was identified with all the stars of the equatorial sky, Enlil with those of the northern sky, and Enki with those of the southern sky.

Anu

Anu or An is the divine personification of the sky, supreme God, and ancestor of all the deities in ancient Mesopotamian religion. He was the personification of the sky, the utmost power, the supreme God, the one who contains the entire universe. His name meant the One on High.

Anu was believed to be source of all legitimate power; he was the one who bestowed the right to rule upon gods and kings alike. Anu was the supreme source of authority among the gods, and among men, upon whom he conferred kingship. As heaven’s grand patriarch, he dispensed justice and controlled the laws known as the meh that governed the universe.

Anu was believed to be the supreme source of all authority, for the other gods and for all mortal rulers. His primary role in the Sumerian pantheon was as an ancestor figure; the most powerful and important deities in the Sumerian pantheon were believed to be the offspring of Anu and his consort Ki.

These deities were known as the Anunnaki, which means “offspring of Anu”. Although it is sometimes unclear which deities were considered members of the Anunnaki, the group probably included the seven gods who decree: Anu, Enlil, Enki, Ninhursag, Nanna, Utu, and Inanna.

By the time of the earliest written records, Anu was rarely worshipped, and veneration was instead devoted to his son Enlil, but, throughout Mesopotamian history, the highest deity in the pantheon was always said to possess the anûtu, meaning “Heavenly power”.

His primary cult center was the Eanna temple in the city of Uruk, whose name means “House of Heaven”, but, by the Akkadian Period (c. 2334 – 2154 BC), his authority in Uruk had largely been ceded to the goddess Inanna, the Queen of Heaven.

Although the temple was originally dedicated to Anu it was later transformed into the primary cult center of Inanna. After its dedication to Inanna, the temple seems to have housed priestesses of the goddess.

The Amorite god Amurru was sometimes equated with Anu. He is a western Semitic god originally sometimes called Ilu Amurru (DMAR.TU). He was the patron god of the Mesopotamian city of Ninab, whose exact location is unknown.

Later, during the Seleucid Empire (213 BC — 63 BC), Anu was identified with Enmešara and Dumuzid (Tamuz). Enmesarra, or Enmešarra, in Sumerian and Akkadian mythology is an underworld god of the law.

Described as a Sun god, protector of flocks and vegetation, and therefore he has been equated with Nergal. On the other hand, he has been described as an ancestor of Enlil, and it has been claimed that Enlil slew him.

In ancient Hittite religion, Anu is a former ruler of the gods, who was overthrown by his son Kumarbi, who bit off his father’s genitals and gave birth to the storm god Teshub, who overthrew Kumarbi, avenged Anu’s mutilation, and became the new king of the gods. This story was the later basis for the castration of Ouranos in Hesiod’s Theogony.

The ecliptic

The ecliptic is the mean plane of the apparent path in the Earth’s sky that the Sun follows over the course of one year; it is the basis of the ecliptic coordinate system. This plane of reference is coplanar with Earth’s orbit around the Sun (and hence the Sun’s apparent path around Earth).

The ecliptic is not normally noticeable from Earth’s surface because the planet’s rotation carries the observer through the daily cycles of sunrise and sunset, which obscure the Sun’s apparent motion against the background of stars during the year. Most of the major bodies of the Solar System orbit the Sun in nearly the same plane. This is likely due to the way in which the Solar System formed from a protoplanetary disk.

Because the orbit of the Moon is inclined only about 5.145° to the ecliptic and the Sun is always very near the ecliptic, eclipses always occur on or near it. Because of the inclination of the Moon’s orbit, eclipses do not occur at every conjunction and opposition of the Sun and Moon, but only when the Moon is near an ascending or descending node at the same time it is at conjunction or opposition. The ecliptic is so named because the ancients noted that eclipses only occurred when the Moon crossed it.

The exact instants of equinoxes and solstices are the times when the apparent ecliptic longitude (including the effects of aberration and nutation) of the Sun is 0°, 90°, 180°, and 270°. Because of perturbations of Earth’s orbit and anomalies of the calendar, the dates of these are not fixed.

The poles of Earth’s orbit are referred to as the ecliptic poles. The ecliptic is the plane on which Earth orbits the Sun. The ecliptic poles are the two points where the ecliptic axis, the imaginary line perpendicular to the ecliptic, intersects the celestial sphere. The north orbital poles of the Solar System planets all lie within Draco.

The north and south celestial poles are the two imaginary points in the sky where the Earth’s axis of rotation, indefinitely extended, intersects the celestial sphere. The north and south celestial poles appear permanently directly overhead to an observer at the Earth’s North Pole and South Pole, respectively. As the Earth spins on its axis, the two celestial poles remain fixed in the sky, and all other points appear to rotate around them, completing one circuit per day (strictly, per sidereal day).

The celestial poles do not remain permanently fixed against the background of the stars. Because of a phenomenon known as the procession of the equinoxes, the poles trace out circles on the celestial sphere, with a period of about 25,700 years.

An astrological age is a time period in astrological theology which astrologers claim parallels major changes in the development of Earth’s inhabitants, particularly relating to culture, society, and politics.

There are twelve astrological ages corresponding to the twelve zodiacal signs in western astrology. Advocates believe that when one cycle of the twelve astrological ages is completed, another cycle of twelve ages begins. The length of one cycle of twelve ages is 25,860 years.

The most popular method of sub-dividing astrological ages is to divide each age equally into twelve sub-periods with the first sub-period Aries, followed by Taurus, Gemini, and so on, until the last sub-division, Pisces.

Enki

Enki was associated with the southern band of constellations called stars of Ea, but also with the constellation AŠ-IKU, the Field. The Babylonian constellation IKU (field) had four stars of which three were later part of the Greek constellation Hippos (Pegasus), a constellation in the northern sky, named after the winged horse Pegasus in Greek mythology.

His name means “Lord of the Earth” and his symbols are the fish and the goat, both representations of fertility. Capricorn is the tenth astrological sign in the zodiac, originating from the constellation of Capricornus, the horned goat. In astrology, Capricorn is considered an earth sign, negative sign, and one of the four cardinal signs. Capricorn is said to be ruled by the planet Saturn.

It spans the 270–300th degree of the zodiac, corresponding to celestial longitude. Under the tropical zodiac, the sun transits this area from about December 22 to January 19 the following year, and under the sidereal zodiac, the sun transits the constellation of Capricorn from approximately January 16 to February 16.

In Vedic Astrology Capricorn was associated with the Crocodile but modern astrologers consider Capricorn as Sea goat. Its symbol is based on the Sumerians’ primordial god of wisdom and waters, Enki, with the head and upper body of a goat and the lower body and tail of a fish.

Later known as Ea in Akkadian and Babylonian mythology, Enki was the god of intelligence (gestú, literally “ear”), creation, crafts; magic; water, seawater and lakewater (a, aba, ab). Enki and later Ea were apparently depicted, sometimes, as a man covered with the skin of a fish, and this representation, as likewise the name of his temple E-apsu, “house of the watery deep”, points decidedly to his original character as a god of the waters.

Pisces (Ancient Greek: Ikhthyes) is the twelfth astrological sign in the Zodiac. It spans 330° to 360° of celestial longitude. Under the tropical zodiac, the sun transits this area between February 19 and March 20. In Sidereal astrology, the Sun currently transits the constellation of Pisces from approximately March 12 to April 18. In classical interpretations, the symbol of the fish is derived from the ichthyocentaurs, who aided Aphrodite when she was born from the sea.

Aquarius is a constellation of the zodiac, situated between Capricornus and Pisces. Its name is Latin for “water-carrier” or “cup-carrier”, and its symbol is a representation of water. Aquarius is one of the oldest of the recognized constellations along the zodiac. It is found in a region often called the Sea due to its profusion of constellations with watery associations such as Cetus the whale, Pisces the fish, and Eridanus the river.

Aquarius was also associated with the destructive floods that the Babylonians regularly experienced, and thus was negatively connoted. In Ancient Egypt astronomy, Aquarius was associated with the annual flood of the Nile; the banks were said to flood when Aquarius put his jar into the river, beginning spring.

In the Greek tradition, the constellation came to be represented simply as a single vase from which a stream poured down to Piscis Austrinus. The name in the Hindu zodiac is likewise kumbha “water-pitcher”.

In Greek mythology, Aquarius is sometimes associated with Deucalion, the son of Prometheus who built a ship with his wife Pyrrha to survive an imminent flood. They sailed for nine days before washing ashore on Mount Parnassus. Aquarius is also sometimes identified with beautiful Ganymede, a youth in Greek mythology and the son of Trojan king Tros, who was taken to Mount Olympus by Zeus to act as cup-carrier to the gods.

It contained the winter solstice in the Early Bronze Age. In Old Babylonian astronomy, Enki, who is commonly depicted holding an overflowing vase, was the ruler of the southernmost quarter of the Sun’s path, the “Way of Ea”, corresponding to the period of 45 days on either side of winter solstice. The Babylonian star-figure appears on entitlement stones and cylinder seals from the second millennium.

Aquarius is identified as GU.LA “The Great One” in the Babylonian star catalogues and represents the goddess Nintinugga, a Babylonian goddess of healing, the consort of Ninurta. Her epithets are “great healer of the land” and “great healer of the black-headed ones”, a “herb grower”, “the lady who makes the broken up whole again”, and “creates life in the land”, making her a vegetation/fertility goddess endowed with regenerative power.

She is identical with the goddess of Akkadian mythology, known as Bau or Baba though it would seem that the two were originally independent. Later as Gula and in medical incantations, Bēlet or Balāti, also as the Azugallatu the “great healer”,same as her son Damu. Other names borne by this goddess are Nin-Karrak, Nin Ezen, Ga-tum-dug and Nm-din-dug.

After the Great Flood, she helped “breathe life” back into mankind. The designation well emphasizes the chief trait of Bau-Gula which is that of healer. She is often spoken of as “the great physician,” and accordingly plays a specially prominent role in incantations and incantation rituals intended to relieve those suffering from disease.

Isimud

Isimud (also Isinu; Usmû; Usumu (Akkadian)) is a minor god, the messenger of the god Enki, in Sumerian mythology. Isimud plays a similar role to Ninshubur, Inanna’s sukkal. Isimud also appears in the myth of Enki and Ninhursag, in which he acts as Enki’s messenger and emissary.

In ancient Sumerian artwork, Isimud is easily identifiable because he is always depicted with two faces facing in opposite directions in a way that is similar to the ancient Roman god Janus, the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, and endings. He is usually depicted as having two faces, since he looks to the future and to the past.

It is conventionally thought that the month of January is named for Janus (Ianuarius), but according to ancient Roman farmers’ almanacs Juno was the tutelary deity of the month. Juno was the protector and special counselor of the state. A daughter of Saturn, she is the wife of Jupiter and the mother of Mars, Vulcan, Bellona and Juventas.

She is closely associated with Janus, the god of passages and beginnings who after her is often named Iunonius. Janus owes the epithet Iunonius to his function as patron of all kalends, which are also associated with Juno. while Janus is Iunonius, Juno is Ianualis, as she presides over childbirth and the menstrual cycle, and opens doors.

The relationship of the female sovereign deity with the god of beginnings and passages is reflected mainly in their association with the kalendae of every month, which belong to both, and in the festival of the Tigillum Sororium of October 1. At the kalends of each month the rex sacrorum and the pontifex minor offered a sacrifice to Janus in the curia Calabra, while the regina offered a sow or a she lamb to Juno.

M. Renard advanced the view that Janus and not Juppiter was the original paredra or consort of Juno, on the grounds of their many common features, functions and appearance in myth or rites as is shown by their cross coupled epithets Janus Curiatius and Juno Sororia: Janus shares the epithet of Juno Curitis and Juno the epithet Janus Geminus, as sororius means paired, double.

Renard’s theory has been rejected by G. Capdeville as not being in accord with the level of sovereign gods in Dumézil’s trifunctional structure. The theology of Janus would show features typically belonging to the order of the gods of the beginning.

In Capdeville’s view it is only natural that a god of beginnings and a sovereign mother deity have common features, as all births can be seen as beginnings, Juno is invoked by deliverers, who by custom hold a key, symbol of Janus.

Juno’s own warlike aspect among the Romans is apparent in her attire. She is often shown armed and wearing a goatskin cloak. The traditional depiction of this warlike aspect was assimilated from the Greek goddess Athena, who bore a goatskin, or a goatskin shield, called the ‘aegis’.

Uni was the supreme goddess of the Etruscan pantheon and the patron goddess of Perugia. Uni was identified by the Etruscans as their equivalent of Juno in Roman mythology and Hera in Greek mythology.

She formed a triad with her husband Tinia and daughter Menrva, an Etruscan goddess of war, art, wisdom, and medicine who contributed much of her character to Roman Minerva, when that culture evolved.

Tinia (also Tin, Tinh, Tins or Tina) was the god of the sky and the highest god in Etruscan mythology, equivalent to the Roman Jupiter and the Greek Zeus. He was the husband of Thalna or Uni and the father of Hercle, a version of the Greek Heracles, depicted as a muscular figure often carrying a club and wearing a lionskin.

According to Macrobius (who cited Nigidius Figulus and Cicero), Janus and Jana (Diana), a Roman goddess of the hunt, the Moon, and nature, associated with wild animals and woodland, are a pair of divinities, worshiped as the sun and moon.

Diana was known as the virgin goddess of childbirth and women. She was one of the three maiden goddesses, along with Minerva and Vesta, who swore never to marry. However, according to Cicero and Ennius, Trivia (an epithet of Diana) and Caelus were the parents of Janus, as well as of Saturn and Ops.

When worship of Apollo was first introduced to Rome, Diana became conflated with Apollo’s sister Artemis, and absorbed much of Artemis’ mythology early in Roman history, including a birth on the island of Delos to parents Jupiter and Latona, and a twin brother, Apollo, though she had an independent origin in Italy.

Though Diana was usually considered to be a virgin goddess like Artemis, later authors sometimes attributed consorts and children to her. Oak groves and deer were especially sacred to her. Diana made up a triad with two other Roman deities; Egeria the water nymph, her servant and assistant midwife; and Virbius, the woodland god.

Enlil

The path of Enlil’s celestial orbit was a continuous, symmetrical circle around the north celestial pole, but those of An and Enki were believed to intersect at various points. Enlil was associated with the constellation Boötes, a constellation in the northern sky, located between 0° and +60° declination, and 13 and 16 hours of right ascension on the celestial sphere.

The name comes from the Greek Boōtēs, meaning “herdsman” or “plowman” (literally, “ox-driver”; from bous “cow”).In ancient Babylon, the stars of Boötes were known as SHU.PA. They were apparently depicted as the god Enlil, who was the leader of the Babylonian pantheon and special patron of farmers.

Boötes may have been represented by the foreleg constellation in ancient Egypt. According to this interpretation, the constellation depicts the shape of an animal foreleg.

Akitu or Akitum (lit. “the barley-cutting”, “barley-sowing” or “head of the year”) was a spring festival in ancient Mesopotamia. The name is from the Sumerian for “barley”, originally marking two festivals celebrating the beginning of each of the two half-years of the Sumerian calendar, marking the sowing of barley in autumn and the cutting of barley in spring.

In Babylonian religion it came to be dedicated to Marduk’s victory over Tiamat (Akkadian: DTI.AMAT or DTAM.TUM, Greek: Thaláttē), who possessed the Tablet of Destinies. The principal theme of the epic is the justified elevation of Marduk to command over all the deities.

In the religion of ancient Babylon, Tiamat is a primordial goddess of the salt sea, mating with Abzû, the god of fresh water, to produce younger gods. She is the symbol of the chaos of primordial creation. She is referred to as a woman, and described as the glistening one. Some sources identify her with images of a sea serpent or dragon.

It is suggested that there are two parts to the Tiamat mythos, the first in which Tiamat is a creator goddess, through a sacred marriage between salt and fresh water, peacefully creating the cosmos through successive generations. In the second Chaoskampf Tiamat is considered the monstrous embodiment of primordial chaos.

In the Enûma Elish, the Babylonian epic of creation, she gives birth to the first generation of deities; her husband, Apsu, correctly assuming they are planning to kill him and usurp his throne, later makes war upon them and is killed. Enraged, she, too, wars upon her husband’s murderers.

Taking on the form of a massive sea dragon, she is then slain by Enki’s son, the storm-god Marduk, but not before she had brought forth the monsters of the Mesopotamian pantheon, including the first dragons, whose bodies she filled with “poison instead of blood”. Marduk then forms heavens and the earth from her divided body.

In the primordial battle she gave them to Kingu, the deity she had chosen as her lover and the leader of her host, and who was also one of her children. The deities gathered in terror, but Anu, (replaced later, first by Enlil and, in the late version that has survived after the First Dynasty of Babylon, by Marduk, the son of Ea), first extracting a promise that he would be revered as “king of the gods”, overcame her, armed with the arrows of the winds, a net, a club, and an invincible spear. Slicing Tiamat in half, he made from her ribs the vault of heaven and earth. Her weeping eyes became the source of the Tigris and the Euphrates, her tail became the Milky Way.

With the approval of the elder deities, he took from Kingu the Tablet of Destinies, installing himself as the head of the Babylonian pantheon. Kingu was captured and later was slain: his red blood mixed with the red clay of the Earth would make the body of humankind, created to act as the servant of the younger Igigi deities.

The Tiamat myth is one of the earliest recorded versions of the Chaoskampf, the battle between a culture hero and a chthonic or aquatic monster, serpent or dragon. Chaoskampf motifs in other mythologies linked directly or indirectly to the Tiamat myth include the Hittite Illuyanka myth, and in Greek tradition Apollo’s killing of the Python as a necessary action to take over the Delphic Oracle.

It is thought that female deities are older than male ones in Mesopotamia and Tiamat may have begun as part of the cult of Nammu, the goddess of the primeval creative matter and the mother-goddess portrayed as having “given birth to the great gods,” a female principle of a watery creative force, with equally strong connections to the underworld, which predates the appearance of Ea-Enki.

Nammu was the Goddess sea (Engur) that gave birth to An (heaven) and Ki (earth) and the first gods, representing the Apsu, the fresh water ocean that the Sumerians believed lay beneath the earth, the source of life-giving water and fertility in a country with almost no rainfall.

Nammu is the goddess who “has given birth to the great gods”. According to the Neo-Sumerian mythological text Enki and Ninmah, Enki is the son of An and Nammu. It is she who has the idea of creating mankind, and she goes to wake up Enki, who is asleep in the Apsu, so that he may set the process going. Reay Tannahill in Sex in History (1980) singled out Nammu as the “only female prime mover” in the cosmogonic myths of antiquity.

Nammu was the mother of Enki, and as the watery creative force, was said to preexist Ea-Enki. With Enki it is an interesting change of gender symbolism, the fertilising agent is also water, Sumerian “a” or “Ab” which also means “semen”. In one evocative passage in a Sumerian hymn, Enki stands at the empty riverbeds and fills them with his ‘water'”.

It has also been suggested that the original non-anthropomorphic divinity at Eridu was not Enki but Abzu, the name for fresh water from underground aquifers which was given a religious fertilising quality in Sumerian and Akkadian mythology.

Lakes, springs, rivers, wells, and other sources of fresh water were thought to draw their water from the abzu. In this respect, in Sumerian and Akkadian mythology it referred to the primeval sea below the void space of the underworld (Kur) and the earth (Ma) above.

In the city of Eridu, Enki’s temple was known as E-abzu (house of the deep waters) and was located at the edge of a swamp, an abzu. Certain tanks of holy water in Babylonian and Assyrian temple courtyards were also called abzu (apsû). Typical in religious washing, these tanks were similar to Judaism’s mikvot, the washing pools of Islamic mosques, or the baptismal font in Christian churches.

The Sumerian god Enki (Ea in the Akkadian language) was believed to have lived in the abzu since before human beings were created. His wife Damgalnuna, his mother Nammu, his advisor Isimud and a variety of subservient creatures, such as the gatekeeper Lahmu, also lived in the abzu.

The emergence of Enki as the divine lover of Ninhursag, and the divine battle between the younger Igigi divinities and Abzu, saw the Abzu, the underground waters of the Aquifer, becoming the place in which the foundations of the temple were built.

The cosmogenic myth common in Sumer was that of the hieros gamos, a sacred marriage where divine principles in the form of dualistic opposites came together as male and female to give birth to the cosmos. In the epic Enki and Ninhursag, Enki, as lord of Ab or fresh water (also the Sumerian word for semen), is living with his wife in the paradise of Dilmun.

Despite being a place where “the raven uttered no cries” and “the lion killed not, the wolf snatched not the lamb, unknown was the kid-killing dog, unknown was the grain devouring boar”, Dilmun had no water and Enki heard the cries of its goddess, Ninsikil, and orders the sun-god Utu to bring fresh water from the Earth for Dilmun.

The subsequent tale, with similarities to the Biblical story of the forbidden fruit, repeats the story of how fresh water brings life to a barren land. The story thus symbolically reflects the way in which life is brought forth through the addition of water to the land, and once it grows, water is required to bring plants to fruit. It also counsels balance and responsibility, nothing to excess.

Enki, the Water-Lord then “caused to flow the ‘water of the heart” and having fertilised his consort Ninhursag, also known as Ki or Earth, after “Nine days being her nine months, the months of ‘womanhood’… like good butter, Nintu, the mother of the land, …like good butter, gave birth to Ninsar, (Lady Greenery)”.

Ninti, the title of Ninhursag, also means “the mother of all living”, and was a title later given to the Hurrian goddess Kheba. This is also the title given in the Bible to Eve, the Hebrew and Aramaic Ḥawwah, who was made from the rib of Adam, in a strange reflection of the Sumerian myth, in which Adam – not Enki – walks in the Garden of Paradise.

The myth of Enlil and Ninlil is about Enlil’s serial seduction of the goddess Ninlil (DNIN.LÍL”lady of the open field” or “Lady of the Wind”), also called Sud, in Assyrian called Mulliltu, in various guises, resulting in the conception of the moon-god Nanna and the Underworld deities Nergal, Ninazu, and Enbilulu.

Her parentage is variously described. Most commonly she is called the daughter of Haia (god of stores) and Nunbarsegunu (or Ninshebargunnu (a goddess of barley) or Nisaba). Another Akkadian source says she is the daughter of Anu (a.k.a. An) and Antu (Sumerian Ki). Other sources call her a daughter of Anu and Nammu.

The myth recounting the rape of Ninlil by her consort, the wind god Enlil, reflects the life cycle of grain: The myth seems to represent the process of wind pollination, ripening, and the eventual withering of the crops and their subsequent return to the earth (corresponding to Ninlil’s sojourn in the underworld).

Enlil, who saw Ninlil bathing in a canal, raped and impregnated her. For his crime he was banished to the underworld, but Ninlil followed. In the course of their journey Enlil assumed three different guises, and in each incident he ravished and impregnated Ninlil.

After her death, she became the goddess of the wind, like Enlil. She may be the Goddess of the South Wind referred to in the story of Adapa, as her husband Enlil was associated with northerly winter storms. As “Lady Wind” she may be associated with the figure of the Akkadian demon “Lil-itu”, thought to have been the origin of the Hebrew Lilith legend.

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Demeter is the goddess of the grain, agriculture, harvest, growth, and nourishment, who presided over grains and the fertility of the earth. Demeter was often considered to be the same figure as the Anatolian goddess Cybele, and in Rome she was identified as the Latin goddess Ceres.

Though Demeter is often described simply as the goddess of the harvest, she presided also over the sacred law, and the cycle of life and death. Her cult titles include Sito, “she of the Grain”, as the giver of food or grain, and Thesmophoros (thesmos: divine order, unwritten law; phoros: bringer, bearer), “Law-Bringer”, as a mark of the civilized existence of agricultural society.

She and her daughter Persephone were the central figures of the Eleusinian Mysteries, a religious tradition that predated the Olympian pantheon, and which may have its roots in the Mycenaean period c. 1400–1200 BC.

It is possible that Demeter appears in Linear A as da-ma-te on three documents (AR Zf 1 and 2, and KY Za 2), all three apparently dedicated in religious situations and all three bearing just the name (i-da-ma-te on AR Zf 1 and 2).

It is unlikely that Demeter appears as da-ma-te in a Linear B (Mycenean Greek) inscription (PY En 609); the word da-ma-te, probably refers to “households”. On the other hand si-to-po-ti-ni-ja, “Potnia of the Grain”, is regarded as referring to her Bronze Age predecessor or to one of her epithets.

Demeter’s character as mother-goddess is identified in the second element of her name meter derived from Proto-Indo-European *méh₂tēr (mother). In antiquity, different explanations were already proffered for the first element of her name. It is possible that Da, a word which corresponds to Ge in Attic, is the Doric form of De, “earth”, the old name of the chthonic earth-goddess, and that Demeter is “Mother-Earth”.

This root also appears in the Linear B inscription E-ne-si-da-o-ne, “earth-shaker”, as an aspect of the god Poseidon. However, the dā element in the name of Demeter is not so simply equated with “earth” according to John Chadwick.

The element De- may be connected with Deo, an epithet of Demeter probably derived from the Cretan word dea, Ionic zeia – variously identified with emmer, spelt, rye, or other grains by modern scholars—so that she is the Mother and the giver of food generally.

Wanax (wa-na-ka) was her male companion in Mycenaean cult. The Arcadian cult links her to the god Poseidon, who probably substituted the male companion of the Great Goddess ; Demeter may therefore be related to a Minoan Great Goddess (Cybele).

An alternative Proto-Indo-European etymology comes through Potnia and Despoina, where Des- represents a derivative of PIE *dem (house, dome), and Demeter is “mother of the house” (from PIE *dems-méh₂tēr).

