Gods of ancient Greece. Birthday of all great gods of all ancient religions The top of the divine hierarchy
The names of most of the gods are designed as hyperlinks, which can take you to a detailed article about each of them.
The main deities of Ancient Greece: 12 Olympian gods, their assistants and companions
The main gods in Ancient Hellas those who belonged to the younger generation of celestials were recognized. Once upon a time, it took away power over the world from the older generation, who personified the main universal forces and elements (see about this in the article The Origin of the Gods of Ancient Greece). The gods of the older generation are usually called titans. Having defeated the Titans, the younger gods, led by Zeus, settled on Mount Olympus. The ancient Greeks honored the 12 Olympian gods. Their list usually included Zeus, Hera, Athena, Hephaestus, Apollo, Artemis, Poseidon, Ares, Aphrodite, Demeter, Hermes, Hestia. Hades is also close to the Olympian gods, but he does not live on Olympus, but in his underground kingdom.
Legends and myths Ancient Greece. Cartoon
Goddess Artemis. Statue in the Louvre
Statue of Virgin Athena in the Parthenon. Ancient Greek sculptor Phidias
Hermes with caduceus. Statue from the Vatican Museum
Venus (Aphrodite) de Milo. Statue approx. 130-100 BC.
God Eros. Red-figure dish, ca. 340-320 BC e.
Hymen- companion of Aphrodite, god of marriage. After his name, wedding hymns were also called hymens in Ancient Greece.
- daughter of Demeter, kidnapped by the god Hades. The inconsolable mother, after a long search, found Persephone in the underworld. Hades, who made her his wife, agreed that she should spend part of the year on earth with her mother, and the other with him in the bowels of the earth. Persephone was the personification of grain, which, being “dead” sown into the ground, then “comes to life” and comes out of it into the light.
The abduction of Persephone. Antique jug, ca. 330-320 BC.
Amphitrite- wife of Poseidon, one of the Nereids
Proteus- one of the sea deities of the Greeks. Son of Poseidon, who had the gift of predicting the future and changing his appearance
Triton- the son of Poseidon and Amphitrite, a messenger of the deep sea, blowing a shell. In appearance it is a mixture of a man, a horse and a fish. Close to the eastern god Dagon.
Eirene- goddess of peace, standing at the throne of Zeus on Olympus. In Ancient Rome - the goddess Pax.
Nika- goddess of victory. Constant companion of Zeus. In Roman mythology - Victoria
Dike- in Ancient Greece - the personification of divine truth, a goddess hostile to deception
Tyukhe- goddess of luck and good fortune. For the Romans - Fortuna
Morpheus– ancient Greek god of dreams, son of the god of sleep Hypnos
Plutos– god of wealth
Phobos(“Fear”) – son and companion of Ares
Deimos(“Horror”) – son and companion of Ares
Enyo- among the ancient Greeks - the goddess of frantic war, who arouses rage in the fighters and brings confusion into the battle. In Ancient Rome - Bellona
Titans
Titans are the second generation of gods of Ancient Greece, generated by natural elements. The first Titans were six sons and six daughters, descended from the connection of Gaia-Earth with Uranus-Sky. Six sons: Cronus (Time among the Romans - Saturn), Ocean (father of all rivers), Hyperion, Kay, Kriy, Iapetus. Six daughters: Tethys(Water), Theia(Shine), Rhea(Mother Mountain?), Themis (Justice), Mnemosyne(Memory), Phoebe.
Uranus and Gaia. Ancient Roman mosaic 200-250 AD.
In addition to the Titans, Gaia gave birth to Cyclopes and Hecatoncheires from her marriage with Uranus.
Cyclops- three giants with a large, round, fiery eye in the middle of their forehead. In ancient times - personifications of clouds from which lightning flashes
Hecatoncheires- “hundred-handed” giants, against whose terrible strength nothing can resist. Incarnations of terrible earthquakes and floods.
The Cyclopes and Hecatoncheires were so strong that Uranus himself was horrified by their power. He tied them up and threw them deep into the earth, where they are still rampaging, causing volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. The presence of these giants in the belly of the earth began to cause terrible suffering. Gaia persuaded her youngest son, Cronus, to take revenge on his father, Uranus.
Literally the entire life of ancient cultures took place with the participation of gods, whom our ancestors considered real beings, and modern historians attribute to fiction and fantasies of primitive thinking. Meanwhile, a huge number of traces of the real presence in the distant past of these very gods - representatives of a very highly developed civilization - have been preserved on Earth. What kind of civilization was this?.. Where did it come from?.. And why did our ancestors consider its representatives to be gods?.. This book is dedicated to the search for answers to these questions, which uses materials collected by the author during numerous expeditions and trips to the most different countries.