Virgo (Greek: Parthenos), is the sixth astrological sign in the Zodiac. It spans the 150-180th degree of the zodiac. Under the tropical zodiac, the Sun transits this area on average between August 23 and September 22, and the Sun transits the constellation of Virgo from approximately September 16 to October 30.

The symbol of the maiden is based on Astraea. In Greek mythology, she was the last immortal to abandon Earth at the end of the Silver Age, when the gods fled to Olympus – hence the sign’s association with Earth.

The constellation Virgo has multiple different origins depending on which mythology is being studied. Most myths generally view Virgo as a virgin/maiden with heavy association with wheat. In Greek and Roman mythology they relate the constellation to Demeter, mother of Persephone, or Proserpina, the Roman goddess of the harvest. Virgo has the equivalent sign in Indian astrology as the Kanya (which also means “maiden”), and has even been connected with the Virgin Mary.

Shala was an ancient Sumerian goddess of grain and the emotion of compassion. The symbols of grain and compassion combine to reflect the importance of agriculture in the mythology of Sumer, and the belief that an abundant harvest was an act of compassion from the deities.

Traditions identify Shala as wife of the fertility god Dagon, or consort of the storm god Hadad, Adad, Haddad (Akkadian) or Iškur (Sumerian), the storm and rain god in the Northwest Semitic and ancient Mesopotamian religions.

Though originating in northern Mesopotamia, Adad was identified by the same Sumerogram dIM that designated Iškur in the south. He is identified with the Anatolian storm-god Teshub, whom the Mitannians designated with the same Sumerogram dIM. Occasionally Adad/Iškur is identified with the god Amurru, the god of the Amorites.

In ancient depictions, she carries a double-headed mace or scimitar embellished with lion heads. Sometimes she is depicted as being borne atop one or two lionesses. From very early times, she is associated with the constellation Virgo and vestiges of symbolism associated with her have persisted in representations of the constellation to current times, such as the ear of grain, even as the deity name changed from culture to culture.

Demeter’s daughter Persephone was abducted to the underworld by Hades. Demeter searched for her ceaselessly, preoccupied with her loss and her grief. The seasons halted; living things ceased their growth, then began to die.

Faced with the extinction of all life on earth, Zeus sent his messenger Hermes to the underworld to bring Persephone back. Hades agreed to release her if she had eaten nothing while in his realm; but Persephone had eaten a small number of pomegranate seeds. This bound her to Hades and the underworld for certain months of every year, either the dry Mediterranean summer, when plant life is threatened by drought, or the autumn and winter.

There are several variations on the basic myth. In the Homeric hymn to Demeter, Hecate assists in the search and later becomes Persephone’s underworld attendant. In another, Persephone willingly and secretly eats the pomegranate seeds, thinking to deceive Hades, but is discovered and made to stay.

Contrary to popular perception, Persephone’s time in the underworld does not correspond with the unfruitful seasons of the ancient Greek calendar, nor her return to the upper world with springtime. Demeter’s descent to retrieve Persephone from the underworld is connected to the Eleusinian Mysteries.

The myth of the capture of Persephone seems to be pre-Greek. In the Greek version, Ploutos (wealth) represents the wealth of the corn that was stored in underground silos or ceramic jars (pithoi). Similar subterranean pithoi were used in ancient times for funerary practices. At the beginning of the autumn, when the corn of the old crop is laid on the fields, she ascends and is reunited with her mother Demeter, for at this time the old crop and the new meet each other.

According to the personal mythology of Robert Graves, Persephone is not only the younger self of Demeter, she is in turn also one of three guises of the Triple Goddess – Kore (the youngest, the maiden, signifying green young grain), Persephone (in the middle, the nymph, signifying the ripe grain waiting to be harvested), and Hecate (the eldest of the three, the crone, the harvested grain), which to a certain extent reduces the name and role of Demeter to that of group name. Before her abduction, she is called Kore; and once taken she becomes Persephone (‘she who brings destruction’).

Pluto (Latin: Plūtō; Greek: Ploutōn) was the ruler of the underworld in classical mythology. Pluto’s Roman equivalent is Dis Pater, whose name is most often taken to mean “Rich Father” and is perhaps a direct translation of Plouton.

The earlier name for the god was Hades, which became more common as the name of the underworld itself. In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Pluto represents a more positive concept of the god who presides over the afterlife.

Ploutōn was frequently conflated with Ploutos (Plutus), a god of wealth, because mineral wealth was found underground, and because as a chthonic god Pluto ruled the deep earth that contained the seeds necessary for a bountiful harvest.

The name Ploutōn came into widespread usage with the Eleusinian Mysteries, in which Pluto was venerated as a stern ruler but the loving husband of Persephone. The couple received souls in the afterlife, and are invoked together in religious inscriptions. Hades, by contrast, had few temples and religious practices associated with him, and he is portrayed as the dark and violent abductor of Persephone.

Pluto and Hades differ in character, but they are not distinct figures and share two dominant myths. In Greek cosmogony, the god received the rule of the underworld in a three-way division of sovereignty over the world, with his brother Zeus ruling the Sky and his other brother Poseidon sovereign over the Sea. His central narrative is the abduction of Persephone to be his wife and the queen of his realm.

Plouton as the name of the ruler of the underworld first appears in Greek literature of the Classical period, in the works of the Athenian playwrights and of the philosopher Plato, who is the major Greek source on its significance. Under the name Pluto, the god appears in other myths in a secondary role, mostly as the possessor of a quest-object, and especially in the descent of Orpheus or other heroes to the underworld.

Pluto was also identified with the obscure Roman Orcus, like Hades the name of both a god of the underworld and the underworld as a place. The borrowed Greek name Pluto is sometimes used for the ruler of the dead in Latin literature, leading some mythology handbooks to assert misleadingly that Pluto was the Roman counterpart of Hades.

Dīs Pater was a Roman god of the underworld. Dis was originally associated with fertile agricultural land and mineral wealth, and since those minerals came from underground, he was later equated with the chthonic deities Pluto (Hades) and Orcus.

In De Natura Deorum, Cicero derives the name of Dīs Pater from the Latin dives (“wealth, riches”), suggesting a meaning of “father of riches” (Pater is “father” in Latin), directly corresponding to the name Pluto, Pluto simply being how Plouton is spelled is Latin. Alternatively, he may be a secondary reflex of the same god as Jupiter (Proto-Indo-European Dyeus Ph₂ter or “Zeus-Pater”).

Inara, in Hittite–Hurrian mythology, was the goddess of the wild animals of the steppe and daughter of the Storm-god Teshub/Tarhunt. She corresponds to the “potnia theron” (“The Mistress of the Animals”) of Greek mythology, better known as Artemis. Inara’s mother is probably Hebat and her brother is Sarruma.

The mother goddess Hannahanna promises Inara land and a man during a consultation by Inara. Inara then disappears. Her father looks for her, joined by Hannahanna with a bee. The story resembles that of Demeter and her daughter Persephone, in Greek myth.

Many depictions in ancient art present a widespread ancient motif of the mistress of Animals, showing a central figure with a human form grasping two animals, one to each side. The oldest depiction has been discovered in Çatalhöyük.

Cybele (Phrygian: Matar Kubileya/Kubeleya “Kubileya/Kubeleya Mother”, perhaps “Mountain Mother”) is an Anatolian mother goddess; she may have a possible forerunner in the earliest neolithic at Çatalhöyük in Anatolia dated to the 6th millennium BC, where statues of plump women, sometimes sitting, have been found in excavations and identified by some as a mother goddess.

She is Phrygia’s only known goddess, and was probably its national deity. Her Phrygian cult was adopted and adapted by Greek colonists of Asia Minor and spread to mainland Greece and its more distant western colonies around the 6th century BC. In Greece, as in Phrygia, she was a “Mistress of animals” (Potnia Therōn), with her mastery of the natural world expressed by the lions that flank her, sit in her lap or draw her chariot.

In Greece, Cybele met with a mixed reception. She was partially assimilated to aspects of the Earth-goddess Gaia, her possibly Minoan equivalent Rhea, and the harvest–mother goddess Demeter 

She was readily assimilated to the Minoan-Greek earth-mother Rhea, “Mother of the gods”, whose raucous, ecstatic rites she may have acquired. As an exemplar of devoted motherhood, she was partly assimilated to the grain-goddess Demeter, whose torchlight procession recalled her search for her lost daughter, Persephone.

New year 

From the Pisces to Aries

Aries – Libra

Venus: Scorpio / Taurus and Aries / Libra 

Ceres: Pisces / Virgo

Venus is the ruling planet of Libra (and Taurus) and exalted in Pisces

Inanna in her aspect as Anunītu was associated with the eastern fish of the last of the zodiacal constellations, Pisces. Her consort Dumuzi was associated with the contiguous first constellation, Aries.

Inanna / Tammuz – Ereshkigal / Nergal

In old opinion, Ceres is the ruling planet of Virgo[citation needed] but as more knowledge about the planet’s character has been revealed, majority of modern astrologers opinion, denote Ceres being the ruler for Taurus, however, Ceres is exalted in Virgo. In an updated revision, Taurus is also ruled by Chiron with that very same dwarf planet having an astrological maverick character being a co-ruler to Virgo, and exalted in Sagittarius.

Aries (meaning “ram”) is the first astrological sign in the zodiac, spanning the first 30 degrees of celestial longitude (0°≤ λ <30°). It is located in the northern celestial hemisphere between Pisces to the west and Taurus to the east.

Under the tropical zodiac, the Sun transits this sign when it reaches the March equinox, which occur from approximately March 20 to April 21 each year (by design). According to the tropical system of astrology,Under the sidereal zodiac, the sun currently transits Aries from April 15 to 14 May (approximately).

Pisces (Ancient Greek: Ikhthyes) is the twelfth and last astrological sign in the Zodiac. It spans 330° to 360° of celestial longitude. Under the tropical zodiac, the sun transits this area between February 19 and March 20. In Sidereal astrology, the Sun currently transits the constellation of Pisces from approximately March 12 to April 18.

Libra is the seventh astrological sign in the Zodiac. It spans 180°–210° celestial longitude. Under the tropical zodiac, the Sun transits this area on average between (northern autumnal equinox) September 23 and October 23, and under the sidereal zodiac, the sun currently transits the constellation of Libra from approximately October 31 to November 22.

The Truth About New Year’s—and Other Popular Holidays

Happy Easter: Celebration of the Spring Equinox

Calculating the Easter Date

Easter Bunny

Easter egg

Easter

Although the Christian festival of Easter celebrates the torture and death of Jesus on a cross and, especially, his alleged resurrection, and has links to the Jewish Passover, most people, including Christians, unknowingly celebrate its pagan influences, including the bunny, a symbol of fertility, and colored eggs, representing the sunlight of spring.

It took over 300 years before Christians established the date of Easter as the first Sunday after the full moon following the March Equinox at the First Council of Nicaea in 325 C.E. The pagan Easter, however, was celebrated long before Christianity (although the festival went by many names).

According to the Bible, Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection occurred at the time of the Jewish Passover, which was celebrated on the first Full Moon following the vernal equinox. This soon led to Christians celebrating Easter on different dates. At the end of the 2nd century, some churches celebrated Easter on the day of the Passover, while others celebrated it on the following Sunday.

In 325 CE, the Council of Nicaea established that Easter would be held on the first Sunday after the first Full Moon occurring on or after the vernal equinox. (*) From that point forward, the Easter date depended on the ecclesiastical approximation of March 21 for the vernal equinox.

In the 8th century, Christian scholar Bede claimed in his book, De temporum ratione, (The Reckoning of Time) that Easter derived from the Saxon Eostre (a.k.a. Eastre). The ancient Saxons in Northern Europe worshiped the Goddess Oestre at the time of the Spring Equinox. The Goddess Easter represents the sunrise, spring-time and fertility, the renewal of life.

Pagan Anglo-Saxons made offerings of colored eggs to her at the Vernal Equinox. They placed them at graves especially, probably as a charm of rebirth. (Egyptians and Greeks were also known to place eggs at gravesites). Only later did the Christians pilfer the name for themselves and graft their religion onto a pagan celebration.

Easter falls on the first Sunday after the Full Moon date, based on mathematical calculations, that falls on or after March 21. If the Full Moon is on a Sunday, Easter is celebrated on the following Sunday.

Although Easter is liturgically related to the beginning of spring in the Northern Hemisphere (March equinox) and the Full Moon, its date is not based on the actual astronomical date of either event.

March 21 is the church’s date of the March equinox, regardless of the time zone, while the actual date of the equinox varies between March 19 and March 22, and the date depends on the time zone.

The date of the Paschal Full Moon, used to determine the date of Easter, is based on mathematical approximations following a 19-year cycle called the Metonic cycle. Both dates may coincide with the dates of the astronomical events, but in some years, they don’t.

Passover

Passover, also called Pesach, is a major, biblically derived Jewish holiday. Jews celebrate Passover as a commemoration of their liberation by God from slavery in ancient Egypt and their freedom as a nation under the leadership of Moses.

It commemorates the story of the Exodus as described in the Hebrew Bible, especially in the Book of Exodus, in which the Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt. According to standard biblical chronology, this event would have taken place at about 1300 BC.

Passover is a spring festival which during the existence of the Temple in Jerusalem was connected to the offering of the “first-fruits of the barley”, barley being the first grain to ripen and to be harvested in the Land of Israel.

Passover is a spring festival, so the 15th day of Nisan typically begins on the night of a full moon after the northern vernal equinox. However, due to leap months falling after the vernal equinox, Passover sometimes starts on the second full moon after vernal equinox, as in 2016.

Passover commences on the 15th of the Hebrew month of Nisan and lasts for either seven days (in Israel and for Reform Jews and other progressive Jews around the world who adhere to the Biblical commandment) or eight days for Orthodox, Hasidic, and most Conservative Jews (in the diaspora).

In the Akkadian of Akkad, Assyria and Babylonia nisānu, which derives from Sumerian nisag “First fruits” is the first month on the Assyrian calendar, and on the Hebrew calendar is the first month of the ecclesiastical year and the seventh month (eighth, in leap year) of the civil year. The name of the month is of Assyrian-Babylonian origin; in the Torah it is called the month of the Aviv (e.g. Exodus 13:4).

The Passover begins on the 15th day of the month of Nisan, which typically falls in March or April of the Gregorian calendar. To ensure that Passover did not start before spring, the tradition in ancient Israel held that the first day of Nisan would not start until the barley was ripe, being the test for the onset of spring.

If the barley was not ripe, or various other phenomena indicated that spring was not yet imminent, an intercalary month (Adar II) would be added. However, since at least the 4th century, the date has been fixed mathematically.

In Judaism, a day commences at dusk and lasts until the following dusk, thus the first day of Passover begins after dusk of the 14th of Nisan and ends at dusk of the 15th day of the month of Nisan. The rituals unique to the Passover celebrations commence with the Passover Seder when the 15th of Nisan has begun. It is one of the most widely celebrated Jewish holidays.

Assyrians today refer to the month as the “month of happiness.” It is a spring month of 30 days. Nisan usually falls in March–April on the Gregorian calendar. In the Book of Esther in the Tanakh it is referred to as Nisan. Karaite Jews interpret it as referring to the month in which barley was ripe.

In the narrative of the Exodus, the Bible tells that God helped the Children of Israel escape from their slavery in Egypt by inflicting ten plagues upon the ancient Egyptians before the Pharaoh would release his Israelite slaves; the tenth and worst of the plagues was the death of the Egyptian first-born.

The Israelites were instructed to mark the doorposts of their homes with the blood of a slaughtered spring lamb and, upon seeing this, the spirit of the Lord knew to pass over the first-born in these homes, hence the English name of the holiday.

The biblical requirements of slaying the Paschal lamb in the individual homes of the Hebrews and smearing the blood of the lamb on their doorways were celebrated in Egypt. However, once Israel was in the wilderness and the tabernacle was in operation, a change was made in those two original requirements (Deuteronomy 16:2–6).

Passover lambs were to be sacrificed at the door of the tabernacle and no longer in the homes of the Jews. No longer, therefore, could blood be smeared on doorways.

Taw is believed to be derived from the Egyptian hieroglyph meaning “mark”. Taw, tav, or taf is the twenty-second and last letter of the Semitic abjads (22nd in abjadi order, 3rd in modern order), including Phoenician Tāw. In Arabic, it is also gives rise to the derived letter Ṯāʼ. Its original sound value is /t/. The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek tau (Τ), Latin T, and Cyrillic Т.

“From aleph to taf” describes something from beginning to end, the Hebrew equivalent of the English “From A to Z.” Omega is the 24th and last letter of the Greek alphabet. The word literally means “great O” (ō mega, mega meaning “great”), as opposed to omicron, which means “little O” (o mikron, micron meaning “little”).

Alpha (Α or α) and omega (Ω or ω) are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, and a title of Christ and God in the Book of Revelation. This pair of letters are used as Christian symbols, and are often combined with the Cross, Chi-rho, or other Christian symbols. It is interpreted by many Christians to mean that Jesus has existed for all eternity or that God is eternal.

Alpha (Α) and omega (Ω) are the first and last letters, respectively, of the classical (Ionic) Greek alphabet. Thus, twice when the phrase “I am the alpha and the omega” appears it is further clarified with the additional phrase, “the beginning and the end” (Revelation 21:6, 22:13). The first and last letters of the Greek alphabet were used because the book of Revelation is in the New Testament, which was originally written in Greek.

Tav is the last letter of the Hebrew word emet, which means ‘truth’. The midrash explains that emet is made up of the first, middle, and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet (aleph, mem, and tav: אמת). Sheqer (falsehood), on the other hand, is made up of the 19th, 20th, and 21st (and penultimate) letters.

Thus, truth is all-encompassing, while falsehood is narrow and deceiving. In Jewish mythology it was the word emet that was carved into the head of the golem which ultimately gave it life. But when the letter aleph was erased from the golem’s forehead, what was left was “met”—dead. And so the golem died.

Ezekiel 9:4 depicts a vision in which the tav plays a Passover role similar to the blood on the lintel and doorposts of a Hebrew home in Egypt. In Ezekiel’s vision, the Lord has his angels separate the demographic wheat from the chaff by going through Jerusalem, the capital city of ancient Israel, and inscribing a mark, a tav, “upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.”

In Ezekiel’s vision, then, the Lord is counting tav-marked Israelites as worthwhile to spare, but counts the people worthy of annihilation who lack the tav and the critical attitude it signifies. In other words, looking askance at a culture marked by dire moral decline is a kind of shibboleth for loyalty and zeal for God.

When the Pharaoh freed the Israelites, it is said that they left in such a hurry that they could not wait for bread dough to rise (leaven). In commemoration, for the duration of Passover no leavened bread is eaten, for which reason Passover is called the feast of unleavened bread in the Torah. Thus matzo (flat unleavened bread) is eaten during Passover and it is a tradition of the holiday.

Historically, together with Shavuot and Sukkot, Passover is one of the Three Pilgrimage Festivals (Shalosh Regalim) during which the entire population of the kingdom of Judah made a pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem. Samaritans still make this pilgrimage to Mount Gerizim, but only men participate in public worship.

The origins of the Passover festival antedate the Exodus. The Passover ritual, prior to Deuteronomy, is widely thought to have its origins in an apotropaic rite, unrelated to the Exodus, to ensure the protection of a family home, a rite conducted wholly within a clan. Hyssop was employed to daub the blood of a slaughtered sheep on the lintels and door posts to ensure that demonic forces could not enter the home.

A further hypothesis maintains that, once the Priestly Code was promulgated, the exodus narrative took on a central function, as the apotropaic rite was, arguably, amalgamated with the Canaanite agricultural festival of spring which was a ceremony of Unleavened Bread, connected with the barley harvest.

As the Exodus motif grew, the original function and symbolism of these double origins was lost. Several motifs replicate the features associated with the Mesopotamian Akitu or Akitum (lit. “the barley-cutting”, “barley-sowing” or “head of the year”) spring festival in ancient Mesopotamia.

The name is from the Sumerian for “barley”, originally marking two festivals celebrating the beginning of each of the two half-years of the Sumerian calendar, marking the sowing of barley in autumn and the cutting of barley in spring.

In Babylonian religion it came to be dedicated to Marduk’s victory over Tiamat (Akkadian: DTI.AMAT or DTAM.TUM, Greek: Thaláttē), who possessed the Tablet of Destinies. The principal theme of the epic is the justified elevation of Marduk to command over all the deities.

In the religion of ancient Babylon, Tiamat is a primordial goddess of the salt sea, mating with Abzû, the god of fresh water, to produce younger gods. She is the symbol of the chaos of primordial creation. She is referred to as a woman, and described as the glistening one. Some sources identify her with images of a sea serpent or dragon.

It is suggested that there are two parts to the Tiamat mythos, the first in which Tiamat is a creator goddess, through a sacred marriage between salt and fresh water, peacefully creating the cosmos through successive generations. In the second Chaoskampf Tiamat is considered the monstrous embodiment of primordial chaos.

In the Enûma Elish, the Babylonian epic of creation, she gives birth to the first generation of deities; her husband, Apsu, correctly assuming they are planning to kill him and usurp his throne, later makes war upon them and is killed. Enraged, she, too, wars upon her husband’s murderers.

Taking on the form of a massive sea dragon, she is then slain by Enki’s son, the storm-god Marduk, but not before she had brought forth the monsters of the Mesopotamian pantheon, including the first dragons, whose bodies she filled with “poison instead of blood”. Marduk then forms heavens and the earth from her divided body.

In the primordial battle she gave them to Kingu, the deity she had chosen as her lover and the leader of her host, and who was also one of her children. The deities gathered in terror, but Anu, (replaced later, first by Enlil and, in the late version that has survived after the First Dynasty of Babylon, by Marduk, the son of Ea), first extracting a promise that he would be revered as “king of the gods”, overcame her, armed with the arrows of the winds, a net, a club, and an invincible spear. Slicing Tiamat in half, he made from her ribs the vault of heaven and earth. Her weeping eyes became the source of the Tigris and the Euphrates, her tail became the Milky Way.

With the approval of the elder deities, he took from Kingu the Tablet of Destinies, installing himself as the head of the Babylonian pantheon. Kingu was captured and later was slain: his red blood mixed with the red clay of the Earth would make the body of humankind, created to act as the servant of the younger Igigi deities.

The Tiamat myth is one of the earliest recorded versions of the Chaoskampf, the battle between a culture hero and a chthonic or aquatic monster, serpent or dragon. Chaoskampf motifs in other mythologies linked directly or indirectly to the Tiamat myth include the Hittite Illuyanka myth, and in Greek tradition Apollo’s killing of the Python as a necessary action to take over the Delphic Oracle.

Holidays Related to Easter

The dates of many Christian feasts are based on the date of Easter Sunday:

Ash Wednesday (46 days before Easter)

Palm Sunday (1 week before Easter)

Maundy Thursday (3 days before Easter)

Good Friday (2 days before Easter)

Easter Saturday (1 day before Easter)

Easter Monday (1 day after Easter)

Ascension Day (39 days after Easter)

Whit Sunday / Pentecost (49 days after Easter)

Whit Monday (50 days after Easter)

Trinity Sunday (56 days after Easter)

Corpus Christi (60 days after Easter)

Equinox

An equinox is commonly regarded as the instant of time when the plane (extended indefinitely in all directions) of Earth’s equator passes through the center of the Sun. This occurs twice each year: around 20 March and 23 September. In other words, it is the moment at which the center of the visible Sun is directly above the Equator.

The word is derived from the Latin aequinoctium, from aequus (equal) and nox (genitive noctis) (night). On the day of an equinox, daytime and nighttime are of approximately equal duration all over the planet.

They are not exactly equal, however, due to the angular size of the Sun, atmospheric refraction, and the rapidly changing duration of the length of day that occurs at most latitudes around the equinoxes.

March equinox and September equinox are names referring to the months of the year in which they occur, with no ambiguity as to which hemisphere is the context. Northward equinox and southward equinox are names referring to the apparent direction of motion of the Sun.

In the northern hemisphere, the equinox in March is called the Vernal </span>(ver = spring) or Spring Equinox; the September equinox is called the Autumnal (autumnus = autumn) or Fall Equinox. The dates are slightly variable, dependent as they are on the leap year cycle.

Because the Moon (and to a lesser extent the planets) cause the motion of the Earth to vary from a perfect ellipse, the equinox is now officially defined by the Sun’s more regular ecliptic longitude rather than by its declination. The instants of the equinoxes are currently defined to be when the longitude of the Sun is 0° and 180°.

Long before conceiving this equality primitive cultures noted the day when the Sun rises due East and sets due West and indeed this happens on the day closest to the astronomically defined event.

The early Romans used a lunar calendar in which months alternated between 29 and 30 days. The calender produced inaccuracies because it gradually fell out of step with the seasons. Julius Caesar reformed the calendar by switching its base from lunar to solar. The Romans established the day on which the vernal equinox occurred as March 25th.

The length of the year got fixed at 365 days, with an additional leap-year day added every fourth year. This made the average length of a year equal to 365.25 days, which came fairly close to the actual value of 365.2422 days.

The astronomical vernal equinox occurs when night and day appear nearly the same length at around March 21 and establishes the first day of spring (in the northern hemisphere). The moment the Sun crosses directly over the Earth’s equator marks the vernal equinox (in the southern hemisphere, the moment equals the autumnal equinox).

Translated literally, vernal means “spring” and equinox means “equal night” because the sun sits above the equator and day and night appears equal in length.

The First Point of Aries

First Point of Aries or the March equinox, the location of the vernal equinox, and first point of Libra or the September equinox are the names referring to the astrological signs the Sun is entering. Due to the precession of the equinoxes, however, the constellations where the equinoxes are currently located have changed.

The March equinox passed from Taurus into Aries in year −1865, passed into Pisces in year −67, will pass into Aquarius in year 2597, and then into Capricornus in year 4312. The September equinox passed from Libra into Virgo in year −729, will pass into Leo in year 2439.

Aries (meaning “ram”) is the first astrological sign in the zodiac, spanning the first 30 degrees of celestial longitude (0°≤ λ <30°). It is located in the northern celestial hemisphere between Pisces to the west and Taurus to the east.

Under the tropical zodiac, the Sun transits this sign when it reaches the March equinox, which occur from approximately March 20 to April 21 each year (by design). According to the tropical system of astrology,Under the sidereal zodiac, the sun currently transits Aries from April 15 to 14 May (approximately).

The First Point of Aries is named for the constellation. This is because the Sun crossed the celestial equator from south to north in Aries more than two millennia ago. The Sun now appears in Aries from late April through mid May, though the constellation is still associated with the beginning of spring.

Pisces (Ancient Greek: Ikhthyes) is the twelfth astrological sign in the Zodiac. It spans 330° to 360° of celestial longitude. Under the tropical zodiac, the sun transits this area between February 19 and March 20. In Sidereal astrology, the Sun currently transits the constellation of Pisces from approximately March 12 to April 18.

Libra is the seventh astrological sign in the Zodiac. It spans 180°–210° celestial longitude. Under the tropical zodiac, the Sun transits this area on average between (northern autumnal equinox) September 23 and October 23, and under the sidereal zodiac, the sun currently transits the constellation of Libra from approximately October 31 to November 22.

The first point of Libra is named for the constellation. This is because the Sun crossed the celestial equator from north to south in Libra more than two millennia ago. The Sun now appears in Libra from late October to late November, though the constellation is still associated with the beginning of autumn.

Going back to ancient Greek times, Libra the constellation between Virgo and Scorpio used to be ruled over by the constellation of Scorpio. They called the area the Latin word “chelae”, which translated to “the claws” which can help identify the individual stars that make up the full constellation of Libra, since it was so closely identified with the Scorpion constellation in the sky.

Scorpio is the eighth astrological sign in the Zodiac, originating from the constellation of Scorpius. It spans 210°–240° ecliptic longitude. Under the tropical zodiac (most commonly used in Western astrology), the Sun transits this area on average from October 23 to November 22. Under the sidereal zodiac (most commonly used in Hindu astrology), the Sun is in Scorpio from approximately November 16 to December 15.

Virgo (Greek: Parthenos), is the sixth astrological sign in the Zodiac. It spans the 150-180th degree of the zodiac. Under the tropical zodiac, the Sun transits this area on average between August 23 and September 22, and the Sun transits the constellation of Virgo from approximately September 16 to October 30.

Aries

The name Aries is Latin for ram, and its symbol is representing a ram’s horns. The symbol of the ram is based on the Chrysomallus, the flying ram that provided the Golden Fleece in Ancient Greek mythology. The fleece is a symbol of authority and kingship.

Although Aries came to represent the Chrysomallus it has represented a ram since late Babylonian times. Before that, the stars of Aries formed a farmhand. Modern-day Aries was known as Lu.Hun.Ga (“The Agrarian Worker” or “The Hired Man”).

The shift in identification from the constellation as the Agrarian Worker to the Ram likely occurred in later Babylonian tradition because of its growing association with Dumuzi the Shepherd, who was known as the king of Uruk. However, the Sumerian King List says that Dumuzid the Shepherd had ruled before the flood, and locates him in Bad-tibira.

Dumuzi the Shepherd appears in later works as Tammuz, an ancient Mesopotamian god associated with shepherds, who was also the primary consort of the goddess Inanna later known as Ishtar. Inanna in her aspect as Anunītu was associated with the eastern fish of the last of the zodiacal constellations, Pisces. Her consort Dumuzi was associated with the contiguous first constellation, Aries.

There may have been some confusion in the early Sumerian compositions between Dumuzi the Shepherd and Dumuzid the Fisherman, who originally came from Kuara in Sumer, but is known in the Sumerian King List as the 4th king in the 1st Dynasty of Uruk, and Gilgamesh’s predecessor.

The king list also states that Dumuzid the Fisherman single handedly captured Enmebaragesi, ruler of Kish, and claims he ruled in Uruk for 100 years — far fewer than the 1200 years it ascribes his predecessor, Lugalbanda “the Shepherd”. His given name means “faithful child” in Sumerian.

Lugalbanda (young/fierce king) is a character found in Sumerian mythology and literature. Lugalbanda is listed in the postdiluvian period of the Sumerian king list as the second king of Uruk, saying he ruled for 1,200 years, and providing him with the epithet of the Shepherd.

Lugalbanda appears in Sumerian literary sources as early as the mid-3rd millennium, as attested by a mythological text from Abu Salabikh that describes a romantic relationship between Lugalbanda and Ninsun.

In Sumerian mythology, Ninsun (also called Ninsumun “lady of the wild cows”) is a goddess, best known as the mother of the legendary hero Gilgamesh, and as the tutelary goddess of Gudea of Lagash.

Lugalbanda prominently features as the hero of two Sumerian stories dated to the Ur III period (21st century BCE), called by scholars Lugalbanda I (or Lugalbanda in the Mountain Cave) and Lugalbanda II (or Lugalbanda and the Anzu Bird). Both are known only in later versions, although there is an Ur III fragment that is quite different from either 18th century version.

These tales are part of a series of stories that describe the conflicts between Enmerkar, king of Unug (Uruk), and Ensuhkeshdanna, lord of Aratta. In these two stories, Lugalbanda is a soldier in the army of Enmerkar, whose name also appears in the Sumerian King List as the first king of Uruk and predecessor of Lugalbanda. The extant fragments make no reference to Lugalbanda’s succession as king following Enmerkar.

Nergal’s fiery aspect appears in names or epithets such as Lugalgira, Lugalbanda, Sharrapu (“the burner”), Erra, Gibil and Sibitti or Seven. However, a certain confusion exists in cuneiform literature between Ninurta (slayer of Asag and wielder of Sharur, an enchanted mace) and Nergal. Nergal has epithets such as the “raging king”, the “furious one”, and the like.

Kuara (also known as Kisiga, Ku’ara, modern Tell al-Lahm site, Dhi Qar Governorate, Iraq) is an archaeological site in Dhi Qar Province (Iraq). According to the Sumerian king list, Kuara was also the home of Dumuzid, the fisherman, legendary third king of Uruk.

The city’s patron deity was Meslamtaea (Nergal). In Sumerian mythology, Kuara was also considered the birthplace of the god Marduk (Asarluhi), Enki’s son. The cults of Marduk and Ninehama were centered in Kuara.

In Sumerian mythology, Dumuzid’s sister was Geshtinanna, the goddess of vegetation. In the Sumerian King List, Dumuzid is listed as an antediluvian king of the city of Bad-tibira and also an early king of the city of Uruk. In the Sumerian poem Inanna Prefers the Farmer, Dumuzid competes against the farmer Enkimdu for Inanna’s hand in marriage.

In Inanna’s Descent into the Underworld, Dumuzid fails to mourn Inanna’s death and, when she returns from the Underworld, she allows the galla demons to drag him down to the Underworld as her replacement.

Inanna later regrets this decision and decrees that Dumuzid will spend half the year in the Underworld, but the other half of the year with her, while his sister Geshtinanna stays in the Underworld in his place, thus resulting in the cycle of the seasons.

By the time the MUL.APIN was created—by 1000 BC—modern Aries was identified with both Dumuzi’s ram and a hired laborer. The exact timing of this shift is difficult to determine due to the lack of images of Aries or other ram figures.

In ancient Egyptian astronomy, Aries was associated with the god Amon-Ra, who was depicted as a man with a ram’s head and represented fertility and creativity. Because it was the location of the vernal equinox, it was called the “Indicator of the Reborn Sun”.

During the times of the year when Aries was prominent, priests would process statues of Amon-Ra to temples, a practice that was modified by Persian astronomers centuries later. Aries acquired the title of “Lord of the Head” in Egypt, referring to its symbolic and mythological importance

In traditional Chinese astronomy, stars from Aries were used in several constellations. The brightest stars—Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Arietis—formed a constellation called Lou, variously translated as “bond”, “lasso”, and “sickle”, which was associated with the ritual sacrifice of cattle.

This name was shared by the 16th lunar mansion, the location of the full moon closest to the autumnal equinox. The lunar mansion represented the area where animals were gathered before sacrifice around that time. This constellation has also been associated with harvest-time as it could represent a woman carrying a basket of food on her head.

35, 39, and 41 Arietis were part of a constellation called Wei, which represented a fat abdomen and was the namesake of the 17th lunar mansion, which represented granaries. Delta and Zeta Arietis were a part of the constellation Tianyin, thought to represent the Emperor’s hunting partner. Zuogeng (Tso-kang), a constellation depicting a marsh and pond inspector, was composed of Mu, Nu, Omicron, Pi, and Sigma Arietis. He was accompanied by Yeou-kang, a constellation depicting an official in charge of pasture distribution.

In a similar system to the Chinese, the first lunar mansion in Hindu astronomy was called “Aswini”, after the traditional names for Beta and Gamma Arietis, the Aswins. Because the Hindu new year began with the vernal equinox, the Rig Veda contains over 50 new-year’s related hymns to the twins, making them some of the most prominent characters in the work. Aries itself was known as “Aja” and “Mesha”.

Mars

The name of March comes from Martius, the first month of the earliest Roman calendar. It was named after Mars, the Roman god of war, and an ancestor of the Roman people through his sons Romulus and Remus. His month Martius was the beginning of the season for warfare, and the festivals held in his honor during the month were mirrored by others in October, when the season for these activities came to a close.

Martius remained the first month of the Roman calendar year perhaps as late as 153 BC, and several religious observances in the first half of the month were originally new year’s celebrations. Even in late antiquity, Roman mosaics picturing the months sometimes still placed March first.

Mars represented military power as a way to secure peace, and was a father (pater) of the Roman people. In the mythic genealogy and founding myths of Rome, Mars was the father of Romulus and Remus with Rhea Silvia.

His love affair with Venus symbolically reconciled the two different traditions of Rome’s founding; Venus was the divine mother of the hero Aeneas, celebrated as the Trojan refugee who “founded” Rome several generations before Romulus laid out the city walls.

The consort of Mars was Nerio or Neriene, “Valor.” She represents the vital force (vis), power (potentia) and majesty (maiestas) of Mars. Her name was regarded as Sabine in origin and is equivalent to Latin virtus, “manly virtue” (from vir, “man”).

In the early 3rd century BC, the comic playwright Plautus has a reference to Mars greeting Nerio, his wife. A source from late antiquity says that Mars and Neriene were celebrated together at a festival held on March 23. In the later Roman Empire, Neriene came to be identified with Minerva.

Nerio probably originates as a divine personification of Mars’ power, as such abstractions in Latin are generally feminine. Her name appears with that of Mars in an archaic prayer invoking a series of abstract qualities, each paired with the name of a deity. The influence of Greek mythology and its anthropomorphic gods may have caused Roman writers to treat these pairs as “marriages.”

In the Skanda Purana, a Hindu religious text, Mars is known as the deity Mangala and was born from the sweat of Shiva. The planet is called Angaraka in Sanskrit, after the celibate god of war who possesses the signs of Aries and Scorpio, and teaches the occult sciences. Kali is often portrayed standing or dancing on her consort, the Hindu god Shiva, who lies calm and prostrate beneath her.

Matronalia

In ancient Roman religion, the Matronalia (or Matronales Feriae) was a festival celebrating Juno Lucina, the goddess of childbirth (“Juno who brings children into the light”), and of motherhood (mater is “mother” in Latin) and women in general.

In the original Roman calendar traditionally thought to have been established by Romulus, it was the first day of the year. As the first day of March (Martius), the month of Mars, it was also the Feriae Martis.

The date of the festival was associated with the dedication of a temple to Juno Lucina on the Esquiline Hill circa 268 BCE, and possibly also a commemoration of the peace between the Romans and the Sabines.

On the day, women would participate in rituals at the temple, although the details have not been preserved other than the observation that they wore their hair loose (when Roman decorum otherwise required them to wear it up), and were not allowed to wear belts or to knot their clothing in any place.

At home, women received gifts from their husbands and daughters, and Roman husbands were expected to offer prayers for their wives. Women were also expected to prepare a meal for the household slaves (who were given the day off work), as Roman men did at the Saturnalia.

Like Ares who was the son of Zeus and Hera, Mars is usually considered to be the son of Jupiter and Juno. However, in a version of his birth given by Ovid, he was the son of Juno alone. Jupiter had usurped the mother’s function when he gave birth to Minerva directly from his forehead (or mind).

To restore the balance, Juno sought the advice of the goddess Flora on how to do the same. Flora obtained a magic flower (Latin flos, plural flores, a masculine word) and tested it on a heifer who became fecund at once. She then plucked a flower ritually using her thumb, touched Juno’s belly, and impregnated her. Juno withdrew to Thrace and the shore of Marmara for the birth.

Ovid tells this story in the Fasti, his long-form poetic work on the Roman calendar. It may explain why the Matronalia, a festival celebrated by married women in honor of Juno as a goddess of childbirth, occurred on the first day of Mars’ month, which is also marked on a calendar from late antiquity as the birthday of Mars.

In the earliest Roman calendar, March was the first month, and the god would have been born with the new year. Ovid is the only source for the story. He may be presenting a literary myth of his own invention, or an otherwise unknown archaic Italic tradition; either way, in choosing to include the story, he emphasizes that Mars was connected to plant life and was not alienated from female nurture.

Juno was an ancient Roman goddess, the protector and special counselor of the state. Juno’s own warlike aspect among the Romans is apparent in her attire. She is often shown armed and wearing a goatskin cloak. The traditional depiction of this warlike aspect was assimilated from the Greek goddess Athena, who bore a goatskin, or a goatskin shield, called the ‘aegis’.

A daughter of Saturn, she is the wife of Jupiter and the mother of Mars, Vulcan, Bellona and Juventas. She is the Roman goddess of love and marriage, the Roman equivalent of Hera, the Greek goddess for love and marriage and queen of the gods in Greek mythology; like Hera, her sacred animal was the peacock. Her Etruscan counterpart was Uni, and she was said to also watch over the women of Rome.

Iuuen- is related to Latin aevum and Greek aion through a common Indo-European root referring to a concept of vital energy or “fertile time”. The iuvenis is he who has the fullness of vital force. Ancient etymologies associated Juno’s name with iuvare, “to aid, benefit”, and iuvenescere, “rejuvenate”, sometimes connecting it to the renewal of the new and waxing moon, perhaps implying the idea of a moon goddess.

In some inscriptions Jupiter himself is called Iuuntus, and one of the epithets of Jupiter is Ioviste, a superlative form of iuuen- meaning “the youngest”. Iuventas, “Youth”, was one of two deities who “refused” to leave the Capitol when the building of the new Temple of Capitoline Jove required the exauguration of deities who already occupied the site.

As the patron goddess of Rome and the Roman Empire, Juno was called Regina (“Queen”) and was a member of the Capitoline Triad (Juno Capitolina), centered on the Capitoline Hill in Rome; it consisted of her, Jupiter, and Minerva, goddess of wisdom.

Eostre

Ēostre or Ostara is a Germanic goddess who, by way of the Germanic month bearing her name (Northumbrian: Ēosturmōnaþ; West Saxon: Ēastermōnaþ; Old High German: Ôstarmânoth), is the namesake of the festival of Easter in some languages.

Ēostre is attested solely by Bede in his 8th-century work The Reckoning of Time, where Bede states that during Ēosturmōnaþ (the equivalent of April), pagan Anglo-Saxons had held feasts in Ēostre’s honour, but that this tradition had died out by his time, replaced by the Christian Paschal month, a celebration of the resurrection of Jesus.

As the Germanic languages descend from Proto-Indo-European (PIE), historical linguists have traced the name to a Proto-Indo-European goddess of the dawn *H₂ewsṓs (*Ausṓs), from which descends the Common Germanic divinity from whom Ēostre and Ostara are held to descend.

Theories connecting Ēostre with records of Germanic Easter customs, including hares and eggs, have been proposed. Eggs, like rabbits and hares, are fertility symbols of antiquity. Since birds lay eggs and rabbits and hares give birth to large litters in the early spring, these became symbols of the rising fertility of the earth at the Vernal Equinox.

Hares and eggs

The Easter Bunny (also called the Easter Rabbit or Easter Hare) is a folkloric figure and symbol of Easter, depicted as a rabbit bringing Easter eggs. The Easter Bunny is sometimes depicted with clothes. The custom was first mentioned in Georg Franck von Franckenau’s De ovis paschalibus (‘About Easter Eggs’) in 1682, referring to a German tradition of an Easter Hare bringing Easter eggs for the children.

In legend, the creature carries colored eggs in his basket, candy, and sometimes also toys to the homes of children, and as such shows similarities to Santa Claus or the Christkind, as they both bring gifts to children on the night before their respective holidays.

In ancient times, it was widely believed (as by Pliny, Plutarch, Philostratus, and Aelian) that the hare was a hermaphrodite. Rabbits and hares are both prolific breeders. Female hares can conceive a second litter of offspring while still pregnant with the first. This phenomenon is known as superfetation.

Lagomorphs mature sexually at an early age and can give birth to several litters a year (hence the saying, “to breed like rabbits” or “to breed like bunnies”). It is therefore not surprising that rabbits and hares should become fertility symbols, or that their springtime mating antics should enter into Easter folklore.

The idea that a hare could reproduce without loss of virginity led to an association with the Virgin Mary, with hares sometimes occurring in illuminated manuscripts and Northern European paintings of the Virgin and Christ Child. It may also have been associated with the Holy Trinity, as in the three hares motif.

The hare was a popular motif in medieval church art. Originating among German Lutherans, the “Easter Hare” originally played the role of a judge, evaluating whether children were good or disobedient in behavior at the start of the season of Eastertide.

Influential 19th century folklorist and philologist Jacob Grimm speculates, in the second volume of his Deutsche Mythologie, that the folk custom of Easter eggs among the continental Germanic peoples may have stemmed from springtime festivities of a Germanic goddess known in Old English as Ēostre (namesake of modern English Easter) and possibly known in Old High German as *Ostara (and thus namesake of Modern German Ostern ‘Easter’).

“The heathen Easter had much in common with May-feast and the reception of spring, particularly in matter of bonfires. Then, through long ages there seem to have lingered among the people Easter-games so-called, which the church itself had to tolerate : I allude especially to the custom of Easter eggs, and to the Easter tale which preachers told from the pulpit for the people’s amusement, connecting it with Christian reminiscences.”

Easter eggs, also called Paschal eggs, are eggs that are sometimes decorated. They are usually used as gifts on the occasion of Easter. As such, Easter eggs are common during the season of Eastertide (Easter season). The practice of decorating eggshells is quite ancient, with decorated, engraved ostrich eggs found in Africa which are 60,000 years old.

In the pre-dynastic period of Egypt and the early cultures of Mesopotamia and Crete, eggs were associated with death and rebirth, as well as with kingship, with decorated ostrich eggs, and representations of ostrich eggs in gold and silver, were commonly placed in graves of the ancient Sumerians and Egyptians as early as 5,000 years ago.

These cultural relationships may have influenced early Christian and Islamic cultures in those areas, as well as through mercantile, religious, and political links from those areas around the Mediterranean.

The oldest tradition is to use dyed and painted chicken eggs, however, a modern custom is to substitute chocolate eggs wrapped in colored foil, hand-carved wooden eggs, or plastic eggs filled with confectionery such as chocolate, or plastic eggs filled with candy such as jelly beans. However, real eggs continue to be used in Central and Eastern European tradition.

These eggs can be hidden for children to find on Easter morning, which may be left by the Easter Bunny. They may also be put in a basket filled with real or artificial straw to resemble a bird’s nest.

Although eggs, in general, were a traditional symbol of fertility and rebirth, in Christianity, for the celebration of Eastertide, Easter eggs symbolize the empty tomb of Jesus, from which Jesus resurrected. In addition, one ancient tradition was the staining of Easter eggs with the colour red “in memory of the blood of Christ, shed as at that time of his crucifixion.”

This custom of the Easter egg can be traced to early Christians of Mesopotamia, and from there it spread into Russia and Siberia through the Orthodox Churches, and later into Europe through the Catholic and Protestant Churches. This Christian use of eggs may have been influenced by practices in “pre-dynastic period in Egypt, as well as amid the early cultures of Mesopotamia and Crete”.

The Christian custom of Easter eggs, specifically, started among the early Christians of Mesopotamia, who stained eggs with red coloring &quot;in memory of the blood of Christ, shed at His crucifixion&quot;. In addition to dyeing the eggs red, the early Christians of Mesopotamia also stained Easter eggs green and yellow.

The Christian Church officially adopted the custom, regarding the eggs as a symbol of the resurrection of Jesus, with the Roman Ritual, the first edition of which was published in 1610 but which has texts of much older date, containing among the Easter Blessings of Food, one for eggs, along with those for lamb, bread, and new produce. The blessing is for consumption as a food, rather than decorated.

Sociology professor Kenneth Thompson discusses the spread of the Easter egg throughout Christendom, writing that “use of eggs at Easter seems to have come from Persia into the Greek Christian Churches of Mesopotamia, thence to Russia and Siberia through the medium of Orthodox Christianity. From the Greek Church the custom was adopted by either the Roman Catholics or the Protestants and then spread through Europe.”

Sherida

Sherida is one of the oldest Mesopotamian gods. As the Sumerian pantheon formalized, Utu became the primary sun god, and Sherida was syncretized into a subordinate role as an aspect of the sun alongside other less powerful solar deities (c.f. Ninurta) and took on the role of Utu’s consort.

She developed into the Akkadian mother goddess Aya. When the Semitic Akkadians moved into Mesopotamia, their pantheon became syncretized to the Sumerian. Inanna to Ishtar, Nanna to Sin, Utu to Shamash, etc. The minor Mesopotamian sun goddess Aya became syncretized into Sherida.

Aya is Akkadian for “dawn”, and by the Akkadian period she was firmly associated with the rising sun and with sexual love and youth. The Babylonians sometimes referred to her as kallatu (the bride), and as such she was known as the wife of Shamash.

In Norse mythology, Hel is a being who presides over a realm of the same name, where she receives a portion of the dead. Scholarly theories have been proposed about Hel’s potential connections to a goddess with potential Indo-European parallels in Bhavani, Kali, and Mahakali.

Kali’s earliest appearance is that of a destroyer of evil forces. She is the most powerful form of Adi shakti. Over time, she has been worshipped by devotional movements and tantric sects variously as the Divine Mother, Mother of the Universe, Adi Shakti, or Adi Parashakti. Shakta Hindu and Tantric sects additionally worship her as the ultimate reality or Brahman.

She is also seen as divine protector and the one who bestows moksha, or liberation. Kali is often portrayed standing or dancing on her consort, the Hindu god Shiva, who lies calm and prostrate beneath her. Kālī is also the feminine form of Kāla, an epithet of Shiva, and thus the consort of Shiva.

Inanna

Inanna is an ancient Mesopotamian goddess associated with love, beauty, sex, desire, fertility, war, justice, and political power. Alongside her twin brother, the sun god Utu (later known as Shamash), Inanna was the enforcer of divine justice.

She was originally worshipped in Sumer and was later worshipped by the Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians under the name Ishtar. She was known as the “Queen of Heaven” and was the patron goddess of the Eanna temple at the city of Uruk, which was her main cult center.

In modern times, the title “Queen of Heaven” is still used by contemporary pagans to refer to the Great Goddess, while Catholics, Orthodox, and some Anglican Christians now apply the ancient title to Mary, the mother of Jesus.<

She was associated with the planet Venus and her most prominent symbols included the lion and the eight-pointed star. Her husband was the god Dumuzid (later known as Tammuz) and her sukkal, or personal attendant, was the goddess Ninshubur (who later became the male deity Papsukkal).

In Mesopotamian mythology, Ereshkigal (lit. “Queen of the Great Earth”) was the goddess of Kur, the land of the dead or underworld in Sumerian mythology. She was the only one who could pass judgment and give laws in her kingdom.

In later East Semitic myths she was said to rule Irkalla alongside her husband Nergal. Sometimes her name is given as Irkalla, similar to the way the name Hades was used in Greek mythology for both the underworld and its ruler, and sometimes it is given as Ninkigal, (lit. “Lady of the Great Earth”).

In the ancient Sumerian poem Inanna’s Descent to the Underworld, Ereshkigal is described as Inanna’s older sister. Inanna and Ereshkigal represent polar opposites. Inanna is the Queen of Heaven, but Ereshkigal is the queen of Irkalla.

Nergal

Nergal seems to be in part a solar deity, sometimes identified with Shamash, but only representative of a certain phase of the sun. Portrayed in hymns and myths as a god of war and pestilence, Nergal seems to represent the sun of noontime and of the summer solstice that brings destruction, high summer being the dead season in the Mesopotamian annual cycle. He has also been called “the king of sunset”.

Over time Nergal developed from a war god to a god of the underworld. In the mythology, this occurred when Enlil and Ninlil gave him the underworld. In this capacity he has associated with him a goddess Allatu or Ereshkigal, though at one time Allatu may have functioned as the sole mistress of Aralu, ruling in her own person.

In the late Babylonian astral-theological system Nergal is related to the planet Mars. As a fiery god of destruction and war, Nergal doubtless seemed an appropriate choice for the red planet, and he was equated by the Greeks to the war-god Ares (Latin Mars)—hence the current name of the planet.

Gemini is one of the constellations of the zodiac. Its name is Latin for “twins,” and it is associated with the twins Castor and Pollux in Greek mythology. In Babylonian astronomy, the stars Castor and Pollux were known as the Great Twins. The Twins were regarded as minor gods and were called Meshlamtaea and Lugalirra, meaning respectively ‘The One who has arisen from the Underworld’ and the ‘Mighty King’.

Both names can be understood as titles of Nergal, the major Babylonian god of plague and pestilence, who was king of the Underworld. Nergal has epithets such as the “raging king”, the “furious one”, and the like. Nergal’s chief temple at Cuthah bore the name Meslam, from which the god receives the designation of Meslamtaeda or Meslamtaea, “the one that rises up from Meslam”.

In Assyro-Babylonian ecclesiastical art the great lion-headed colossi serving as guardians to the temples and palaces seem to symbolise Nergal, just as the bull-headed colossi probably typify Ninurta. The worship of Nergal does not appear to have spread as widely as that of Ninurta, but in the late Babylonian and early Persian period, syncretism seems to have fused the two divinities, which were invoked together as if they were identical.

Amongst the Hurrians and later Hittites Nergal was known as Aplu, a name derived from the Akkadian Apal Enlil, (Apal being the construct state of Aplu) meaning “the son of Enlil”. Aplu may be related with Apaliunas who is considered to be the Hittite reflex of *Apeljōn, an early form of the name Apollo. The national divinity of the Greeks, Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of music, truth and prophecy, healing, the sun and light, plague, poetry, and more.

Pluto was the ruler of the underworld in classical mythology. In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Pluto represents a more positive concept of the god who presides over the afterlife. Ploutōn was frequently conflated with Ploutos, a god of wealth, because mineral wealth was found underground, and because as a chthonic god Pluto ruled the deep earth that contained the seeds necessary for a bountiful harvest.

Plutus (lit. “wealth”) is the Greek god of wealth. He is either the son of Demeter and Iasion, with whom she lay in a thrice-ploughed field; or the child of Pluto and Persephone. In the theology of the Eleusinian Mysteries he is regarded as the “Divine Child.” Plutus can be identified as the one bearing the cornucopia—horn of plenty.

Ishara

Ishara is a pre-Hurrian and perhaps pre-Semitic deity from northern modern Syria, later incorporated into the Hurrian pantheon. She first appeared in Ebla and was incorporated to the Hurrian pantheon from which she found her way to the Hittite pantheon. In Hurrian and Semitic traditions, Išḫara is a love goddess, often identified with Ishtar.

In Alalah, her name was written with the Akkadogram IŠTAR plus a phonetic complement -ra, as IŠTAR-ra. Ishara is the Hittite word for “treaty, binding promise”, also personified as a goddess of the oath. In this context, she came to be seen as a “goddess of medicine” whose pity was invoked in case of illness.

Variants of the name appear as Ašḫara (in a treaty of Naram-Sin of Akkad with Hita of Elam) and Ušḫara (in Ugarite texts). Vedic uṣás is derived from the word uṣá which means “dawn”. This word comes from Proto-Indo-Iranian *Hušā́s (“ušā” in Avestan), which in turn is from Proto-Indo-European *h₂éusōs (“dawn”).

In Ebla, there were various logographic spellings involving the sign AMA “mother”. Ama-gi is a Sumerian word. The word originates from the noun ama “mother” (sometimes with the enclitic dative case marker ar), and the present participle gi “return, restore, put back”, thus literally meaning “returning to mother”.

It has been translated as “freedom”, as well as “manumission”, “exemption from debts or obligations”, and “the restoration of persons and property to their original status” including the remission of debts. Other interpretations include a “reversion to a previous state” and release from debt, slavery, taxation or punishment.

Assyriologist Samuel Noah Kramer has identified it as the first known written reference to the concept of freedom. By the Third Dynasty of Ur, it was used as a legal term for the manumission of individuals. It is related to the Akkadian word anduraāru(m), meaning “freedom”, “exemption” and “release from (debt) slavery”.

She was associated with the underworld. Her astrological embodiment is the constellation Scorpio and she is called the mother of the Sebitti (the Seven Stars). The name “seven sisters” has been used for the Pleiades in the languages of many cultures. The Pleiades were closest to the Sun at vernal equinox around the 23rd century BC.

Taurus marked the point of vernal (spring) equinox in the Chalcolithic and the Early Bronze Age, from about 4000 BC to 1700 BC, after which it moved into the neighboring constellation Aries. As this constellation marked the vernal equinox, it was also the first constellation in the Babylonian zodiac and they described it as “The Bull in Front”.

Hausos

Hausos (Proto-Indo-European: *h₂éwsōs) is the reconstructed name for the Proto-Indo-European goddess of the dawn. The name *h₂ewsṓs is derived from a root *h₂wes / *au̯es “to shine”, thus translating to “the shining one”. Both the English word east and the Latin auster “south” are from a root cognate adjective *aws-t(e)ro-. Also cognate is aurum “gold”, from *awso-.

Derivatives of this goddess, found throughout various Indo-European mythologies, include the Greek goddess Eos, the Roman goddess Aurōra, the Vedic goddess Uṣás, the Lithuanian goddess Aušrinė (cf. Lith. aušrà “dawn”), and possibly also the (West) Germanic goddess *Austrǭ (Old English Ēostre, Old High German *Ōstara).

The Dawn Goddess is hypothesised to have been one of the most important deities to the Proto-Indo-Europeans, due to the consistency of her characterisation as well as the relevance of Ushas in the Rig Veda. Her attributes have not only been mixed with those of solar goddesses in some later traditions, but have subsequently expanded and influenced female deities in other mythologies.

The dawn goddess was also the goddess of spring, involved in the mythology of the Indo-European new year, where the dawn goddess is liberated from imprisonment by a god (reflected in the Rigveda as Indra, in Greek mythology as Dionysus and Cronus). The name for “spring season”, *wes-r- is also from the same root.

The name indicates that the goddess was imagined as a beautiful nubile woman, who also had aspects of a love goddess. As a consequence, the love goddess aspect was separated from the personification of dawn in a number of traditions, including Roman Venus vs. Aurora, and Greek Aphrodite vs. Eos. The Italic goddess Mater Matuta “Mother Morning” has been connected to Aurora by Roman authors (Lucretius, Priscianus).

The abduction and imprisonment of the dawn goddess, and her liberation by a heroic god slaying the dragon who imprisons her, is a central myth of Indo-European religion, reflected in numerous traditions. Most notably, it is the central myth of the Rigveda, a collection of hymns surrounding the Soma rituals dedicated to Indra in the new year celebrations of the early Indo-Aryans.

Ushas is a Vedic goddess of dawn in Hinduism. She is the life of all living creatures, the impeller of action and breath, the foe of chaos and confusion, the auspicious arouser of cosmic and moral order called the Ṛta in Hinduism.

She repeatedly appears in the Rigvedic hymns, states David Kinsley, where she is “consistently identified with dawn, revealing herself with the daily coming of light to the world, driving away oppressive darkness, chasing away evil demons, rousing all life, setting all things in motion, sending everyone off to do their duties”.

Hausos are associated with reddish horses, perhaps due to syncretism with solar goddesses as well as the hypothesised relation with the Divine Twins. Red cows are also sacred to Ushas, while Eos is linked with songbirds and cicadas. Spiders are also possibly illustrative of this goddess, due to their association with weaving.

She is also envisioned as the sister of the Divine Twins, with Ushas still maintaining this relation to the Ashvins. Although the “marriage drama” myth (in which one or both of the Divine Twins compete for the hand of a woman in marriage) is usually linked to the sun goddess rather than the dawn goddess, there is a possible degree of syncretism in this regard, particularly as the Baltic Aušrinė is in a similar marriage drama situation, albeit in relation to her father and her mother.

The Dawn Goddess was associated with weaving, a behaviour sometimes used as a metaphor for the generative properties of sunlight. This characteristic is normally seen in solar goddesses and it might indicate a large amount of syncretism between dawn and solar deities.

Due to the dawn heralding the sun and inducing the daily routine, the Dawn Goddess is associated with instilling the cosmic order. Ushas is the arouser of Ṛta, while the role of Aušrinė as the maid of the sun renders her a moral example in Lithuanian traditions and helped her syncretism with the Virgin Mary.

The Dawn Goddess is thought to have been envisioned as the daughter of Dyeus. This is partially reflected in Vedic mythology, where Ushas is the daughter of Dyaus Pita, though in some other Indo-European derivations this is not the case; even Ushas is inversely sometimes considered the daughter of Surya, though nonetheless the epithet “daughter of heaven” remains in nearly all Indo-European mythologies. This reflects her status as a relevant goddess as well as a celestial deity.

Isis

Isis was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. The hieroglyphic writing of her name incorporates the sign for a throne, and she was usually portrayed in art as a human woman wearing a throne-like hieroglyph on her head.

During the New Kingdom (c. 1550–1070 BCE), as she took on traits that originally belonged to Hathor, the preeminent goddess of earlier times, Isis came to be portrayed wearing Hathor’s headdress: a sun disk between the horns of a cow.

As daughter of the earth god Geb, one of whose symbols is the goose, Isis is called “the Egg of the Goose”, and, by tradition, Isis is the divine egg of her father. Goddess Isis uses the egg in her hieroglyphic block.

Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kingdom (c. 2686–2181 BCE) as one of the main characters of the Osiris myth, in which she resurrects her slain husband, the divine king Osiris, and produces and protects his heir, Horus.

The planet was known by the ancient Egyptians as “Horus of the Horizon”, then later Her Deshur (“Ḥr Dšr”), or “Horus the Red”. Horus served many functions, most notably being a god of kingship and the sky.

The Eye of Horus is an ancient Egyptian symbol of protection and royal power from deities, in this case from Horus or Ra, who was portrayed as a falcon and shared characteristics with the sky god Horus.

Horus was equated with each living pharaoh and Osiris with the pharaoh’s deceased predecessors. Isis was therefore the mythological mother and wife of kings. She was believed to help the dead enter the afterlife as she had helped Osiris, and she was considered the divine mother of the pharaoh, who was likened to Horus.

Her maternal aid was invoked in healing spells to benefit ordinary people. Originally, she played a limited role in royal rituals and temple rites, although she was more prominent in funerary practices and magical texts.

Isis’s reputed magical power was greater than that of all other gods, and she was said to protect the kingdom from its enemies, govern the skies and the natural world, and have power over fate itself.

The worship of Isis was ended by the rise of Christianity in the fourth and fifth centuries CE. Her worship may have influenced Christian beliefs and practices such as the veneration of Mary, but the evidence for this influence is ambiguous and often controversial.

Dingir (𒀭, usually transliterated DIĜIR) is a Sumerian word for “god.” Its cuneiform sign is most commonly employed as the determinative for religious names and related concepts, in which case it is not pronounced and is conventionally transliterated as a superscript “D” as in e.g. DInanna.

The cuneiform sign by itself was originally an ideogram for the Sumerian word an (“sky” or “heaven”); its use was then extended to a logogram for the word diĝir (“god” or goddess) and the supreme deity of the Sumerian pantheon An, and a phonogram for the syllable /an/.

Anu or An is the divine personification of the sky, supreme God, and ancestor of all the deities in ancient Mesopotamian religion. Anu was believed to be the supreme source of all authority, for the other gods and for all mortal rulers, and he is described in one text as the one “who contains the entire universe”.

The Sumerian sign DIĜIR Cuneiform sumer originated as a star-shaped ideogram indicating a god in general, or the Sumerian god An, the supreme father of the gods. Dingir also meant sky or heaven in contrast with ki which meant earth. Its emesal pronunciation was dimer.

The concept of “divinity” in Sumerian is closely associated with the heavens, as is evident from the fact that the cuneiform sign doubles as the ideogram for “sky”, and that its original shape is the picture of a star. The original association of “divinity” is thus with “bright” or “shining” hierophanies in the sky.

According to one interpretation, DINGIR could also refer to a priest or priestess although there are other Akkadian words ēnu and ēntu that are also translated priest and priestess. For example, nin-dingir (lady divine) meant a priestess who received foodstuffs at the temple of Enki in the city of Eridu.

Dyēus or Dyēus Phter (Proto-Indo-European: *dyḗws ph₂tḗr, also *Dyḗus Ph2tḗr or Dyēus Pətḗr, alternatively spelled dyēws) is believed to have been the chief deity in Proto-Indo-European mythology. Part of a larger pantheon, he was the god of the daylit sky, and his position may have mirrored the position of the patriarch or monarch in Proto-Indo-European society.

This deity is not directly attested; rather, scholars have reconstructed this deity from the languages and cultures of later Indo-European peoples such as the Greeks, Latins, and Indo-Aryans. According to this scholarly reconstruction, Dyeus was known as Dyḗus Ph2tḗr, literally “sky father” or “shining father”, as reflected in Latin Iūpiter, Diēspiter, possibly Dis Pater and deus pater, Greek Zeus Pater, Vedic Dyáuṣ Pitṛ́.

Rooted in the related but distinct Indo-European word *deiwos is the Latin word for deity, deus. The Latin word is also continued in English “divine” and “deity”. The Old English word for Tuesday, “Tiwesdæg”, means “Tiw’s Day”, while in Old Norse tívar’ may be continued in the toponym Tiveden (“Wood of the Gods”, or of Týr).

As the pantheons of the individual mythologies related to Proto-Indo-European religion evolved, attributes of Dyeus seem to have been redistributed to other deities.

Demeter’s character as mother-goddess is identified in the second element of her name meter (μήτηρ) derived from Proto-Indo-European *méh₂tēr (mother). In antiquity, different explanations were already proffered for the first element of her name.

It is possible that Da (Δᾶ), a word which corresponds to Ge (Γῆ) in Attic, is the Doric form of De (Δῆ), “earth”, the old name of the chthonic earth-goddess, and that Demeter is “Mother-Earth”.

Wanax (wa-na-ka) was her male companion (Greek: Paredros) in Mycenaean cult. The Arcadian cult links her to the god Poseidon, who probably substituted the male companion of the Great Goddess ; Demeter may therefore be related to a Minoan Great Goddess (Cybele).

Anax (from earlier wánax) is an ancient Greek word for “tribal chief, lord, (military) leader”. It is one of the two Greek titles traditionally translated as “king”, the other being basileus, and is inherited from Mycenaean Greece, and is notably used in Homeric Greek, e.g. of Agamemnon. The feminine form is anassa, “queen” (from wánassa, itself from *wánakt-ja).

Cybele (Phrygian: Matar Kubileya/Kubeleya “Kubileya/Kubeleya Mother”, perhaps “Mountain Mother”) is an Anatolian mother goddess; she may have a possible forerunner in the earliest neolithic at Çatalhöyük in Anatolia, where statues of plump women dated to the 6th millennium BC sometimes sitting, have been found in excavations and identified by some as a mother goddess.

The Queen Mother of the West, known by various local names, is a goddess in Chinese religion and mythology, also worshipped in neighbouring Asian countries, and attested from ancient times. The first mentions of the Queen Mother date back to the oracle bone inscriptions of the Shang dynasty (1766 – 1122 BC).

The first historical information on her can be traced back to oracle bone inscriptions of the fifteenth century BC that record sacrifices to a “Western Mother”. She is also known in contemporary sources as the Lady Queen Mother. In the Maternist current of Chinese salvationist religions she is the main deity and is called upon as the Eternal Venerable Mother.

Tang writers called her “Golden Mother the First Ruler”, the “Golden Mother of Tortoise Mountain”, “She of the Nine Numina and the Grand Marvel”, and the “Perfected Marvel of the Western Florescence and Ultimate Worthy of the Cavernous Darkness”. Commoners and poets of the era referred to her more simply as the “Queen Mother”, the “Divine Mother”, or simply “Nanny” (Amah).

Even though these inscriptions illustrate that she predates organized Taoism, she is most often associated with Taoism. From her name alone some of her most important characteristics are revealed: she is royal, female, and is associated with the west.

The growing popularity of the Queen Mother of the West, as well as the beliefs that she was the dispenser of prosperity, longevity, and eternal bliss took place during the second century BC when the northern and western parts of China were able to be better known because of the opening of the Silk Road.

Tiān (天) is one of the oldest Chinese terms for heaven and a key concept in Chinese mythology, philosophy, and religion.

The Shang dynasty (Chinese: 商朝; pinyin: Shāngcháo) or Yin dynasty (殷代; Yīndài), according to traditional historiography, ruled in the Yellow River valley in the second millennium BC, succeeding the Xia dynasty and followed by the Zhou dynasty. It is the earliest dynasty of traditional Chinese history supported by archaeological evidence.

Excavation at the Ruins of Yin (near modern-day Anyang), which has been identified as the last Shang capital, uncovered eleven major royal tombs and the foundations of palaces and ritual sites, containing weapons of war and remains from both animal and human sacrifices. Tens of thousands of bronze, jade, stone, bone, and ceramic artifacts have been found.

The Anyang site has yielded the earliest known body of Chinese writing, mostly divinations inscribed on oracle bones – turtle shells, ox scapulae, or other bones. More than 20,000 were discovered in the initial scientific excavations during the 1920s and 1930s, and over four times as many have been found since. The inscriptions provide critical insight into many topics from the politics, economy, and religious practices to the art and medicine of this early stage of Chinese civilization.

Around 2000 BC, the legendary sage-kings Zhuanxu and Emperor Ku are said to have established their capitals in the area around Anyang from where they ruled their kingdoms. Their mausoleums are today situated in Sanyang village south of Neihuang County.

At the beginning of the 14th century BC, King Pangeng of the Shang Dynasty established his capital 2 km (1.2 mi) north of the modern city on the banks of the Huan River. The city, known as Yin, was the first stable capital in Chinese history and from that point on the dynasty that founded it would also become known as the Yin Dynasty.

The capital served 12 kings in 8 generations including Wu Ding, under whom the dynasty reached the zenith of its power, until it was wiped out along with the dynasty that was founded by King Wu of the Zhou in 1046 BC.

Kù (simplified Chinese: 喾; traditional Chinese: 嚳), usually referred to as Dì Kù (simplified Chinese: 帝喾; traditional Chinese: 帝嚳), also known as Gaoxin or Gāoxīn Shì (Chinese: 高辛氏), was a descendant of Huangdi, the Yellow Emperor. He is considered the ancestor of the ruling families of certain subsequent dynasties.

The Yellow Emperor, also known as the Yellow Thearch, the Yellow God or the Yellow Lord, or simply by his Chinese name Huangdi, is a deity (shen) in Chinese religion, one of the legendary Chinese sovereigns and culture heroes included among the mytho-historical Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors and cosmological Five Forms of the Highest Deity (五方上帝 Wǔfāng Shàngdì).

Huangdi’s cult became prominent in the late Warring States and early Han dynasty, when he was portrayed as the originator of the centralized state, as a cosmic ruler, and as a patron of esoteric arts. A large number of texts – such as the Huangdi Neijing, a medical classic, and the Huangdi Sijing, a group of political treatises – were thus attributed to him.

Having waned in influence during most of the imperial period, in the early twentieth century Huangdi became a rallying figure for Han Chinese attempts to overthrow the rule of the Qing dynasty, which they considered foreign because its emperors were Manchu people. To this day the Yellow Emperor remains a powerful symbol within Chinese nationalism.

Traditionally credited with numerous inventions and innovations – ranging from the Chinese calendar to an ancestor of football – the Yellow Emperor is now regarded as the initiator of Chinese culture, and said to be the ancestor of all Chinese.

Most scholars now agree that the Yellow Emperor originated as a god who was later represented as a historical person. Historian of ancient China, Mark Edward Lewis speaks of the Yellow Emperor’s “earlier nature as a god”, whereas Roel Sterckx, a professor at University of Cambridge, calls Huangdi a “legendary cultural hero”.

According to Yang Kuan the Yellow Emperor started to be described as the first ruler of China only in the Warring States period and thus argue that Huangdi was a later transformation of Shangdi, the supreme god of the Shang dynasty’s pantheon.

K. C. Chang sees Huangdi and other cultural heroes as “ancient religious figures” who were “euhemerized” in the late Warring States, an era in ancient Chinese history characterized by warfare, as well as bureaucratic and military reforms and consolidation.

It followed the Spring and Autumn period and concluded with the Qin wars of conquest that saw the annexation of all other contender states, which ultimately led to the Qin state’s victory in 221 BC as the first unified Chinese empire, known as the Qin dynasty.

Some sources treat Ku as a semi-historical figure, while others make fantastic mythological or religious claims about him. Besides varying in their degree of historicizing Ku, the various sources also differ in what specific stories about him they focus on, so that putting together the various elements of what is known regarding Ku results in a multifaceted story.

Di Ku was (according to many versions of the list) one of the Five Emperors of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors of Chinese mythology. Ku, or Gaoxin, is also known as the “White Emperor”. Although Ku held the title Di, it is unclear what territory, if any, his empire might have consisted of.

He went by the name Gaoxin until receiving imperial authority, when he took the name Ku and the title Di, thus being known as Di Ku. The same title Di was later assumed by the King of Qin, upon conquering his neighboring kingdoms and forging them into the first historically-known empire of China.

During the Shang dynasty (17–11th centuries BCE), the Chinese referred to their supreme god as Shàngdì (上帝, “Lord on High”; Wade–Giles: Shang Ti) also written simply, “Emperor” (Chinese: 帝; pinyin: Dì) is the Chinese term for “Supreme Deity” or “Highest Deity” in the theology of the classical texts, especially deriving from Shang theology.

It is finding an equivalent in the later Tian (“Heaven” or “Great Whole”) of Zhou theology. During the following Zhou dynasty, Tiān became synonymous with this figure. Heaven worship was, before the 20th century, an orthodox state religion of China.

Although in Chinese religion the usage of “Tian” to refer to the absolute God of the universe is predominant, “Shangdi” continues to be used in a variety of traditions, including certain philosophical schools, certain strains of Confucianism, some Chinese salvationist religions (notably Yiguandao) and Chinese Protestant Christianity.

In Taoism and Confucianism, Tiān (the celestial aspect of the cosmos, often translated as “Heaven”) is mentioned in relationship to its complementary aspect of Dì (地, often translated as “Earth”). These two aspects of Daoist cosmology are representative of the dualistic nature of Taoism.

They are thought to maintain the two poles of the Three Realms (三界) of reality, with the middle realm occupied by Humanity (人, Rén), and the lower world occupied by demons (魔, Mó) as false gods or idols and ghosts (鬼, Guǐ) as disembodied souls, spirits of the deceased of faint shadowy semblance to only reveal an image not clearly substantial.

For the etymology of tiān, Schuessler (2007:495) links it with the Mongolian word tengri “sky, heaven, heavenly deity” or the Tibeto-Burman words taleŋ (Adi) and tǎ-lyaŋ (Lepcha), both meaning “sky”.

Schuessler (2007:211) also suggests a likely connection between Chinese tiān 天, diān 巔 “summit, mountaintop”, and diān 顛 “summit, top of the head, forehead”, which have cognates such as Naga tiŋ “sky”.

Dingir (usually transliterated DIĜIR) is a Sumerian word for “god.” Its cuneiform sign is most commonly employed as the determinative for religious names and related concepts, in which case it is not pronounced and is conventionally transliterated as a superscript “D” as in e.g. DInanna.

The concept of “divinity” in Sumerian is closely associated with the heavens, as is evident from the fact that the cuneiform sign doubles as the ideogram for “sky”, and that its original shape is the picture of a star. The original association of “divinity” is thus with “bright” or “shining” hierophanies in the sky.

The cuneiform sign by itself was originally an ideogram for the Sumerian word an (“sky” or “heaven”); its use was then extended to a logogram for the word diĝir (“god” or goddess) and the supreme deity of the Sumerian pantheon An, and a phonogram for the syllable /an/.

Anu or An is the divine personification of the sky, supreme God, and ancestor of all the deities in ancient Mesopotamian religion. Anu was believed to be the supreme source of all authority, for the other gods and for all mortal rulers, and he is described in one text as the one “who contains the entire universe”. The Amorite god Amurru was sometimes equated with Anu. Later, during the Seleucid Empire (213 BC — 63 BC), Anu was identified with Enmešara and Dumuzid.

Enmesarra, or Enmešarra, in Sumerian and Akkadian mythology is an underworld god of the law. Described as a Sun god, protector of flocks and vegetation, and therefore he has been equated with Nergal. On the other hand, he has been described as an ancestor of Enlil, and it has been claimed that Enlil slew him.

Dyēus or Dyēus Phter (Proto-Indo-European: *dyḗws ph₂tḗr, also *Dyḗus Ph2tḗr or Dyēus Pətḗr, alternatively spelled dyēws) is believed to have been the chief deity in Proto-Indo-European mythology. Part of a larger pantheon, he was the god of the daylit sky, and his position may have mirrored the position of the patriarch or monarch in Proto-Indo-European society.

This deity is not directly attested; rather, scholars have reconstructed this deity from the languages and cultures of later Indo-European peoples such as the Greeks, Latins, and Indo-Aryans. According to this scholarly reconstruction, Dyeus was known as Dyḗus Ph2tḗr, literally “sky father” or “shining father”, as reflected in Latin Iūpiter, Diēspiter, possibly Dis Pater and deus pater, Greek Zeus Pater, Vedic Dyáuṣ Pitṛ́.

Dīs Pater was a Roman god of the underworld. Dis was originally associated with fertile agricultural land and mineral wealth, and since those minerals came from underground, he was later equated with the chthonic deities Pluto (Hades) and Orcus.

In De Natura Deorum, Cicero derives the name of Dīs Pater from the Latin dives (“wealth, riches”), suggesting a meaning of “father of riches” (Pater is “father” in Latin), directly corresponding to the name Pluto, Pluto simply being how Plouton is spelled is Latin. (Plouton, meaning “the rich one”, was a title bestowed upon the Greek god Hades).

Alternatively, he may be a secondary reflex of the same god as Jupiter (Proto-Indo-European Dyeus Ph₂ter or “Zeus-Pater”).

Nergal, Nirgal, or Nirgali (Sumerian: dGÌR-UNUG-GAL) is a deity that was worshipped throughout ancient Mesopotamia (Akkad, Assyria, and Babylonia) with the main seat of his worship at Cuthah represented by the mound of Tell-Ibrahim. Other names for him are Erra and Irra.

Nergal seems to be in part a solar deity, sometimes identified with Shamash, but only representative of a certain phase of the sun. Portrayed in hymns and myths as a god of war and pestilence, Nergal seems to represent the sun of noontime and of the summer solstice that brings destruction, high summer being the dead season in the Mesopotamian annual cycle. He has also been called “the king of sunset”.

Over time Nergal developed from a war god to a god of the underworld (supposed to be gathered in a large subterranean cave known as Aralu or Irkalla). In the mythology, this occurred when Enlil and Ninlil gave him the underworld. In this capacity he has associated with him a goddess Allatu or Ereshkigal, though at one time Allatu may have functioned as the sole mistress of Aralu, ruling in her own person.

Nergal has epithets such as the “raging king”, the “furious one”, and the like. In the late Babylonian astral-theological system Nergal is related to the planet Mars. As a fiery god of destruction and war, Nergal doubtless seemed an appropriate choice for the red planet, and he was equated by the Greeks to the war-god Ares (Latin Mars)—hence the current name of the planet.

In ancient Roman religion and myth, Mars was the god of war and also an agricultural guardian, a combination characteristic of early Rome. Most of his festivals were held in March, the month named for him (Latin Martius), and in October, which began the season for military campaigning and ended the season for farming.

Mars represented military power as a way to secure peace, and was a father (pater) of the Roman people. In the mythic genealogy and founding myths of Rome, Mars was the father of Romulus and Remus with Rhea Silvia. His love affair with Venus symbolically reconciled the two different traditions of Rome’s founding; Venus was the divine mother of the hero Aeneas, celebrated as the Trojan refugee who “founded” Rome several generations before Romulus laid out the city walls.

Amongst the Hurrians and later Hittites Nergal was known as Aplu, a name derived from the Akkadian Apal Enlil, (Apal being the construct state of Aplu) meaning “the son of Enlil”. Aplu may be related with Apaliunas who is considered to be the Hittite reflex of *Apeljōn, an early form of the name Apollo.

The national divinity of the Greeks, Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of music, truth and prophecy, healing, the sun and light, plague, poetry, and more. Seen as the most beautiful god and the ideal of the kouros (a beardless, athletic youth), Apollo is considered to be the most Greek of all gods. Apollo is known in Greek-influenced Etruscan mythology as Apulu.

Apollo is the son of Zeus and Leto, and has a twin sister, the chaste huntress Artemis, in the ancient Greek religion and myth, is the goddess of the hunt, the wilderness, wild animals, the Moon, and chastity. The goddess Diana is her Roman equivalent. Artemis is the Moon and Apollo is the Sun; this Trump represents their conjunction or unity. An image of that conjunction is the eclipse.

Pluto was the ruler of the underworld in classical mythology. In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Pluto represents a more positive concept of the god who presides over the afterlife. Ploutōn was frequently conflated with Ploutos (Plutus), a god of wealth, because mineral wealth was found underground, and because as a chthonic god Pluto ruled the deep earth that contained the seeds necessary for a bountiful harvest.

The name Ploutōn came into widespread usage with the Eleusinian Mysteries, in which Pluto was venerated as a stern ruler but the loving husband of Persephone. The couple received souls in the afterlife, and are invoked together in religious inscriptions.

The earlier name for the god was Hades, which became more common as the name of the underworld itself. Hades, by contrast, had few temples and religious practices associated with him, and he is portrayed as the dark and violent abductor of Persephone.

The Shang dynasty is the earliest dynasty of traditional Chinese history supported by archaeological evidence. The Shang left written records and extensive material remains, especially bronze works. Bronze metallurgy, horses, chariots, and other wheeled vehicles came to China with Indo-European migrants.

Excavation at the Ruins of Yin (near modern-day Anyang), which has been identified as the last Shang capital, uncovered eleven major royal tombs and the foundations of palaces and ritual sites, containing weapons of war and remains from both animal and human sacrifices. Tens of thousands of bronze, jade, stone, bone, and ceramic artifacts have been found.

The Anyang site has yielded the earliest known body of Chinese writing, mostly divinations inscribed on oracle bones – turtle shells, ox scapulae, or other bones. More than 20,000 were discovered in the initial scientific excavations during the 1920s and 1930s, and over four times as many have been found since. The inscriptions provide critical insight into many topics from the politics, economy, and religious practices to the art and medicine of this early stage of Chinese civilization.

The Shang dynasty (Chinese: 商朝; pinyin: Shāngcháo) or Yin dynasty (殷代; Yīndài), according to traditional historiography, ruled in the Yellow River valley in the second millennium BC, succeeding the Xia dynasty and followed by the Zhou dynasty. The classic account of the Shang comes from texts such as the Book of Documents, Bamboo Annals and Records of the Grand Historian.

According to the traditional chronology based on calculations made approximately 2,000 years ago by Liu Xin, the Shang ruled from 1766 to 1122 BC, but according to the chronology based upon the “current text” of Bamboo Annals, they ruled from 1556 to 1046 BC. The Xia–Shang–Zhou Chronology Project dated them from c. 1600 to 1046 BC.

Bronze weapons were an integral part of Shang society. Shang infantry were armed with a variety of stone and bronze weaponry, including máo (矛) spears, yuè (鉞) pole-axes, gē (戈) pole-based dagger-axes, composite bows, and bronze or leather helmets.

The chariot first appeared in China around 1200 BC, during the reign of Wu Ding. There is little doubt that the chariot entered China through the Central Asia and the Northern Steppe, possibly indicating some form of contact with the Indo-Europeans.

Recent archaeological finds have shown that the late Shang used horses, chariots, bows and practiced horse burials that are similar to the steppe peoples to the west. These influences led Christopher I. Beckwith to speculate that Indo-Europeans “may even have been responsible for the foundation of the Shang Dynasty”, though he admits there is no direct evidence.

Oracle bone inscriptions suggest that the Shang used chariots in royal hunts and in battle only as mobile command vehicles. In contrast, the western enemies of the Shang, such as the Zhou, began to use limited numbers of chariots in battle towards the end of the Shang period.

Although the Shang depended upon the military skills of their nobility, Shang rulers could mobilize the masses of town-dwelling and rural commoners as conscript laborers and soldiers for both campaigns of defense and conquest.

Aristocrats and other state rulers were obligated to furnish their local garrisons with all necessary equipment, armor, and armaments. The Shang king maintained a force of about a thousand troops at his capital and would personally lead this force into battle.

A rudimentary military bureaucracy was also needed in order to muster forces ranging from three to five thousand troops for border campaigns to thirteen thousand troops for suppressing rebellions against the Shang dynasty.

The Zhou dynasty (Chinese: 周; pinyin: Zhōu [ʈʂóu]) was a Chinese dynasty that followed the Shang dynasty and preceded the Qin dynasty. The Zhou dynasty lasted longer than any other dynasty in Chinese history (790 years).

The military control of China by the royal house, surnamed Ji, lasted initially from 1046 until 771 BC for a period known as the Western Zhou and the political sphere of influence it created continued well into Eastern Zhou for another 500 years.

According to Chinese mythology, the Zhou lineage began when Jiang Yuan, a consort of the legendary Emperor Ku, miraculously conceived a child, Qi “the Abandoned One”, after stepping into the divine footprint of Shangdi.

Qi was a culture hero credited with surviving three abandonments by his mother and with greatly improving Xia agriculture, to the point where he was granted lordship over Tai and the surname Ji by his own Xia king and a later posthumous name, Houji “Lord of Millet”, by the Tang of Shang. He even received sacrifice as a harvest god. The term Hòujì was probably a hereditary title attached to a lineage.

During the Zhou Dynasty, centralized power decreased throughout the Spring and Autumn period until the Warring States period in the last two centuries of the Zhou Dynasty. In this period, the Zhou court had little control over its constituent states that were at war with each other until the Qin state consolidated power and formed the Qin dynasty in 221 BC.

The Zhou Dynasty had formally collapsed only 35 years earlier, although the dynasty had only nominal power at that point.

The Qin dynasty (Chinese: 秦朝; pinyin: Qíncháo; Wade–Giles: Chʻin²-chʻao²) was the first dynasty of Imperial China, lasting from 221 to 206 BC. Named for its heartland in Qin state (modern Gansu and Shaanxi), the dynasty was founded by Qin Shi Huang, the First Emperor of Qin. The strength of the Qin state was greatly increased by the Legalist reforms of Shang Yang in the fourth century BC, during the Warring States period.

In the mid and late third century BC, the Qin state carried out a series of swift conquests, first ending the powerless Zhou dynasty, and eventually conquering the other six of the Seven Warring States. Its 15 years was the shortest major dynasty in Chinese history, consisting of only two emperors, but inaugurated an imperial system that lasted from 221 BC, with interruption and adaptation, until 1912 CE.

Shangdi (Chinese: 上帝; pinyin: Shàngdì; Wade–Giles: Shang Ti), also written simply, “Emperor” (Chinese: 帝; pinyin: Dì), is the Chinese term for “Supreme Deity” or “Highest Deity” in the theology of the classical texts, especially deriving from Shang theology and finding an equivalent in the later Tian (“Heaven” or “Great Whole”) of Zhou theology.

Although in Chinese religion the usage of “Tian” to refer to the absolute God of the universe is predominant, “Shangdi” continues to be used in a variety of traditions, including certain philosophical schools, certain strains of Confucianism, some Chinese salvationist religions (notably Yiguandao) and Chinese Protestant Christianity.

In addition, it is common to use such term among contemporary and secular Chinese, Hong Kong, and Taiwanese societies typically for a singular universal deity and a non-religion translation for the God in Christianity.

The earliest references to Shangdi are found in oracle bone inscriptions of the Shang Dynasty in the 2nd millennium BC, although the later work Classic of History claims yearly sacrifices were made to him by Emperor Shun, even before the Xia Dynasty.

Pre-Indo-European

China (Pre-Indo-European)

Painted Pottery Culture

Painted Pottery Culture

Neolithic China, the Yangshao

Following the northern Beringian hunter-gatherer culture, there is also archaeological evidence indicating some glimmerings of a primitive agrarian culture in China in the late Paleolithic time period. By about 5000 BCE they appear to have domesticated the pig and begun making rudimentary pottery.

Although following by over a millennium, this distinct agriculture most likely originated independently from Mesopotamia . Different types of agriculture emerged in the northwest and southeast of China about the same time. 

Although the southeast was developing in its own way, it is to the northwest of China that historians look for the development of classical Chinese history. They call this culture the Yangshao Painted Pottery Culture after one of the early archaeological sites.

The Yangshao culture of the Upper Yellow River Valley in China reached its peak about 3000 BCE. The dates of this first phase of the northern Chinese Neolithic period are roughly set at 5000-2500 BCE. However, the culture continued in isolated areas for thousands of years after their decline.

“These early farmers employed primitive techniques of cultivation, shifted their villages as the soils became exhausted, and lived in semi-subterranean houses … Their hand-crafted, painted pottery occasionally bears a single incised sign that may be a forerunner of Chinese writing.”

While the designs of the pottery are similar, the people aren’t. The inhabitants of the Yangshao culture of the upper Yellow River Valley are of Mongoloid stock. This factoid rules out a direct European migration.

While this supports the idea of indigenous development, it doesn’t explain the cultural similarities. The Yangshao culture had many features that were common to the other Neolithic cultures that were spread throughout Eurasia.

Some of the features of this Neolithic culture [the Yangshao] are common to all early civilizations and belong to a culture-complex that extends from the Nile Valley to Mesopotamia from the Indus Valley to the Tarim Basin, linked to China by the ‘Corridor of the Steppes’, a natural migration-route. In all these areas they developed the use of polished stone tools and of the bow and arrow, and the domestication of animals.

The Yangshao culture produced beautiful painted pottery, which was similar in design and motif to that of a distinct pottery culture spread throughout the Eurasian continent for 2000 years. The similarities of the pottery motifs to a Eurasian pottery culture, specifically Iran, make it seem as if the painted pottery was inspired from outside the area rather than emerging locally from long held traditions.

Because this pottery ‘culture complex’ extended over such a wide area, it is thought that Neolithic communications must have been more widespread than would be expected considering their more primitive forms of transportation.

However, it may be said that an intercourse must have existed between these prehistoric pottery cultures, and that the trade and cultural contacts between Europe, the Near and the Far East must have been far closer than historical research had believed until recently. 

It has been speculated that these pottery cultures, which flourished all over the Eurasian continent from 4000 BCE to 2000 BCE could have had an earlier common source. What is more likely and just as plausible is that the prehistoric pottery cultures which flourished from the shores of the Black Sea to the Pacific Ocean during the 4th, 3rd, and 2nd millennium were derived from a common, earlier source.

This theory would then explain the similar decorative motives as a common heritage of magic symbols which the various branches of the pottery culture were continuing with their own modifications.

The common source for all these pottery cultures was probably the Old European culture found in Mesopotamia and Iran that preceded the Yangshao culture of China by 2000 years. 

Neolithic

Old Europe, or Neolithic Europe, refers to the time between the Mesolithic and Bronze Age periods in Europe, roughly from 7000 BCE (the approximate time of the first farming societies in Greece) to ca. 1700 BCE (the beginning of the Bronze Age in Scandinavia)

The duration of the Neolithic varies from place to place: in southeast Europe it is approximately 4000 years (i. e., 7000–3000 BCE); in parts of North-West Europe it is just under 3000 years (ca. 4500–1700 BCE).

In the Middle East, cultures identified as Neolithic began appearing in the 10th millennium BC. Early development occurred in the Levant (e.g., Pre-Pottery Neolithic A and Pre-Pottery Neolithic B) and from there spread eastwards and westwards.

The Natufian period or “proto-Neolithic” lasted from 12,500 to 9,500 BC, and is taken to overlap with the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPNA) of 10,200–8800 BC. As the Natufians had become dependent on wild cereals in their diet, and a sedentary way of life had begun among them, the climatic changes associated with the Younger Dryas (about 10,000 BC) are thought to have forced people to develop farming.

The Neolithic started in around 10,200 BC in the Levant, arising from the Natufian culture, when pioneering use of wild cereals evolved into early farming. A temple area in southeastern Turkey at Göbekli Tepe, dated to around 9500 BC, may be regarded as the beginning of the period.

The surviving structures not only predate pottery, metallurgy, and the invention of writing or the wheel, but were built before the so-called Neolithic Revolution, that marks the beginning of agriculture and animal husbandry, around 9000 BC. The construction of Göbekli Tepe implies organization of an advanced order not hitherto associated with Paleolithic, PPNA, or PPNB societies, however.

Recent DNA analysis of modern domesticated wheat compared with wild wheat has shown that its DNA is closest in sequence to wild wheat found on Karaca Dağ 30 km (20 mi) away from the site, suggesting that this is where modern wheat was first domesticated. 

By 10,200–8800 BC farming communities had arisen in the Levant and spread to Asia Minor, North Africa and North Mesopotamia. Neolithic cultures are also attested in southeastern Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia by around 8000 BC.

Early Neolithic farming was limited to a narrow range of plants, both wild and domesticated, which included einkorn wheat, millet and spelt, and the keeping of dogs, sheep and goats. By about 6900–6400 BC, it included domesticated cattle and pigs, the establishment of permanently or seasonally inhabited settlements, and the use of pottery.

Like the earlier PPNA culture (c. 9500- 8000 BC), the PPNB culture (c. 7600-6000 BC) developed from the Mesolithic Natufian culture. However, it shows evidence of a northerly origin, possibly indicating an influx from the region of north eastern Anatolia.

Around 8000 BC during the Pre-pottery Neolithic period, and before the invention of pottery, several early settlements became experts in crafting beautiful and highly sophisticated containers from stone, using materials such as alabaster or granite, and employing sand to shape and polish.

Artisans used the veins in the material to maximum visual effect. Such object have been found in abundance on the upper Euphrates river, in what is today eastern Syria, especially at the site of Bouqras located around 35 kilometres (22 mi) from Deir ez-Zor in Syria.

Pottery making began in the 7th millennium BC. The earliest history of pottery production in the Fertile Crescent can be divided into four periods, namely: The Hassuna period (7000–6500 BC), the Halaf period (6500–5500 BC), the Ubaid period (5500–4000 BC), and the Uruk period (4000–3100 BC). By about 5000 BC pottery-making was becoming widespread across the region, and spreading out from it to neighbouring areas. 

Pyrotechnology was highly developed in this period. During this period, one of the main features of houses is evidenced by a thick layer of white clay plaster floors highly polished and made of lime produced from limestone.

It is believed that the use of clay plaster for floor and wall coverings during PPNB led to the discovery of pottery. The earliest proto-pottery was White Ware vessels, made from lime and gray ash, built up around baskets before firing, for several centuries around 7000 BC at sites such as Tell Neba’a Faour (Beqaa Valley).

Sites from this period found in the Levant utilizing rectangular floor plans and plastered floor techniques were found at Ain Ghazal, Yiftahel (western Galilee), and Abu Hureyra (Upper Euphrates). The period is dated to between ca. 7500 – 6000 BC.

Jarmo, a prehistoric archeological site located in modern Iraq on the foothills of the Zagros Mountains, is one of the oldest sites at which pottery has been found, appearing in the most recent levels of excavation, which dates it to the 7th millennium BC.

This pottery is handmade, of simple design and with thick sides, and treated with a vegetable solvent. There are clay figures, zoomorphic or anthropomorphic, including figures of pregnant women which are taken to be fertility goddesses, similar to the Mother Goddess of later Neolithic cultures in the same region.

Excavations revealed that Jarmo was an agricultural community dating back to 7090 BC. It was broadly contemporary with such other important Neolithic sites such as Jericho in the southern Levant and Çatal Hüyük in Anatolia.

The earliest forms, which were found at the Hassuna site, were hand formed from slabs, undecorated, unglazed low-fired pots made from reddish-brown clays. Within the next millennium, wares were decorated with elaborate painted designs and natural forms, incising and burnished.

The site of Umm Dabaghiyah in the same area of Iraq, is believed to have the earliest pottery in this region, and is sometimes described as a ‘Proto-Hassuna culture’ site. Other related sites in the area are Sotto, and Kul Tepe (Iraq). Another pre-Hassuna or proto-Hassuna site in Iraq is Tell Maghzaliyah.

More recently, the concept of a very early ‘Pre-Proto-Hassuna’ pottery tradition has been introduced by some scholars. This has been prompted by more recent discoveries of still earlier pottery traditions. Nevertheless, all of these nomenclatures may refer to quite similar types of pottery, depending on some specific geographic region of Upper Mesopotamia.

The Halaf culture is a prehistoric period which lasted between about 6100 BC and 5100 BC. The period is a continuous development out of the earlier Pottery Neolithic and is located primarily in south-eastern Turkey, Syria, and northern Iraq, although Halaf-influenced material is found throughout Greater Mesopotamia.

The new archaeology demonstrated that Halaf culture was not sudden and was not the result of foreign people, but rather a continuous process of indigenous cultural changes in northern Syria, that spread to the other regions.

The best known, most characteristic pottery of Tell Halaf, called Halaf ware, produced by specialist potters, can be painted, sometimes using more than two colors (called polychrome) with geometric and animal motifs.

Halaf pottery has been found in other parts of northern Mesopotamia, such as at Nineveh and Tepe Gawra, Chagar Bazar and at many sites in Anatolia (Turkey) suggesting that it was widely used in the region.

In the Chalcolithic period in Mesopotamia, Halafian pottery achieved a level of technical competence and sophistication, not seen until the later developments of Greek pottery with Corinthian and Attic ware. The potter’s wheel was invented in Mesopotamia sometime between 6,000 and 4,000 BC (Ubaid period) and revolutionised pottery production.

Within the debate concerning the relations between Anatolia, Greece and Southeast Europe,the so called “stamp seals” have often been under discussion. The Halaf culture saw the earliest known appearance of stamp seals in the Near East.

The pottery of Tell Sabi Abyad is somewhat similar to what was found in the other prehistoric sites in Syria and south-eastern Turkey. Yet in Sabi Abyad, the presence of painted pottery is quite unique. It was discovered that around 6700 BC, pottery was already mass-produced.

Archaeologists discovered what seems like the oldest painted pottery here. Remarkably, the earliest pottery was of a very high quality, and some of it was already painted. Later, the painted pottery was discontinued, and the quality declined.

Our finds at Tell Sabi Abyad show an initial brief phase in which people experimented with painted pottery. This trend did not continue, however. As far as we can see now, people then gave up painting their pottery for centuries.

Instead, people concentrated on the production of undecorated, coarse wares. It was not until around 6200 BC that people began to add painted decorations again. The question of why the Neolithic inhabitants of Tell Sabi Abyad initially stopped painting their pottery is unanswered for the time being.

Pottery found at the site includes Dark Faced Burnished Ware and a Fine Ware that resembled Hassuna Ware and Samarra Ware. Bowls and jars often had angled necks and ornate geometric designs, some featuring horned animals. Only around six percent of the pottery found was produced locally. 

Significant cultural changes are observed at c. 6200 BC, which seem to be connected to the 8.2 kiloyear event. Nevertheless, the settlement was not abandoned at the time.

The Samarra culture is a Chalcolithic archaeological culture in northern Mesopotamia that is roughly dated to 5500–4800 BCE. It partially overlaps with Hassuna and early Ubaid. Other sites where Samarran material has been found include Tell Shemshara, Tell es-Sawwan and Yarim Tepe.

At Tell es-Sawwan, evidence of irrigation—including flax—establishes the presence of a prosperous settled culture with a highly organized social structure. The Samarran Culture was the precursor to the Mesopotamian culture of the Ubaid period.

The culture is primarily known for its finely made pottery decorated with stylized animals, including birds, and geometric designs on dark backgrounds. This widely exported type of pottery, one of the first widespread, relatively uniform pottery styles in the Ancient Near East, was first recognized at Samarra.

At Tell Sabi Abyad and other Late Neolithic sites in Syria, scholars adopt increasingly vague terms such as Samarra “influenced”, Samarra-“related” or even Samarra “impulses”, largely because we do not understand the relationships with the traditional Samarra heartlands.

The term may be extended to include sites in Syria such as Tell Chagar Bazar, Tell Boueid II, Tell Sabi Abyad or Tell Halula, where similar pottery is currently being excavated in Pre-Halaf to Early Halaf Transitional contexts.

Shulaveri-Shomu culture is a Late Neolithic/Eneolithic culture that existed on the territory of present-day Georgia, Colchis, Azerbaijan the Armenian Highlands, and including small parts of northern Iran.

The culture is dated to mid-6th or early-5th millennia BC. Especially in recent years as a result of archaeological research in the area of Goytepe, the Shulaveri-Shomutepe culture has been identified as belonging to the 7th millennium BC and the second half of the 6th millennium.

Many of the characteristic traits of the Shulaverian material culture (circular mudbrick architecture, pottery decorated by plastic design, anthropomorphic female figurines, obsidian industry with an emphasis on production of long prismatic blades) are believed to have their origin in the Near Eastern Neolithic (Hassuna, Halaf).

The technology and typology of bone-based instruments are similar to those of the Middle East Neolithic material culture. The similarities between the macrolithic tools and the use of ochre also bring Shulaveri-Shomu culture closer to the culture of Halaf. Pestles and mortars found in Shulaveri-Shomu sites and Late Neolithic layers of Tell Sabi Abyad in Syria are also similar to each other.

The PPNB culture disappeared during the 8.2 kiloyear event, a term that climatologists have adopted for a sudden decrease in global temperatures that occurred approximately 8,200 years before the present, or c. 6200 BCE, and which lasted for the next two to four centuries.

In the following Munhatta and Yarmukian post-pottery Neolithic cultures that succeeded it, rapid cultural development continues, although PPNB culture continued in the Amuq valley, where it influenced the later development of the Ghassulian culture in the Southern Levant (c. 4400 – c. 3500 BC). 

The Ghassulian stage was characterized by small hamlet settlements of mixed farming peoples, who had immigrated from the north and settled in the southern Levant – today’s Jordan, Israel and Palestine. Their pottery was highly elaborate, including footed bowls and horn-shaped drinking goblets, indicating the cultivation of wine.

The Ghassulian culture correlates closely with the Amratian of Egypt, also called Naqada I, a culture of prehistoric Upper Egypt which lasted approximately from 4000 to 3500 BC, and also seems to have affinities (e.g., the distinctive churns, or “bird vases”) with early Minoan culture in Crete.

Minoans and Mycenean Greeks

The finding of PPNB lineages in a recent survey indicates a pre-Bronze arrival of these genetic traits to Crete. This is in agreement with the archaeological information pointing at a Near Eastern Neolithic origin of the Bronze Age Cretan culture. Substantial human migrations were involved in the Neolithic spread. The first Neolithic farmers entered Europe following a maritime route through Cyprus and the Aegean Islands.

A 2017 archeogenetics study of mtDNA polymorphisms from Minoan remains published in the journal Nature concluded that the Mycenean Greeks, who created a famous civilization that dominated mainland Greece and the Aegean Sea from about 1600 B.C.E. to 1200 BC, were genetically closely related with the Minoans, and that both are closely related, but not identical, to modern Greek populations.

Now, ancient DNA suggests that living Greeks are indeed the descendants of Mycenaeans, with only a small proportion of DNA from later migrations to Greece. A comparative study of DNA haplogroups of modern Cretan men showed that a male founder group, from Anatolia or the Levant, is shared with the Greeks. 

The ancient Mycenaeans and Minoans were most closely related to each other, and they both got three-quarters of their DNA from early Neolithic-era farmers who lived in Western Anatolia and the Aegean Sea.

Both cultures additionally inherited DNA from people from the eastern Caucasus, near modern-day Iran, suggesting an early migration of people from the east after the early farmers settled there but before Mycenaeans split from Minoans.

The Mycenaeans did have an important difference: They had some DNA—4% to 16%—from northern ancestors who came from Eastern Europe or Siberia. This suggests that a second wave of people from the Eurasian steppe came to mainland Greece by way of Eastern Europe or Armenia, but didn’t reach Crete, says Iosif Lazaridis, a population geneticist at Harvard University who co-led the study.

Not surprisingly, the Minoans and Mycenaeans looked alike, both carrying genes for brown hair and brown eyes. Artists in both cultures painted dark-haired, dark-eyed people on frescoes and pottery who resemble each other, although the two cultures spoke and wrote different languages.

The Mycenaeans were more militaristic, with art replete with spears and images of war, whereas Minoan art showed few signs of warfare, Lazaridis says. Because the Minoans script used hieroglyphics, some archaeologists thought they were partly Egyptian, which turns out to be false.

When the researchers compared the DNA of modern Greeks to that of ancient Mycenaeans, they found a lot of genetic overlap. Modern Greeks share similar proportions of DNA from the same ancestral sources as Mycenaeans, although they have inherited a little less DNA from ancient Anatolian farmers and a bit more DNA from later migrations to Greece.

The continuity between the Mycenaeans and living people is particularly striking given that the Aegean has been a crossroads of civilizations for thousands of years. This suggests that the major components of the Greeks’ ancestry were already in place in the Bronze Age, after the migration of the earliest farmers from Anatolia set the template for the genetic makeup of Greeks and, in fact, most Europeans.

The spread of farming populations was the decisive moment when the major elements of the Greek population were already provided. The results also show it is possible to get ancient DNA from the hot, dry landscape of the eastern Mediterranean. The results have now opened up the next chapter in the genetic history of western Eurasia—that of the Bronze Age Mediterranean.

Although stone-tool evidence suggests that hominins may have reached Crete as early as 130,000 years ago, evidence for the first anatomically-modern human presence dates to 12,000–10,000 BC. The oldest evidence of modern human habitation on Crete is pre-ceramic Neolithic farming-community remains which date to about 7000 BC.

The Minoans were traders, and their cultural contacts reached the Old Kingdom of Egypt, copper-containing Cyprus, Canaan and the Levantine coast and Anatolia. Minoan-manufactured goods suggest a network of trade with mainland Greece (notably Mycenae), Cyprus, Syria, Anatolia, Egypt, Mesopotamia and westward as far as the Iberian peninsula.

Indo-Europeans

Shulaveri culture predates the Kura-Araxes culture which flourished in this area around 4000–2200 BC. Later on, in the middle Bronze Age period (c. 3000–1500 BC), the Trialeti culture emerged. Sioni culture of Eastern Georgia possibly represents a transition from the Shulaveri to the Kura-Arax cultural complex.

The Leyla-Tepe culture of ancient Azerbaijan belongs to the Chalcolithic era. Its population was distributed on the southern slopes of the Central Caucasus (modern Azerbaijan, Agdam District), from 4350 until 4000 B.C.

The Leyla-Tepe culture has also been linked to the north Ubaid period monuments, in particular, with the settlements in the Eastern Anatolia Region (Arslantepe, Coruchu-tepe, Tepechik, etc.). Other sites belonging to the same culture in the Karabakh valley are Chinar-Tepe, Shomulu-Tepe, and Abdal-Aziz-Tepe.

The culture has also been linked to the north Ubaid period monuments, in particular, with the settlements in the Eastern Anatolia Region. The settlement is of a typical Western-Asian variety, with the dwellings packed closely together and made of mud bricks with smoke outlets.

Leyla-Tepe pottery is very similar to the ‘Chaff-Faced Ware’ of the northern Syria and Mesopotamia. Recent research indicates the connections rather to the pre-Uruk traditions, such as the late Ubaid period, and Ubaid-Uruk phases.

The appearance of Leyla-Tepe tradition’s carriers in the Caucasus marked the appearance of the first local Caucasian metallurgy. This is attributed to migrants from Uruk, arriving around 4500 BCE. Leyla-Tepe metalwork tradition was very sophisticated right from the beginning, and featured many bronze items. Yet later, the quality of metallurgy declined with the Kura–Araxes culture.

It has been suggested that the Leyla-Tepe were the founders of the Maykop culture (c. 3700 BC–3000 BC). There are similarities between artifacts of the Maykop and Leyla-Tepe with those found in the ancient city of Tel Khazneh I in Syria, from the 4th millennium BC.

Discovery of Soyugbulaq in 2004 and subsequent excavations provided substantial proof that the practice of kurgan burial was well established in the South Caucasus during the late Eneolithic. The Leylatepe Culture tribes migrated to the north in the mid-fourth millennium, B.C. and played an important part in the rise of the Maikop Culture of the North Caucasus.

The Maykop culture was a major Bronze Age archaeological culture in the western Caucasus region of southern Russia. In the south it borders the approximately contemporaneous Kura-Araxes culture (3500—2200 BC), which extends into eastern Anatolia and apparently influenced it. It is contemporaneous with the late Uruk period in Mesopotamia.

The Kuban River is navigable for much of its length and provides an easy water-passage via the Sea of Azov to the territory of the Yamna culture, along the Don and Donets River systems. The Maykop culture was thus well-situated to exploit the trading possibilities with the central Ukraine area.

The Maykop people lived sedentary lives, and horses formed a very low percentage of their livestock, which mostly consisted of pigs and cattle. Its inhumation practices were characteristically Indo-European, typically in a pit, sometimes stone-lined, topped with a kurgan (or tumulus). Stone cairns replace kurgans in later interments.

In the early 20th century, researchers established the existence of a local Maykop animal style in the artifacts found. This style was seen as the prototype for animal styles of later archaeological cultures: the Maykop animal style is more than a thousand years older than the Scythian, Sarmatian and Celtic animal styles.

The culture has been described as, at the very least, a “kurganized” local culture with strong ethnic and linguistic links to the descendants of the Proto-Indo-Europeans. It has been linked to the Lower Mikhaylovka group and Kemi Oba culture, and more distantly, to the Globular Amphora and Corded Ware cultures, if only in an economic sense.

The Yamnaya culture (lit. ‘pit culture’), also known as the Yamna culture, Pit Grave culture, or Ochre Grave culture, was a late Copper Age to early Bronze Age archaeological culture of the region between the Southern Bug, Dniester, and Ural rivers (the Pontic steppe), dating to 3300–2600 BC. Its name refers to its characteristic burial tradition: kurgans containing a simple pit chamber.

The people of the Yamnaya culture were the likely result of admixture between the descendants of Eastern European hunter-gatherers and people related to hunter-gatherers from the Caucasus.

The Yamnaya people were the result of admixture between two different hunter-gatherer populations: distinctive “Eastern European hunter-gatherers” with high affinity to the Mal’ta–Buret’ culture or other, closely related people from Siberia and a population of “Caucasus hunter-gatherers” who probably arrived from the Caucasus.

They are also closely connected to later Final Neolithic cultures, which spread throughout Europe and Central Asia, especially the Corded Ware people, but also the Bell Beaker culture as well as the peoples of the Sintashta, Andronovo, and Srubna cultures.

The Yamnaya culture is identified with the late Proto-Indo-Europeans, and is the strongest candidate for the urheimat (original homeland) of the Proto-Indo-European language. The spread of the Yamnaya horizon was the material expression of the spread of late Proto-Indo-European across the Pontic–Caspian steppes.

According to those studies, haplogroups R1b and R1a, now the most common in Europe (R1a is also common in South Asia), would have expanded from the Pontic–Caspian steppes, along with the Indo-European languages. 

Characteristic for the culture are the burials in pit graves under kurgans (tumuli). The dead bodies were placed in a supine position with bent knees and covered in ochre. Their material culture is very similar to the Afanasevo culture, the earliest known archaeological culture of south Siberia, occupying the Minusinsk Basin and the Altai Mountains during the eneolithic era, c. 3300 to 2500 BC.

It is believed that the Afanasevans were descended from people who migrated c. 3700–3300 BCE across the Eurasian Steppe from the Repin culture of the Don-Volga region (and possibly members of the neighbouring Yamnaya culture).

Because of its numerous traits attributed to the early Indo-Europeans, like metal-use, horses and wheeled vehicles, and cultural relations with Kurgan steppe cultures, the Afanasevans are believed to have been Indo-European-speaking.

Because of its geographical location and dating the Afanasevans have been linked to the Proto-Tocharian language. They were genetically indistinguishable from Yamnaya people. 

Only three Afanasevo male samples have had their paternal lineage results published, and all three, like most Yamnaya males, belong to haplogroup R1b, with two of them belonging to subclade M269, the most numerous both among the Yamnaya people and in modern Western Europe.

The Afanasevo culture was succeeded by the Okunev culture, which is considered as an extension of the local non-Indo-European forest culture into the region. The region was subsequently occupied by the Andronovo, Karasuk, Tagar and Tashtyk cultures, respectively.

Allentoft et al. (2015) study also confirms that the Afanasevo culture was replaced by the second wave of Indo-European migrations from the Andronovo culture during late Bronze Age and early Iron Age. Tarim mummies were also found to be genetically closer to the Andronovo culture than to the Yamnaya culture or Afanasevo culture.

China (Indo-Europeans)

Numerous scholars have suggested that the Afanasevo culture was responsible for the introduction of metallurgy to China. The Shang dynasty (Chinese: 商朝; pinyin: Shāngcháo) or Yin dynasty (殷代; Yīndài) is the earliest dynasty of traditional Chinese history supported by archaeological evidence.

The Shang dynasty, according to traditional historiography, ruled in the Yellow River valley in the second millennium BC, succeeding the Xia dynasty and followed by the Zhou dynasty.

They left written records and extensive material remains, especially bronze works. Bronze metallurgy, horses, chariots, and other wheeled vehicles came to China with Indo-European migrants. The classic account of the Shang comes from texts such as the Book of Documents, Bamboo Annals and Records of the Grand Historian.

Bronze weapons were an integral part of Shang society. Shang infantry were armed with a variety of stone and bronze weaponry, including máo (矛) spears, yuè (鉞) pole-axes, gē (戈) pole-based dagger-axes, composite bows, and bronze or leather helmets.

Recent archaeological finds have shown that the late Shang used horses, chariots, bows and practiced horse burials that are similar to the steppe peoples to the west. These influences led Christopher I. Beckwith to speculate that Indo-Europeans “may even have been responsible for the foundation of the Shang Dynasty”, though he admits there is no direct evidence.

The Ancient Greek word Hellas (Ἑλλάς, Ellás) is the original word for Greece, from which the word Hellenistic was derived. The Ancient Greek word Ἑλληνιστής (Hellēnistḗs) means “one who uses the Greek language”).

Helios is god and personification of the Sun in Hellenistic religion. He is often depicted in art as a handsome young man with a radiant crown, the shining aureole of the Sun.

He drow a horse-drawn chariot of the sun across the sky each day to earth-circling Oceanus and through the world-ocean returned to the East at night.

Helios is seen as both a personification of the Sun and the fundamental creative power behind it, and as a result is often worshiped as a god of life and creation.

Homer described Helios as a god “who gives joy to mortals”, and other ancient texts give him the epithet “gracious” given that he is the source of life and regeneration, and associated with the creation of the world. 

One passage recorded in the Greek Magical Papyri says of Helios, “the earth flourished when you shone forth and made the plants fruitful when you laughed, and brought to life the living creatures when you permitted.”

The imagery surrounding a chariot-driving solar deity is likely Indo-European in origin, and is common to both early Greek and Near Eastern religions.

Helios is sometimes identified with Apollo: “Different names may refer to the same being,” Walter Burkert observes, “or else they may be consciously equated, as in the case of Apollo and Helios.”

By Hellenistic times Apollo had become closely connected with the Sun in cult. Phoebus (“bright, shining”), the epithet most commonly given to Apollo, was later applied by Latin poets to the sun-god Sol.

Helios is also sometimes conflated in classical literature with the highest Olympian god, Zeus. He is referred either directly as Zeus’ eye, or clearly implied to be. 

For instance, Hesiod effectively describes Zeus’s eye as the Sun. This perception is possibly derived from earlier Proto-Indo-European religion, in which the sun is believed to have been envisioned as the eye of *Dyḗus Pḥatḗr.

The Etruscan god of the Sun, equivalent to Helios, was Usil. However, while Usil is depicted as male in some artwork, there are also feminine depictions. 

In particular, there is a possible equation with another indigenous Etruscan goddess, Catha, which is often interpreted as having a solar character.

Catha (Cavatha, Cavtha, Cath, Cautha, and Kavtha) is a female Etruscan lunar or solar deity, who may also be connected to childbirth, and has a connection to the underworld.

Catha is also the goddess of the south sanctuary at Pyrgi, Italy. She is often seen with the Etruscan god Śuri with whom she shares a cult.

Catha is also frequently paired with the Etruscan god Fufluns, who is the counterpart to the Greek god Dionysus, and Pacha, the counterpart to the Roman god Bacchus.

Additionally, at Pyrgi, Catha is linked with the god Aplu, the counterpart to the Greek god Apollo. Aplu may have even taken some of the characteristics of Catha when he was brought into the Etruscan religion.

Giovanni Colonna has suggested that Catha is linked to the Greek Persephone since he links Catha’s consort, Suri, to Dis Pater in Roman mythology.

By Late Antiquity, Helios had accumulated a number of religious, mythological, and literary elements from other deities, particularly Apollo and the Roman sun god Sol. 

In 274 AD, on December 25th, the Roman Emperor Aurelian instituted an official state cult to Sol Invictus (or Helios Megistos, “Great Helios”). 

This new cult drew together imagery not only associated with Helios and Sol, but also a number of syncretic elements from other deities formerly recognized as distinct. 

Helios is frequently equated not only with deities such as Mithras and Harpocrates, but even with the monotheistic Judaeo-Christian god. 

A mosaic found in the Vatican Necropolis (Mausoleum M) depicts a figure very similar in style to Sol/Helios, crowned with solar rays and driving a solar chariot. 

Helios figured prominently in the Greek Magical Papyri, a collection of hymns, rituals, and magic spells used from the 2nd century BC to the 5th century AD all around the Greco-Roman world. 

In these mostly fragmentary texts, Helios is credited with a broad domain, being regarded as the creator of life, the lord of the heavens and the cosmos, and the god of the sea. 

He is said to take the form of 12 animals representing each hour of the day, a motif also connected with the 12 signs of the zodiac.

Helios is also assimilated with Mithras in some of the Papyri, as he was by Emperor Julian, the last pagan emperor of Rome, who made Helios the primary deity of his revived pagan religion, which combined elements of Mithraism with Neoplatonism. 

The Mithras Liturgy combines them as Helios-Mithras, who is said to have revealed the secrets of immortality to the magician who wrote the text. 

Some of the texts describe Helios Mithras navigating the sun’s path not in a chariot but in a boat, an apparent identification with the Egyptian sun god Ra. 

In many of the Papyri, Helios is also strongly identified with Iao, a name derived from that of the Hebrew god Yahweh, and shares several of his titles including Sabaoth and Adonai. 

He is also assimilated as the Agathos Daemon (called “the Agathodaimon, the god of the gods”), who is also identified elsewhere in the texts as “the greatest god, lord Horus Harpokrates”, the god of silence, secrets and confidentiality in the Hellenistic religion.

Harpocrates was adapted by the Greeks from the Egyptian child god Horus, who represented the newborn sun, rising each day at dawn. His name was a Hellenization of the Egyptian Har-pa-khered or Heru-pa-khered, meaning “Horus the Child”.

Some scholars have interpreted this as a depiction of Christ, noting that Clement of Alexandria wrote of Christ driving his chariot across the sky. Some scholars doubt the Christian associations, or suggest that the figure is merely a non-religious representation of the sun.

The Greek ἥλιος is the inherited word for the Sun, from Proto-Indo-European *seh₂u-el, which is cognate with Latin sol, Sanskrit surya, Old English swegl, Old Norse sól, Welsh haul, Avestan hvar, etc.

The female offspring of Helios were called Heliades (Greek: Ἡλιάδες, “children of the sun”), the daughters of Helios and Clymene the Oceanid.

The name Helen is thought to share this etymology, and may express an early alternate personification of the sun among Hellenic peoples. While the predominance of Helios in Sparta is currently unclear, it seems Helen was the local solar deity.

Helen of Troy, also known as Helen of Sparta, was said to have been the most beautiful woman. She was believed to have been the daughter of Zeus and Leda.

She was married to King Menelaus of Sparta but was abducted by Prince Paris of Troy after the goddess Aphrodite promised her to him in the Judgement of Paris. 

This resulted in the Trojan War when the Achaeans set out to reclaim her. The fall of Troy came to represent a fall from an illustrious heroic age, remembered for centuries in oral tradition before being written down.

The origins of Helen’s myth date back to the Mycenaean age. Her name first appears in the poems of Homer, but scholars assume that such myths derive from earlier Mycenaean Greek sources. 

Her mythological birthplace was Sparta of the Age of Heroes, which features prominently in the canon of Greek myth: in later ancient Greek memory, the Mycenaean Bronze Age became the age of the Greek heroes. 

The kings, queens, and heroes of the Trojan Cycle are often related to the gods, since divine origins gave stature to the Greeks’ heroic ancestors.

A solar deity (also sun god or sun goddess) is a sky deity who represents the Sun, or an aspect of it, usually by its perceived power and strength. Solar deities and Sun worship can be found throughout most of recorded history in various forms.

Shivini which is Utu in Sumeria, Shivini in Hinduism, Mithra in Mithraism, Ra in Egypt while the Armenians called him Artinis was a solar god in the mythology of the Armenian kingdom of Urartu. He is the third god in a triad with Khaldi and Theispas. The Assyrian god Shamash is a counterpart to Shivini.

In Proto-indo-European mythology the sun appears to be a multilayered figure, manifested as a goddess but also perceived as the eye of the sky father Dyeus. In Germanic mythology this is Sol, in Vedic Surya, and in Greek Helios (occasionally referred to as Titan) and (sometimes) as Apollo.

Although some of the more iconic reflexes of Dyeus are storm deities, such as Zeus and Jupiter, this is thought to be a late development exclusive to Mediterranean traditions, probably derived from syncretism with Canaanite deities and Perkwunos.

Tiwaz (Stem: Tiwad-) was the Luwian Sun-god. He was among the most important gods of the Luwians. The name of the Proto-Anatolian Sun god can be reconstructed as *Diuod-, which derives from the Proto-Indo-European word *dei- (“shine”, “glow”). This name is cognate with the Greek Zeus, Latin Jupiter, and Norse Tyr.

While Tiwaz (and the related Palaic god Tiyaz) retained a promenant role in the pantheon, the Hittite cognate deity, Šiwat was largely eclipsed by the Sun goddess of Arinna, becoming a god of the day, especially the day of death.

Arinna was the major cult center of the Hittite sun-goddess known as dUTU URUArinna or “Sun-Goddess of Arinna”, who is also sometimes identified as Arinniti or as Wuru(n)šemu.

The Sun goddess of Arinna is the chief goddess and wife of the weather god Tarḫunna in Hittite mythology. She protected the Hittite kingdom and was called the “Queen of all lands.”

The Neolithic concept of a “solar barge” (also “solar bark”, “solar barque”, “solar boat” and “sun boat”, a mythological representation of the Sun riding in a boat) is found in the later myths of ancient Egypt, with Ra and Horus. Proto-Indo-European religion has a solar chariot, the Sun as traversing the sky in a chariot.

A “sun chariot” is a mythological representation of the Sun riding in a chariot. The concept is younger than that of the solar barge, and typically Indo-European, corresponding with the Indo-European expansion after the invention of the chariot in the 2nd millennium BC.

The Sun itself also was compared to a wheel, possibly in Proto-Indo-European, Greek hēliou kuklos, Sanskrit suryasya cakram, Anglo-Saxon sunnan hweogul (PIE *swelyosyo kukwelos).

Early Egyptian myths imply the Sun is within the lioness, Sekhmet, at night and is reflected in her eyes; or that it is within the cow, Hathor, during the night, being reborn each morning as her son (bull).

Predynasty Egyptian beliefs attribute Atum as the sun-god and Horus as a god of the sky and Sun. As the Old Kingdom theocracy gained power, early beliefs were incorporated with the expanding popularity of Ra and the Osiris-Horus mythology.Atum became Ra-Atum, the rays of the setting Sun.

Osiris (from Egyptian wsjr), the god of the afterlife, the underworld, and rebirth in ancient Egyptian religion, became the divine heir to Atum’s power on Earth and passes his divine authority to his son Horus.

Osiris was also associated with the epithet Khenti-Amentiu, meaning “Foremost of the Westerners”, a reference to his kingship in the land of the dead. As ruler of the dead, Osiris was also sometimes called “king of the living”: ancient Egyptians considered the blessed dead “the living ones”.

Osiris was the judge of the dead and the underworld agency that granted all life, including sprouting vegetation and the fertile flooding of the Nile River. The Kings of Egypt were associated with Osiris in death – as Osiris rose from the dead so they would be in union with him, and inherit eternal life through a process of imitative magic.

Horus served many functions, most notably being a god of kingship and the sky. The earliest recorded form of Horus is the tutelary deity of Nekhen in Upper Egypt, who is the first known national god, specifically related to the ruling pharaoh who in time came to be regarded as a manifestation of Horus in life and Osiris in death.

The most commonly encountered family relationship describes Horus as the son of Isis and Osiris, and he plays a key role in the Osiris myth as Osiris’s heir and the rival to Set, the murderer of Osiris. In another tradition Hathor is regarded as his mother and sometimes as his wife.

Ra (Ancient Egyptian: r or rˤ; also transliterated rˤw; cuneiform: ri-a or ri-ia) or Re (Coptic: Rē) is the ancient Egyptian deity of the sun. Ra was believed to rule in all parts of the created world: the sky, the Earth, and the underworld.

By the Fifth Dynasty in the 25th and 24th centuries BC, he had become one of the most important gods in ancient Egyptian religion, identified primarily with the noon sun. The cult of the Mnevis bull, an embodiment of Ra, had its center in Heliopolis and there was a formal burial ground for the sacrificed bulls north of the city.

Ra was portrayed as a falcon and shared characteristics with the sky god Horus. At times the two deities were merged as Ra-Horakhty, “Ra, who is Horus of the Two Horizons”. In the New Kingdom, when the god Amun rose to prominence he was fused with Ra into Amun-Ra.

All forms of life were believed to have been created by Ra. In some accounts humans were created from Ra’s tears and sweat, hence the Egyptians call themselves the “Cattle of Ra”.

Mangala is the name for Mars, the red planet, in Hindu texts. Also known as Lohit (Made of Iron), he is born from Shiva’s sweat or blood drop.

The Sanskrit word “Śiva” (Devanagari: शिव, transliterated as Shiva or Siva) means, states Monier Monier-Williams, “auspicious, propitious, gracious, benign, kind, benevolent, friendly”.

Some authors associate the name Shiva with the Tamil word śivappu meaning “red”, noting that Shiva is linked to the Sun (śivan, “the Red one”, in Tamil) and that Rudra is also called Babhru (brown, or red) in the Rigveda.

Shiva is known as “The Destroyer” within the Trimurti, the Hindu trinity that includes Brahma and Vishnu. In Shaivism tradition, Shiva is one of the supreme beings who creates, protects and transforms the universe.

The word Shiva is used as an adjective in the Rig Veda (approximately 1700–1100 BC), as an epithet for several Rigvedic deities, including Rudra, a Rigvedic deity, associated with wind or storm and the hunt. In the Rigveda, Rudra has been praised as the “mightiest of the mighty”. Rudra is the eliminator of evil and usherer of peace.

The etymology of the theonym Rudra is somewhat uncertain. It is usually derived from the root rud- which means “to cry, howl.” An alternative etymology suggested derives Rudra as the “red one”, the “brilliant one” from a lost root rud-, “red” or “ruddy”, or alternatively (according to Grassman) “shining”.

The term evolved from the Vedic Rudra-Shiva to the noun Shiva in the Epics and the Puranas, as an auspicious deity who is the “creator, reproducer and dissolver”.

The planet Mars was known by the ancient Egyptians as “Horus of the Horizon”, then later Her Deshur (“Ḥr Dšr”) or “Horus the Red”. Its symbol, derived from Roman mythology, is a circle with a small arrow pointing out from behind. It is a stylized representation of a shield and spear used by the Roman God Mars.

The March equinox on the 20 or 21 marks the astronomical beginning of spring in the Northern Hemisphere and the beginning of autumn in the Southern Hemisphere, where September is the seasonal equivalent of the Northern Hemisphere’s March.

The name of March comes from Martius, the first month of the earliest Roman calendar. It was named after Mars, the Roman god of war, and an ancestor of the Roman people through his sons Romulus and Remus.

Aries (meaning “ram”) is the first astrological sign in the zodiac, spanning the first 30 degrees of celestial longitude (0°≤ λ <30°). Under the tropical zodiac, the Sun transits this sign from approximately March 20 to April 21 each year.

The symbol of the ram is based on the Chrysomallus, the flying ram that provided the Golden Fleece. The fleece is a symbol of authority and kingship.

In Babylonian astronomy, the planet was named after Nergal, their deity of fire, war, and destruction, most likely due to the planet’s reddish appearance.

Nergal is a deity that was worshipped throughout ancient Mesopotamia (Akkad, Assyria, and Babylonia) with the main seat of his worship at Cuthah represented by the mound of Tell-Ibrahim. Nergal has epithets such as the “raging king”, the “furious one”, and the like.

He is a son of Enlil and Ninlil, along with Nanna and Ninurta. He has also been called “the king of sunset”. He seems to be in part a solar deity, sometimes identified with Shamash, but only representative of a certain phase of the sun.

Portrayed in hymns and myths as a god of war and pestilence, Nergal seems to represent the sun of noontime and of the summer solstice that brings destruction, high summer being the dead season in the Mesopotamian annual cycle.

A certain confusion exists in cuneiform literature between Ninurta (slayer of Asag and wielder of Sharur, an enchanted mace) and Nergal. In Assyro-Babylonian ecclesiastical art the great lion-headed colossi serving as guardians to the temples and palaces seem to symbolise Nergal, just as the bull-headed colossi probably typify Ninurta.

Leo is the fifth astrological sign of the zodiac, originating from the constellation of Leo. In Babylonian astronomy, the constellation was called UR.GU.LA, the “Great Lion”; the bright star Regulus was known as “the star that stands at the Lion’s breast.” Regulus also had distinctly regal associations, as it was known as the King Star.

Ninurta, also known as Ninĝirsu, is an ancient Mesopotamian god associated with farming, healing, hunting, law, scribes, and war who was first worshipped in early Sumer. Later, Ninurta became beloved by the Assyrians as a formidable warrior.

In the earliest records, he is a god of agriculture and healing, who releases humans from sickness and the power of demons. In later times, as Mesopotamia grew more militarized, he became a warrior deity, though he retained many of his earlier agricultural attributes.

In an Akkadian myth, he was the champion of the gods against the Anzû bird after it stole the Tablet of Destinies from his father Enlil and, in a myth that is alluded to in many works but never fully preserved, he killed a group of warriors known as the “Slain Heroes”. Supposedly, whoever possessed the tablet ruled the universe.

In the Babylonian Enuma Elish, Tiamat bestows this tablet on Kingu and gives him command of her army. Marduk, the chosen champion of the gods, then fights and destroys Tiamat and her army. Marduk reclaims the Tablet of Destinies for himself, thereby strengthening his rule among the gods.

Over time Nergal developed from a war god to a god of the underworld. In the mythology, this occurred when Enlil and Ninlil gave him the underworld. In this capacity he has associated with him a goddess Allatu or Ereshkigal, though at one time Allatu may have functioned as the sole mistress of Aralu, ruling in her own person.

In the late Babylonian astral-theological system Nergal is related to the planet Mars. As a fiery god of destruction and war, Nergal doubtless seemed an appropriate choice for the red planet, and he was equated by the Greeks to the war-god Ares (Latin Mars)—hence the current name of the planet.

In ancient Roman religion and myth, Mars was the god of war and also an agricultural guardian, a combination characteristic of early Rome. Most of his festivals were held in March, the month named for him (Latin Martius), and in October, which began the season for military campaigning and ended the season for farming.

Mars represented military power as a way to secure peace, and was a father (pater) of the Roman people. In the mythic genealogy and founding myths of Rome, Mars was the father of Romulus and Remus with Rhea Silvia.

His love affair with Venus symbolically reconciled the two different traditions of Rome’s founding; Venus was the divine mother of the hero Aeneas, celebrated as the Trojan refugee who “founded” Rome several generations before Romulus laid out the city walls.

Mars may ultimately be a reflex of the Proto-Indo-European god Perkwunos, the name of an Proto-Indo-European god of thunder and the oak, having originally a thunderer character. At least etymological Etruscan predecessors are present in Maris, though this is not universally agreed upon.

Perkwunos may be reconstructed as *perkwunos or *perkunos. Another name for the thunder god contains the root *tar-, continued in Gaulish Taranis, Hittite Tarḫunz, Norse Thor and possibly Roman Mars.

Maris (or Mariś) was an Etruscan god often depicted as an infant or child and given many epithets, including Mariś Halna, Mariś Husrnana (“Maris the Child”), and Mariś Isminthians. He was the son of Hercle, the Etruscan equivalent of Heracles.

Hercules is a Roman hero and god. He was the Roman equivalent of the Greek divine hero Heracles, who was the son of Zeus (Roman equivalent Jupiter) and the mortal Alcmene. Tacitus records a special affinity of the Germanic peoples for Hercules. Some have taken this as Tacitus equating the Germanic Þunraz with Hercules by way of interpretatio romana.

Hercules’ Club (also Hercules-club, Club-of-Hercules; German Herkuleskeule, Donarkeule) is a Roman Empire and Migration era artefact type. It is replaced by the Viking Age Thor’s hammer pendants in the course of the Christianization of Scandinavia from the 8th to 9th century.

Hadad, Adad, Haddad (Akkadian) or Iškur (Sumerian) was the storm and rain god in the Northwest Semitic and ancient Mesopotamian religions. He was attested in Ebla as “Hadda” in c. 2500 BCE. From the Levant, Hadad was introduced to Mesopotamia by the Amorites, where he became known as the Akkadian (Assyrian-Babylonian) god Adad.

Adad and Iškur are usually written with the logogram dIM – the same symbol used for the Hurrian thunder god Teshub. Hadad was also called “Pidar”, “Rapiu”, “Baal-Zephon”, or often simply Baʿal (Lord), but this title was also used for other gods.

The bull was the symbolic animal of Hadad. He appeared bearded, often holding a club and thunderbolt while wearing a bull-horned headdress. Hadad was equated with the Greek god Zeus; the Roman god Jupiter, as Jupiter Dolichenus; the Indo-European Nasite Hittite storm-god Teshub; the Egyptian god Amun.

On two bronze mirrors, Maris appears in scenes depicting an immersion rite to ensure his immortality, possibly connected to stories about the centaur Mares, the ancestor of the Ausones, who underwent a triple death and resurrection.

Amongst the Hurrians and later Hittites Nergal was known as Aplu, a name derived from the Akkadian Apal Enlil, (Apal being the construct state of Aplu) meaning “the son of Enlil”. Aplu may be related with Apaliunas who is considered to be the Hittite reflex of *Apeljōn, an early form of the name Apollo.

Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in classical Greek and Roman religion and Greek and Roman mythology. Seen as the most beautiful god and the ideal of the kouros (a beardless, athletic youth), Apollo is considered to be the most Greek of all gods.

The national divinity of the Greeks, Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of music, truth and prophecy, healing, the sun and light, plague, poetry, and more. Apollo is the son of Zeus and Leto, and has a twin sister, the chaste huntress Artemis.

Artemis is the goddess of the hunt, the wilderness, wild animals, the Moon, and chastity. Homer’s mention of potnia theron is thought to refer to Artemis and Walter Burkert describes this mention as “a well established formula”. The goddess Diana is her Roman equivalent.

Inara, in Hittite–Hurrian mythology, was the goddess of the wild animals of the steppe and daughter of the Storm-god Teshub/Tarhunt. She corresponds to the “potnia theron” of Greek mythology, better known as Artemis. Inara’s mother is probably Hebat and her brother is Sarruma.

Šarruma or Sharruma was a Hurrian mountain god, who was also worshipped by the Hittites and Luwians. He is often depicted riding a tiger or panther and carrying an axe (cf. labrys). He is depicted in the form of a bull. As the double god Šarrumanni, Šarruma was invoked as an intermediary and protector.

The original source and meaning of the name is unknown. In Hittite and Hurrian texts, his name was linked with the Akkadian šarri (“King”) and could be written with the Sumerogram for King, LUGAL-ma. In Hieroglyphic Luwian, his name was written with a pair of walking legs, which is transcribed as SARMA.

The Master of Animals or Lord of Animals is a motif in ancient art showing a human between and grasping two confronted animals. It is very widespread in the art of the Ancient Near East and Egypt. Such figures are also often referred to as ‘Lord of the forest’* or ‘Lord of the mountain’.

The Greek god shown as “Master of Animals” is usually Apollo, the god of hunting. Shiva has the epithet Pashupati meaning the “Lord of animals”, and these figures may derive from a Proto-Indo-European deity or archetype. Chapter 39 of the Book of Job has been interpreted as an assertion of the God of the Hebrew Bible as Master of Animals.

Many depictions in ancient art present a widespread ancient motif of the mistress of Animals, showing a central figure with a human form grasping two animals, one to each side.

The oldest depiction has been discovered in Çatalhöyük in Anatolia, where statues of plump women, sometimes sitting, have been found in excavations, dated to the 6th millennium BC and identified by some as a mother goddess.

Pluto (Greek: Ploutōn) was the ruler of the underworld in classical mythology. The earlier name for the god was Hades, which became more common as the name of the underworld itself. The name Ploutōn came into widespread usage with the Eleusinian Mysteries, in which Pluto was venerated as a stern ruler but the loving husband of Persephone.

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Pluto represents a more positive concept of the god who presides over the afterlife. Ploutōn was frequently conflated with Ploutos (Plutus), a god of wealth, because mineral wealth was found underground, and because as a chthonic god Pluto ruled the deep earth that contained the seeds necessary for a bountiful harvest.

Armani, (also given as Armanum) was an ancient kingdom mentioned by Sargon of Akkad, also known as Sargon the Great, the first ruler of the Akkadian Empire, known for his conquests of the Sumerian city-states in the 24th to 23rd centuries BC.

According to Sargon and his grandson Naram-Sin of Akkad Armani stretched from Ibla (which might or might not be Ebla) to Bit-Nanib; its location is heavily debated, and it continued to be mentioned in later Assyrian inscriptions.

It has been suggested by early 20th century Armenologists that Old Persian Armina and the Greek Armenoi are continuations of an Assyrian toponym Armânum or Armanî.

There are certain Bronze Age records identified with the toponym in both Mesopotamian and Egyptian sources. Some authors have connected the Indo-European root *ar- meaning “to assemble”.

Aratta is a land that appears in Sumerian myths surrounding Enmerkar and Lugalbanda, two early and possibly mythical kings of Uruk also mentioned on the Sumerian king list.

Aratta is described in Sumerian literature as a fabulously wealthy place full of gold, silver, lapis lazuli and other precious materials, as well as the artisans to craft them. It is remote and difficult to reach and home to the goddess Inana, who transfers her allegiance from Aratta to Uruk after being conquered by Enmerkar of Uruk.

Because it gives a Sumerian account of the “confusion of tongues”, and also involves Enmerkar constructing temples at Eridu and Uruk, it has, since the time of Samuel Kramer, been compared with the Tower of Babel narrative in the Book of Genesis.

Maryannu is an ancient word for the caste of chariot-mounted hereditary warrior nobility which existed in many of the societies of the Middle East during the Bronze Age.

The term is attested in the Amarna letters written by Haapi. Robert Drews writes that the name ‘maryannu’ although plural takes the singular ‘marya’, which in Sanskrit means “young warrior”, and attaches a Hurrian suffix.

He suggests that at the beginning of the Late Bronze Age most would have spoken either Hurrian or Indo-Aryan but by the end of the 14th century most of the Levant maryannu had Semitic names.

The Mitanni kingdom was referred to as the Maryannu, Nahrin or Mitanni by the Egyptians, the Hurri by the Hittites, and the Hanigalbat by the Assyrians. The different names seem to have referred to the same kingdom and were used interchangeably, according to Michael C. A

Urartu, which corresponds to the biblical mountains of Ararat, is the name of a geographical region commonly used as the exonym for the Iron Age kingdom also known by the modern rendition of its endonym, the Kingdom of Van, centered around Lake Van in the historic Armenian Highlands (present-day eastern Anatolia).

The oldest cult in Armenia worshiped an unfathomable higher power or intelligence called Ara, embodied as the sun (Arev); the ancient Armenians called themselves “children of the sun”. Also among the most ancient types of Indo-European-derived worship are the cults of eagles and lions, and of the sky.

Aramazd was the chief and creator god in pre-Christian Armenian mythology. The deity and his name were derived from the Zoroastrian deity Ahura Mazda after the Median conquest of Armenia in the 6th century BCE. Aramazd was regarded as a generous god of fertility, rain, and abundance, as well as the father of the other gods, including Anahit, Mihr, and Nane.

Ara the Beautiful (also Ara the Handsome; Armenian: Ara Geghetsik) is a legendary Armenian hero. Ara is notable in Armenian literature for the popular legend in which he was so handsome that the Assyrian queen Semiramis waged war against Armenia to capture him and bring him back to her, alive.

Ara is sometimes associated with the legendary King of Armenia, known as Arame of Urartu, who ruled the Kingdom of Urartu Biainili during the 9th century BC.

Aralezes (also Aralezner in plural) are dog-like creatures, or spirits, in Armenian cultural beliefs or in the Armenian mythology, who live in the sky, or on mount Massis (Mount Ararat), according to other imaginations.

They were praised with Ara the Beautiful and Shamiram (Semiramis) in Old Armenia. Armenians believed that aralezes descended from the sky to lick the wounds of dead heroes so they could relive or resurrect.

The Stork is traditionally considered a sacred animal in Armenian legends and mythology. The stork “Aragil” was in ancient Armenian mythology considered as the messenger of Ara the Beautiful, as well as the defender of fields. According to ancient mythological conceptions, two stork symbolize the sun.

The Armenian eternity sign or Arevakhach («Sun Cross») is an ancient Armenian national symbol and a symbol of the national identity of the Armenian people. It is one of the most common symbols in Armenian architecture, carved on khachkars and on walls of churches.

Since the 5th century, it appeared on Armenian steles, later it becomes part of khachkar symbolism. Around the 8th century the use of the Armenian symbol of eternity had become a long established national iconographical practice. In medieval Armenian culture, the eternity sign symbolized the concept of everlasting, celestial life.

Gemini is the third astrological sign in the zodiac, originating from the constellation of Gemini. Under the tropical zodiac, the sun transits this sign between about May 21 and June 21. Gemini is represented by the twins Castor and Pollux, known as the Dioscuri.

Isimud (also Isinu; Usmû; Usumu (Akkadian)) is a minor god, the messenger of the god Enki, in Sumerian mythology. In ancient Sumerian artwork, Isimud is easily identifiable because he is always depicted with two faces facing in opposite directions in a way that is similar to the ancient Roman god Janus.

Ishara is an ancient pre-Hurrian and perhaps pre-Semitic deity of unknown origin from northern modern Syria. She first appeared as one of the chief goddesses of Ebla in the mid 3rd millennium, and by the end of the 3rd millennium, she had temples in Nippur, Sippar, Kish, Harbidum, Larsa, and Urum. Her name appears as an element in theophoric names in Mesopotamia in the later 3rd millennium (Akkad period).

The etymology of Ishara is unknown. Ishara first appears in the pre-Sargonic texts from Ebla and then as a goddess of love in Old Akkadian potency-incantations.  Her main epithet was belet rame, lady of love, which was also applied to Ishtar. In the Epic of Gilgamesh (Tablet II, col. v.28) it says: ‘For Ishara the bed is made’ and in Atra-hasis (I 301-304) she is called upon to bless the couple on the honeymoon.”

She was then incorporated to the Hurrian pantheon. She was worshipped with Teshub and Simegi at Alakh, and also at Ugarit, Emar and Chagar Bazar. She then entered the Hittite pantheon and had her main shrine in Kizzuwatna. Ishara is the Hittite word for “treaty, binding promise”, also personified as a goddess of the oath.

As a goddess, Ishara could inflict severe bodily penalties to oathbreakers, in particular ascites. In this context, she came to be seen as a “goddess of medicine” whose pity was invoked in case of illness. There was even a verb, isharis- “to be afflicted by the illness of Ishara”.

In Hurrian and Semitic traditions, Išḫara is a love goddess, often identified with Ishtar. She was invoked to heal the sick. In Alalah, her name was written with the Akkadogram IŠTAR plus a phonetic complement -ra, as IŠTAR-ra.

Variants of the name appear as Ašḫara (in a treaty of Naram-Sin of Akkad with Hita of Elam) and Ušḫara (in Ugarite texts). In Ebla, there were various logographic spellings involving the sign AMA “mother”. 

She was associated with the underworld. Her astrological embodiment is the constellation Scorpio and she is called the mother of the “Seven” or the “Seven Gods” (“the Seven Stars”; Sumerian Iminbi; Akkadian Sebittu), minor war gods in Babylonian and Akkadian tradition whose power could be marshalled beneficently against demons and their influence by the means of magical incantations and depiction. 

The Seven gods are known from a range of Akkadian incantation texts: their demonic names vary, but their number, seven, is invariable. They are the children of the god Anu, the sons of heaven and earth, and follow the god Erra into battle.

The Seven gods are “champions without peer”, and have been called “personified weapons”. They are each assigned a destructive destiny by Anu. They are in differing traditions of good and evil influence.

Nergal

The Seven gods are sometimes evoked (as “Seven and seven”) with yet another group of seven deities who may be the children of Enmeshara, an underworld god of the law in Sumerian and Akkadian mythology. Enmeshara has been described as an ancestor of Enlil, and it has been claimed that Enlil slew him.

Enmeshara is described as a Sun god, protector of flocks and vegetation, and therefore he has been equated with Nergal, a deity that was worshipped throughout ancient Mesopotamia with the main seat of his worship at Cuthah represented by the mound of Tell-Ibrahim.

Nergal developed over time from being a war god to a god of the underworld. In the mythology, this occurred when Enlil and Ninlil gave him the underworld. In this capacity he has associated with him a goddess Allatu or Ereshkigal, though at one time Allatu may have functioned as the sole mistress of Aralu, ruling in her own person.

Nergal seems to be in part a solar deity, sometimes identified with Shamash, but only representative of a certain phase of the sun. He seems to represent the sun of noontime and of the summer solstice that brings destruction, high summer being the dead season in the Mesopotamian annual cycle. He has also been called “the king of sunset”.

Nergal is in hymns and myths portrayed as a god of war and pestilence. As god of the plague, he was invoked during the “plague years” during the reign of the Hittite king Suppiluliuma, when this disease spread from Egypt.

In the late Babylonian astral-theological system Nergal is related to the planet Mars. As a fiery god of destruction and war, Nergal doubtless seemed an appropriate choice for the red planet, and he was equated by the Greeks to the war-god Ares (Latin Mars)—hence the current name of the planet.

Amongst the Hurrians and later Hittites Nergal was known as Aplu, a name derived from the Akkadian Apal Enlil, (Apal being the construct state of Aplu) meaning “the son of Enlil”. Aplu may be related with Apaliunas who is considered to be the Hittite reflex of *Apeljōn, an early form of the name Apollo.

Erra

Other names for Nergal are Erra or Irra and Sibitti or Seven. Erra (sometimes called Irra) is an Akkadian plague god known from an ‘epos’ of the eighth century BC. Erra is the god of mayhem and pestilence who is responsible for periods of political confusion.

In the epic that is given the modern title Erra, the writer Kabti-ilani-Marduk, a descendant, he says, of Dabibi, presents himself in a colophon following the text as simply the transcriber of a visionary dream in which Erra himself revealed the text.

The poem opens with an invocation. The god Erra is sleeping fitfully with his consort (identified with Mamītum and not with the mother goddess Mami) but is roused by his advisor Išum and the Seven (Sibitti or Sebetti).

The Sibitti call on Erra to lead the destruction of mankind. Išum tries to mollify Erra’s wakened violence, to no avail. Foreign peoples invade Babylonia, but are struck down by plague. Even Marduk, the patron of Babylon, relinquishes his throne to Erra for a time.

Tablets II and III are occupied with a debate between Erra and Išum. The world is turned upside down: righteous and unrighteous are killed alike. Erra orders Išum to complete the work by defeating Babylon’s enemies. Then the god withdraws to his own seat in Emeslam with the terrifying Seven, and mankind is saved. A propitiatory prayer ends the work.

The poem must have been central to Babylonian culture: at least thirty-six copies have been recovered from five first-millennium sites—Assur, Babylon, Nineveh, Sultantepe and Ur—more, even, as the assyriologist and historian of religions Luigi Giovanni Cagni points out, than have been recovered of the Epic of Gilgamesh.

The text appears to some readers to be a mythologisation of historic turmoil in Mesopotamia, though scholars disagree as to the historic events that inspired the poem: the poet exclaims (tablet IV:3) “You changed out of your divinity and made yourself like a man.”

The Erra text soon assumed magical functions. Parts of the text were inscribed on amulets employed for exorcism and as a prophylactic against the plague. It has been equated with with the Seven Against Thebes, widely assumed by Hellenists to have had a historical basis.

The seven sages

Apkallu

In ancient Mesopotamian myth and legends there are stories about very curious looking beings known as the Apkallu (Akkadian) and Abgal (Sumerian), terms that are found in cuneiform inscriptions that in general mean either “wise” or “sage.” They were Antediluvian demi-gods and sages created by God Enki to impart knowledge to people.

For the Sumerians these creatures were called the Ab.gal “big fish.” These fish-man hybrids, occasionally depicted with bird heads are a symbol of ancient wisdom. They are associated with human wisdom and often referred to in scholarly literature as the Seven Sages.

Sometimes the sages are associated with a specific primeval king. After the deluge further sages and kings are listed. Post-deluge, the sages are considered human, and in some texts are distinguished by being referred to as Ummanu (“craftsman”), not Apkallu.

The seven sages are also mentioned in the Epic of Erra (aka ‘Song of Erra’, or ‘Erra and Ishum’); here again they are referenced as paradu-Fish. In this text is described how after the Flood, Marduk banished them back to Abzu. The epic contains several clever etymological wordplays on the names of apkallu, both textual and phonetic.

Once the apkallu are banished, Marduk’s phrasing becomes rhetorical (left): Finally Erra persuades Marduk to leave his temple and fetch back the apkallu from their banishment, reassuring that he will keep order whilst Marduk is away.

However, chaos breaks out; though some of the text is missing it seems that the subsequent outcome was that instead, earthly ummanus are given the task of cleansing Marduk’s shrine. It can be understood by this that the mythological role of the apkallu was to aid the god (Marduk) in keeping creation stable by maintenance of Marduk’s idol.

This text appears to have a completely different role for the apkallu from that given in the lists of sages and kings — essentially, Kvanvig proposes that the pre-deluge king-sage list was retroactively inserted onto a Sumerian king list, so to combine the historical record with the flood legend. In doing so it creates an pre-flood origin story for the Sumerian kings.

Lugal-irra and Meslamta-ea

Nergal’s chief temple at Cuthah bore the name Meslam, from which the god receives the designation of Meslamtaeda or Meslamtaea, “the one that rises up from Meslam”. The name Meslamtaeda/Meslamtaea indeed is found as early as the list of gods from Fara while the name Nergal only begins to appear in the Akkadian period.

In Babylonian astronomy, the stars Castor and Pollux were known as the Great Twins. The Twins were regarded as minor gods and were called Meshlamtaea and Lugalirra, meaning respectively “The One who has arisen from the Underworld” and the “Mighty King”. Both names can be understood as titles of Nergal, the major Babylonian god of plague and pestilence, who was king of the Underworld.

In ancient Mesopotamian religion, Lugal-irra and Meslamta-ea are a set of twin gods who were worshipped in the village of Kisiga, located in northern Babylonia. They were regarded as guardians of doorways and they may have originally been envisioned as a set of twins guarding the gates of the Underworld, who chopped the dead into pieces as they passed through the gates.

During the Neo-Assyrian period, small depictions of them would be buried at entrances, with Lugal-irra always on the left and Meslamta-ea always on the right. They are identical and are shown wearing horned caps and each holding an axe and a mace. They are identified with the constellation Gemini, which is named after them.

Gemini

Gemini is the third astrological sign in the zodiac, originating from the constellation of Gemini. Gemini lies between Taurus to the west and Cancer to the east, with Auriga and Lynx to the north and Monoceros and Canis Minor to the south.

Under the tropical zodiac, the sun transits this sign between about May 21 and June 21. Its name is Latin for “twins,” and it is associated with the twins Castor and Pollux, known as the Dioscuri in Greek mythology.

In Greek mythology, Gemini was associated with the myth of Castor and Pollux, the children of Leda and Argonauts both. Pollux was the son of Zeus, who seduced Leda, while Castor was the son of Tyndareus, king of Sparta and Leda’s husband.

Castor and Pollux were also mythologically associated with St. Elmo’s fire in their role as the protectors of sailors. When Castor died, because he was mortal, Pollux begged his father Zeus to give Castor immortality, and he did, by uniting them together in the heavens.

Solar mythology

According to Macrobius who cites Nigidius Figulus and Cicero, Janus and Jana (Diana) are a pair of divinities, worshipped as Apollo or the sun and moon, whence Janus received sacrifices before all the others, because through him is apparent the way of access to the desired deity.

A similar solar interpretation has been offered by A. Audin who interprets the god as the issue of a long process of development, starting with the Sumeric cultures, from the two solar pillars located on the eastern side of temples, each of them marking the direction of the rising sun at the dates of the two solstices: the southeastern corresponding to the Winter and the northeastern to the Summer solstice.

These two pillars would be at the origin of the theology of the divine twins, one of whom is mortal (related to the NE pillar, as confining with the region where the sun does not shine) and the other is immortal (related to the SE pillar and the region where the sun always shines). Later these iconographic models evolved in the Middle East and Egypt into a single column representing two torsos and finally a single body with two heads looking at opposite directions.

Isimud (also Isinu; Usmû; Usumu in Akkadian) is a minor god, the messenger of the god Enki, in Sumerian mythology. He plays a similar role to Ninshubur, Inanna’s sukkal. Isimud also appears in the myth of Enki and Ninhursag, in which he acts as Enki’s messenger and emissary.

In ancient Sumerian artwork, Isimud is easily identifiable because he is always depicted with two faces facing in opposite directions in a way that is similar to the ancient Roman god Janus, the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways,[1] passages, and endings.

Ishum and Papsukkal

Ishum is a minor god in Akkadian mythology, the brother of Shamash and an attendant of Erra. He may have been a god of fire and, according to texts, led the gods in war as a herald but was nonetheless generally regarded as benevolent. Ishum is known particularly from the Babylonian legend of Erra and Ishum.

He developed from the Sumerian figure of Endursaga, the herald god in the Sumerian mythology. He leads the pantheon, particularly in times of conflict. In Akkadian times he becomes Ishum. The Akkadians associated the god Papsukkal, the messenger god and gatekeeper for the rest of the pantheon in the Akkadian pantheon, with a lamassu and the god Išum with shedu.

Papsukkal was syncretized with Ninshubur, the sukkal or second-in-command of the goddess Inanna in Sumerian mythology. Her name means “Queen of the East” in ancient Sumerian. Much like Iris or Hermes in later Greek mythology, Ninshubur served as a messenger to the other gods.

Lamassu

A lamassu (Cuneiform: an.kal; Sumerian: dlammař; Akkadian: lamassu; sometimes called a lamassus) is an Assyrian protective deity, often depicted as having a human head, the body of a bull or a lion, and bird wings. In art, lamassu were depicted as hybrids, with bodies of either winged bulls or lions and heads of human males.

In some writings, it is portrayed to represent a female deity. A less frequently used name is shedu (Cuneiform: an.kal×bad; Sumerian: dalad; Akkadian, šēdu), which refers to the male counterpart of a lamassu. Female lamassu were called “apsasû”.

The lamassu and shedu were household protective spirits of the common Babylonian people, becoming associated later as royal protectors, and were placed as sentinels at entrances. In Hittite, the Sumerian form dlamma is used both as a name for the so-called “tutelary deity”, identified in certain later texts with Inara, and a title given to similar protective gods.

To protect houses, the lamassu were engraved in clay tablets, which were then buried under the door’s threshold. They were often placed as a pair at the entrance of palaces. At the entrance of cities, they were sculpted in colossal size, and placed as a pair, one at each side of the door of the city, that generally had doors in the surrounding wall, each one looking towards one of the cardinal points.

The ancient Jewish people were influenced by the iconography of Assyrian culture. The prophet Ezekiel wrote about a fantastic being made up of aspects of a human being, a lion, an eagle and a bull. Later, in the early Christian period, the four Gospels were ascribed to each of these components. When it was depicted in art, this image was called the Tetramorph.

Lamassu represent the zodiacs, parent-stars, or constellations. They are depicted as protective deities because they encompass all life within them. In the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, they are depicted as physical deities as well, which is where the lammasu iconography originates, these deities could be microcosms of their microcosmic zodiac, parent-star, or constellation.

Although lamassu had a different iconography and portrayal in the culture of Sumer, the terms “lamassu”, “alad”, and “shedu” evolved throughout the Assyro-Akkadian culture from the Sumerian culture to denote the Assyrian-winged-man-bull symbol and statues during the Neo-Assyrian Empire.

Standard iconography pictured Nergal as a lion, and boundary-stone monuments symbolise him with a mace surmounted by the head of a lion. In Assyro-Babylonian ecclesiastical art the great lion-headed colossi serving as guardians to the temples and palaces seem to symbolise Nergal, just as the bull-headed colossi probably typify Ninurta.

Anu

Anu or An is the divine personification of the sky, supreme God, and ancestor of all the deities in ancient Mesopotamian religion. Anu was believed to be the utmost power, the supreme source of all authority, for the other gods and for all mortal rulers, and he is described in one text as the one “who contains the entire universe”.

Though Anu was the supreme God, he was rarely worshipped, and, by the time that written records began, the most important cult was devoted to his son Enlil. Anu was rarely worshipped, and veneration was instead devoted to his son Enlil, but, throughout Mesopotamian history, the highest deity in the pantheon was always said to possess the anûtu, meaning “Heavenly power”.

Anu’s primary role in myths is as the ancestor of the Anunnaki, which means “offspring of Anu. Although it is sometimes unclear which deities were considered members of the Anunnaki, the group probably included the “seven gods who decree”: Anu, Enlil, Enki, Ninhursag, Nanna, Utu, and Inanna.

The Annunaki was “the major deities of Sumerian religion, the most prominent of these deities being Enlil, god of the air. According to legends, heaven and earth were once inseparable until Enlil was born; Enlil cleaved heaven and earth in two. An carried away heaven. Ki, in company with Enlil, took the earth.

Some authorities question whether Ki was regarded as a deity since there is no evidence of a cult and the name appears only in a limited number of Sumerian creation texts. She has been identified with the Sumerian mother goddess Ninhursag and can originally has been the same figure.

Cuneiform KI is the sign for “earth”. It is also read as GI, GUNNI (=KI.NE) “hearth”, KARAŠ (=KI.KAL.BAD) “encampment, army”, KISLAḪ (=KI.UD) “threshing floor”, and SUR (=KI.GAG). In Akkadian orthography, it functions as a determiner for toponyms and has the syllabic values gi, ge, qi, and qe.

Anu’s consort in the earliest Sumerian texts is the Earth goddess Uraš, but she is later the goddess Ki and, in Babylonian and Akkadian texts, the goddess Antu (from Sumerian An), whose name is a feminine form of Anu. However, Uras may only have been another name for Antum, Anu’s wife. The name Uras even became applied to Anu himself, and acquired the meaning “heaven”.

In ancient Hittite religion, Anu is a former ruler of the gods, who was overthrown by his son Kumarbi, who bit off his father’s genitals and gave birth to the storm god Teshub. Teshub overthrew Kumarbi, avenged Anu’s mutilation, and became the new king of the gods. This story was the later basis for the castration of Ouranos in Hesiod’s Theogony.

His primary cult center was the Eanna temple in the city of Uruk, but, by the Akkadian Period (c. 2334 – 2154 BC), his authority in Uruk had largely been ceded to the goddess Inanna, the Queen of Heaven.

The Amorite god Amurru or Martu (MAR.TU), sometimes described as a ‘shepherd’ or as a storm god, and as a son of the sky-god Anu, was sometimes equated with Anu. Later, during the Seleucid Empire (213 BC — 63 BC), Anu was identified with Enmešara and Dumuzid, later known by the alternate form Tammuz.

Tammuz is an ancient Mesopotamian god associated with shepherds, who was also the primary consort of the goddess Inanna (later known as Ishtar). In Sumerian mythology, Dumuzid’s sister was Geshtinanna, the ancient Sumerian goddess of agriculture, fertility, and dream interpretation, the so-called “heavenly grape-vine”.

In Inanna’s Descent into the Underworld, Dumuzid fails to mourn Inanna’s death and, when she returns from the Underworld, she allows the galla demons to drag him down to the Underworld as her replacement.

Inanna later regrets this decision and decrees that Dumuzid will spend half the year in the Underworld, but the other half of the year with her, while his sister Geshtinanna stays in the Underworld in his place, thus resulting in the cycle of the seasons.

Amurru

Amurru is sometimes called “lord of the mountain”, “He who dwells on the pure mountain” and “who inhabits the shining mountain”. It has been suggested that this Bêl Šadê might be the same as the Biblical ’Ēl Šaddāi who is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the “Priestly source” of narrative, according to the documentary hypothesis.

Bêl Šadê could also have become the fertility-god ‘Ba’al’, possibly adopted by the Canaanites, a rival and enemy of the Hebrew God YHWH, and famously combatted by the Hebrew prophet Elijah.

Amurru also has storm-god features. Like Adad, Amurru bears the epithet “thunderer”, and he is even called “hurler of the thunderbolt” and “Adad of the delug”. Yet his iconography is distinct from that of Adad, and he sometimes appears alongside Adad with a baton of power or throwstick, while Adad bears a conventional thunderbolt.

Amurru’s wife is usually the goddess Ašratum, generally considered identical with the Ugaritic goddess ʼAṯirat (Athirat), a mother goddess who appears in a number of ancient sources, who in northwest Semitic tradition and Hittite tradition appears as wife of the god Ēl.

El is a Northwest Semitic word meaning “god” or “deity”, or referring (as a proper name) to any one of multiple major ancient Near Eastern deities, which suggests that Amurru may indeed have been a variation of that god. A rarer form, ‘ila, represents the predicate form in Old Akkadian and in Amorite.

The word is derived from the Proto-Semitic archaic biliteral ʾ‑l, meaning “god”. Specific deities known as ʾEl or ʾIl include the supreme god of the ancient Canaanite religion and the supreme god of East Semitic speakers in Mesopotamia’s Early Dynastic Period.

Asherah

Asherah is identified as the queen consort of the Sumerian god Anu, and Ugaritic El, the oldest deities of their respective pantheons, as well as Yahweh, the god of Israel and Judah. This role gave her a similarly high rank in the Ugaritic pantheon. Despite her association with Yahweh in extra-biblical sources, Deuteronomy 12 has Yahweh commanding the destruction of her shrines so as to maintain purity of his worship.

The name Dione, which like ‘Elat means “Goddess”, is clearly associated with Asherah in the Phoenician History of Sanchuniathon, because the same common epithet (‘Elat) of “the Goddess par excellence” was used to describe her at Ugarit. The Book of Jeremiah, written circa 628 BC, possibly refers to Asherah when it uses the title “Queen of Heaven” in Jeremiah 7:16-18 and Jeremiah 44:17-19, 25.

Sources from before 1200 BC almost always credit Athirat with her full title rabat ʾAṯirat yammi, “Lady Athirat of the Sea” or as more fully translated “she who treads on the sea”. This occurs 12 times in the Baʿal Epic alone.

The name is understood by various translators and commentators to be from the Ugaritic root ʾaṯr “stride”, cognate with the Hebrew root ʾšr, of the same meaning. There she appears to champion Yam, god of the sea, in his struggle with Ba’al.

Her other main divine epithet was qaniyatu ʾilhm which may be translated as “the creatrix of the Gods (Elohim)”. In those texts, Athirat is the consort of the god El; there is one reference to the 70 sons of Athirat, presumably the same as the 70 sons of El. She is also called Elat, “Goddess”, the feminine form of El (compare Allat) and Qodesh, “holiness”.

Athirat in Akkadian texts appears as Ashratum (or, Antu), the wife of Anu, the God of Heaven. In contrast, ʿAshtart is believed to be linked to the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar who is sometimes portrayed as the daughter of Anu while in Ugaritic myth, ʿAshtart is one of the daughters of El, the West Semitic counterpart of Anu. Among the Hittites this goddess appears as Asherdu(s) or Asertu(s), the consort of Elkunirsa (“El the Creator of Earth”) and mother of either 77 or 88 sons. 

Dingir

Dingir (usually transliterated DIĜIR, Sumerian pronunciation: [tiŋiɾ]) is a Sumerian word for “god.” Its cuneiform sign is most commonly employed as the determinative for religious names and related concepts, in which case it is not pronounced and is conventionally transliterated as a superscript “D” as in e.g. DInanna.

The cuneiform sign by itself was originally an ideogram for the Sumerian word an (“sky” or “heaven”); its use was then extended to a logogram for the word diĝir (“god” or goddess) and the supreme deity of the Sumerian pantheon An, and a phonogram for the syllable /an/.

Akkadian took over all these uses and added to them a logographic reading for the native ilum and from that a syllabic reading of /il/. In Hittite orthography, the syllabic value of the sign was again only an.

The concept of “divinity” in Sumerian is closely associated with the heavens, as is evident from the fact that the cuneiform sign doubles as the ideogram for “sky”, and that its original shape is the picture of a star. The original association of “divinity” is thus with “bright” or “shining” hierophanies in the sky.

Elamite mythology

Temples to the Seven were to be found in the Neo-Assyrian period in the capital cities of Dur-šarrukin (Khorsabad), Kalhu-Nimrud and Nineveh, illustrating their integration into Mesopotamian belief systems, although their origins were probably originally Elamite – they operate in tandem with their sister, the goddess Narudu, probably originally the Elamite female deity Narunte, who was associated with Inanna/Ishtar.

Narunte was a Elamite mother goddess who was worshiped in Susa. A statue depicting the goddesses shows her holding a goblet and palm leaf over her breast. This is thought to symbolize her role as a mother goddess and nourishing goddess. As a mother goddess, she may have been associated with the fertility of people and of the earth. ‘

The headdress depicted on the statue is made of three pairs of horns – a motif borrow from Sumer to show someone of high rank. Her dress is also a Sumerian influence. The statue also has lions decorating the armrests and two lions beneath her feat. Lions were a symbol of Inanna (Ishtar) – the Mesopotamian goddess of love, war, sex and beauty. Narudi was most likely also associated with Inanna’s attributes.

Due to her association with Ishushinak, a major god of Elam and a protector deity, Narudi may have been his consort. He had a temple at Susa which he shared with the god, Napirisha, who was the main god of Elam at one point. Napirisha was also referred to as “God of the Elamite Highlands”, and was most likely associated with mountains.

Little figures with wheels of lions sitting on a flat cart were found in Susa, near the temple of Ishushinak. These may have been offerings to the god or toys that children played with. As offers, this would associate Ishushinak with the lion – an animal symbolizing power and strength. The lion was a popular motif in Elam. However, the lion figures may also have been representative of the goddess Narundi.

Napirisha was the god of the primordial waters, life-giving waters, of the abyss. He is the start of all life. His symbol was the snake or serpent and over time he was associated with the Mesopotamian god, Enki. His consort is said to be Kiririsha. Together they had a son, Khutran (“overwhelmer”, who most likely was a god of war and soldiers.

Napirisha may have also been known as the god (d)GAL or “Great God. This would make him a supreme god or another name for Khumban, also known as Humban, who was the supreme god of the pantheon. At the same time, the idea that Napirisha is a god of his own is also very possible. He may have been a god to rule over the world and universe alongside Khumban.

Khumban was the god of the sky and compared to the Mesopotamian god, Anu. He may have also been called (d)GAl or Dingir.Gal – a name that means “Great God”.  Khumban, alongside Inshushinak and Nahundi, was frequently invoked to punish wrong-doings and enemies of Elam or the king. Khumban may have also been a god of the earth.

Khumban was either the consort of Kiririsha, who was known as “Lady of Liyan” and “The Great Goddess”, or Pinikir, who may have been another goddess or another name for Kiririsha. He may have been the consort of both goddesses depending on the location.

Pinikir was the mother goddess and the the supreme goddess of northern Elam. It seems like her connection to Kiririsha, who was a patron goddess of the southern parts of Elam alongside the gods Khumban and Inshushinak, comes from the fact that both are supreme goddesses.

As the supreme god of the pantheon, he was likely associated with both goddesses as power shifted from the north to the south. As power shifted south, it is thought that the patron goddess changed from Pinikir to Kiririsha.

As a mother goddess, Pinikir may have been associated with motherhood and fertility both of the land and of people. She is compared to the Babylonian goddess, Inanna (Ishtar). From this association, we can speculate that Pinikir (and Kiririsha) was a goddess of love, beauty, war and justice as well as the “Queen of heaven”.

Kiririsha was also refereed to as “The Divine Mother”. Being a goddess of the Elamite Kingdom, Kiririsha was probably a goddess of kings, kingship, and sovereign. As the “divine mother” should may have also been associated with motherhood, fertility (of people and the land) and the cosmos (heavenly stars).

As a goddess of the port, Liyan, she may have also been associated with fishing, trade and the sea. All of these associations are speculation however, as not much is known about the ancient Emalites. Kiririsha may have also been known by the name Pinikir.

The god Jabru was the god of the underworld and compared to the Akkadian god, Anu. Jabru is also regarded as the father of all of the gods of the Elamite pantheon.

Pleiades

The iconography of the Seven Gods is well-established by the Neo-Assyrian period, when they appear in royal palace reliefs. The Seven are depicted as wearing long, open robes and tall cylindrical headdresses with feathered tops and frontal rows of horns.

They carry both an axe and a knife, together with a bow and quiver these being the attributes attributed to the Seven when – on a more domestic level their protective figurines are to be placed at prescribed locations around a dwelling.

Astronomically, the Seven were identified with the Pleiades, explaining the basis for their representation – by the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods, at the latest – with the symbol of seven dots or, on occasion, by seven stars.

The constellation Taurus (Latin for “the Bull”), one of the constellations of the zodiac, hosts two of the nearest open clusters to Earth, the Pleiades, also named the “Seven Sisters”, and the Hyades, both of which are visible to the naked eye.

The name “seven sisters” has been used for the Pleiades in the languages of many cultures, including indigenous groups of Australia, North America and Siberia. This suggests that the name may have a common ancient origin.

Taurus marked the point of vernal (spring) equinox in the Chalcolithic and the Early Bronze Age, from about 4000 BC to 1700 BC, after which it moved into the neighboring constellation Aries. The Pleiades were closest to the Sun at vernal equinox around the 23rd century BC.

Taurus is a large and prominent constellation in the northern hemisphere’s winter sky. It is one of the oldest constellations, dating back to at least the Early Bronze Age when it marked the location of the Sun during the spring equinox.

Its importance to the agricultural calendar influenced various bull figures in the mythologies of Ancient Sumer, Akkad, Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. A number of features exist that are of interest to astronomers.

The brightest member of this constellation is Aldebaran, designated α Tauri (Latinized to Alpha Tauri, abbreviated Alpha Tau, α Tau). Its name derives from al-dabarān, Arabic for “the follower”, probably from the fact that it follows the Pleiades during the nightly motion of the celestial sphere across the sky.

The Bull of Heaven

In early Mesopotamian art, the Bull of Heaven was closely associated with Inanna. One of the oldest depictions shows the bull standing before the goddess’ standard; since it has 3 stars depicted on its back (the cuneiform sign for “star-constellation”), there is good reason to regard this as the constellation later known as Taurus.

In ancient Mesopotamian mythology, the Bull of Heaven is a mythical beast fought by the hero Gilgamesh. The story of the Bull of Heaven has two different versions: one recorded in an earlier Sumerian poem and a later version in the standard Akkadian Epic of Gilgamesh.

In the Sumerian poem, the Bull is sent to attack Gilgamesh by the goddess Inanna for reasons that are unclear. The more complete Akkadian account comes from Tablet VI of the Epic of Gilgamesh, in which Gilgamesh rejects the sexual advances of the goddess Ishtar, the East Semitic equivalent of Inanna, leading the enraged Ishtar to demand her father Anu for the Bull of Heaven, so that she may send it to attack Gilgamesh in Uruk.

Anu gives her the Bull and she sends it to attack Gilgamesh and his companion, the hero Enkidu, who slay the Bull together. After defeating the Bull, Enkidu hurls the Bull’s right thigh at Ishtar, taunting her. Enkidu tears off the bull’s hind part and hurls the quarters into the sky where they become the stars we know as Ursa Major and Ursa Minor.

Ursa Major (also known as the Great Bear) is a constellation in the northern sky, whose associated mythology likely dates back into prehistory. It is primarily known from the asterism of its main seven relatively bright stars comprising the “Big Dipper”, “the Wagon”, “Charles’s Wain” or “the Plough” (among others), with its stellar configuration mimicking the shape of the “Little Dipper”.

As many of its common names allude, its shape is said to resemble either a ladle, an agricultural plough or wagon; in the context of Ursa Major, they are commonly drawn to represent the hindquarters and tail of the Great Bear.

Ursa Major is visible throughout the year from most of the northern hemisphere, and appears circumpolar above the mid-northern latitudes. From southern temperate latitudes, the main asterism is invisible, but the southern parts of the constellation can still be viewed.

The general constellation outline often significantly features in numerous world cultures, and frequently is used as a symbol of the north. The asterism’s two brightest stars, named Dubhe and Merak (α Ursae Majoris and β Ursae Majoris), can be used as the navigational pointer towards the place of the current northern pole star, Polaris in Ursa Minor.

Ursa Minor (Latin: “Lesser Bear”, contrasting with Ursa Major), also known as the Little Bear, is a constellation in the Northern Sky. Like the Great Bear, the tail of the Little Bear may also be seen as the handle of a ladle, hence the North American name, Little Dipper: seven stars with four in its bowl like its partner the Big Dipper.

In the Babylonian star catalogues, Ursa Minor was known as Margiddaanna (“Wagon of Heaven”), also associated with the Earth mother goddess Damkina (“true wife”) or Damgalnuna (“great wife of the prince”), the consort of the god Enki. It is listed in the MUL.APIN catalogue, compiled around 1000 BC among the “Stars of Enlil”—that is, the northern sky.

Ninḫursaĝ, also known as Damgalnuna or Ninmah, was the ancient Sumerian mother goddess of the mountains, and one of the seven great deities of Sumer. She is principally a fertility goddess, and kings of Sumer were “nourished by Ninhursag’s milk”. She is the tutelary deity to several Sumerian leaders.

In creation texts, Ninmah (another name for Ninhursag) acts as a midwife whilst the mother goddess Nammu makes different kinds of human individuals from lumps of clay at a feast given by Enki to celebrate the creation of humankind. The mother goddess had many epithets including “womb goddess”, “midwife of the gods”, “mother of all children” and “mother of the gods”. In this role she is identified with Ki in the Enuma Elish.

Temple hymn sources identify her as the “true and great lady of heaven” (possibly in relation to her standing on the mountain). Sometimes her hair is depicted in an omega shape and at times she wears a horned head-dress and tiered skirt, often with bow cases at her shoulders. Frequently she carries a mace or baton surmounted by an omega motif or a derivation, sometimes accompanied by a lion cub on a leash.

The omega symbol is associated with the Egyptian cow goddess Hathor, and may represent a stylized womb. The symbol appears on very early imagery from Ancient Egypt. Hathor is at times depicted on a mountain, so it is likely that the two goddesses are connected.

According to Diogenes Laërtius, citing Callimachus, Thales of Miletus “measured the stars of the Wagon by which the Phoenicians sail”. Diogenes identifies these as the constellation of Ursa Minor, which for its reported use by the Phoenicians for navigation at sea were also named Phoinikē.

The tradition of naming the northern constellations “bears” appears to be genuinely Greek, although Homer refers to just a single “bear”. The original “bear” is thus Ursa Major, and Ursa Minor was admitted as second, or “Phoenician Bear” (Ursa Phoenicia, hence Phoenice) only later, according to Strabo due to a suggestion by Thales, who suggested it as a navigation aid to the Greeks, who had been navigating by Ursa Major.

In classical antiquity, the celestial pole was somewhat closer to Beta Ursae Minoris than to Alpha Ursae Minoris, and the entire constellation was taken to indicate the northern direction. Since the medieval period, it has become convenient to use Alpha Ursae Minoris (or “Polaris”) as the north star, even though it was still several degrees away from the celestial pole. Its New Latin name of stella polaris was coined only in the early modern period. The ancient name of the constellation is Cynosura. The origin of this name is unclear.

Because Ursa Minor consists of seven stars, the Latin word for “north” (i.e., where Polaris points) is septentrio, from septem (seven) and triones (oxen), from seven oxen driving a plough, which the seven stars also resemble. This name has also been attached to the main stars of Ursa Major.

The slaying of the Bull results in the gods condemning Enkidu to death, an event which catalyzes Gilgamesh’s fear for his own death, which drives the remaining portion of the epic. Some locate Gilgamesh as the neighboring constellation of Orion, facing Taurus as if in combat, while others identify him with the sun whose rising on the equinox vanquishes the constellation.

The Bull was identified with the constellation Taurus and the myth of its slaying may have held astronomical significance to the ancient Mesopotamians. Aspects of the story have been compared to later tales from the ancient Near East, including legends from Ugarit, the tale of Joseph in the Book of Genesis, and parts of the ancient Greek epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey.

In Babylonian astronomy, the constellation was listed in the MUL.APIN as GU.AN.NA, “The Bull of Heaven”. As this constellation marked the vernal equinox, it was also the first constellation in the Babylonian zodiac and they described it as “The Bull in Front”.

Alalu

The Akkadian name for the constellation Taurus was Alu. To the early Hebrews, Taurus was the first constellation in their zodiac and consequently it was represented by the first letter in their alphabet, Aleph.

Alalu is god in Hurrian mythology. He is considered to have housed the divine family, because he was a progenitor of the gods, and possibly the father of Earth. Scholars have pointed out the similarities between the Hurrian myth and the story from Greek mythology of Uranus, Cronus, and Zeus. 

Alalu was a primeval deity of the Hurrian mythology. After nine years of reign, Alalu was defeated by Anu. Alaluʻs son Kumarbi also defeated Anu, biting and swallowing his genitals, hence becoming pregnant of three gods, among which Teshub who eventually defeated him. Alalu fled to the underworld.

The name “Alalu” was borrowed from Semitic mythology and is a compound word made up of the Semitic definite article al and the Semitic deity Alû. The -u at the end of the word is an inflectional ending; thus, Alalu may also occur as Alali or Alala depending on the position of the word in the sentence. He was identified by the Greeks as Hypsistos. He was also called Alalus.

The 7-dot glyph

The 7-dot glyph, (or globes) are first known in Mittanian art, (Turkey, or ancient Anatolia), but is possibly older. The 7-dot glyph was at first six dots surrounding a central dot; later two rows of 3-dots ended with a 7th as the finial.

It appears in the iconography of cylinder seals, and later on reliefs, or other motifs. With origins on cylinder seals, its meanings may come from paleohistory back to the 4th millennium BC, or even further into the 6th to 5th millennium with the origins of Europe, or Catal Huyuk in Anatolia.