Gods in people's lives
In the modern imagination, the life of our distant ancestors was inextricably linked with the gods.
There were many gods. In some places their number was in the tens, and in others it reached many thousands - as, for example, in India.
The gods were different - both in status, and in strength, and in capabilities, and in the scope of their activities. Some of them “managed” only narrow areas - sleep, luck in the game, ripening of crops, fishing, trade and the like. Others were subject to the elements of nature. And still others controlled everything around – including gods of lower rank and capabilities.
The gods could be good, but they could also be evil. Moreover, there were practically no “absolutely good” or “absolutely bad” gods - even the most evil gods could provide help and assistance to a person, and the kindest gods could sometimes bring down very severe punishment on him for disobedience or simply even because of his own bad momentary mood .
People appealed to the gods for a variety of reasons - to cure an illness, ward off danger, provide assistance in a hunt or commercial transaction, support in a military campaign or during the harvest. In some cases, a short verbal or even mental appeal to God was enough for this; in others, such an appeal had to be accompanied by the performance of complex and lengthy ceremonies and rituals, often in specially designated places or luxuriously decorated temples.
To obtain the favor of some gods, a simple request was enough, for others it was necessary to make a blood sacrifice or make some other offering, and for others it was necessary to serve regularly or even constantly. A person could turn to some gods himself, but to communicate with others, additional intermediaries were required - sorcerers, shamans, or priests specially trained in special spells and prayers, equipped with temple utensils and sacred objects.
Everything around was subject to the influence of the gods - from the weather and the movement of celestial bodies to the appearance of heads or tails when tossing a coin. So literally everything was permeated with the invisible (and sometimes visible!) presence of the gods and their participation in human life. And, as a consequence, people perceived the gods as an integral part of their existence, and the corresponding attitude towards the gods was an integral part of the very worldview of people, and not just “accidental superstition” or “current religious doctrine.” Not a single important decision was made without consultation with one or another patron god...
This is exactly how historians and archaeologists, researchers of religion and culture, ethnographers and representatives of various other sciences, one way or another connected with the history of man and society, picture for us the life of our ancestors.
At first glance, ancient texts, sculptural and graphic images, as well as other various artifacts that have survived to this day completely confirm this idea. And sometimes we have no doubt about it at all.
But was it really so?.. Maybe the role of the gods was much more modest?.. And if, after all, this was the case, then what was the reason for such “omnipresence” of the gods in the minds of people?.. After all, this must be the case some reason...
A little about the reliability of our ideas
Of course, it is not so easy to draw any conclusions regarding such an intangible entity as people’s ideas and their worldview when we are talking about long past times. Indeed, in this case we do not have the opportunity to directly communicate with the very carriers of this worldview.
These difficulties can still be overcome somehow in relation to, for example, ancient thinkers Ancient Greece, with whose works we still have the opportunity to get acquainted, although for this we will have to learn the ancient Greek language. And here the conclusions about the worldview of people of a given period can be quite correct, and our ideas about their ideas can be quite correct.
For extinct languages, from which only written sources remain, this is much more difficult to do, but it is also possible. Although here we are already faced with the fact that the very process of “restoring” these languages and translating texts requires certain additional hypotheses and assumptions, the validity of which is sometimes simply impossible to verify. As a result, there is always the possibility that a particular text has been translated with errors or even incorrectly.
There are plenty of examples of such errors, but I will give here only two of them, which, in my opinion, are very indicative.
The first example concerns the translation of texts that remained after the powerful Hittite civilization, which dominated Anatolia (the territory of modern Turkey) in the 2nd millennium BC and was, along with Ancient Egypt and Assyria, one of the most powerful states of that time. The Hittite civilization left us not only ancient structures and numerous bas-reliefs, but also many inscriptions and tablets with texts, the number of which amounts to hundreds of thousands.
Nowadays there are already weighty monographs describing the customs, laws and traditions of the inhabitants of the Hittite Empire, its social structure, the way of life of people and their religious worldview. These descriptions are drawn primarily from the Hittite texts themselves and are therefore considered completely reliable. Meanwhile, the translation of these texts was a very, very difficult task, to which the Czech researcher Bedřich Grozny made a huge contribution.
We will not go into details and nuances of problems with the translation of Hittite texts and its history here. Many books have been written on this topic, and anyone can find them quite easily. Only one point is important to us.
The fact is that Grozny was able to find an approach to “deciphering” (it would be more correct to talk not about decoding, but about translation) of the Hittite writing at the beginning of the 20th century and was engaged in translations until the end of his life. However, this was not at all a simple “linear” development of his knowledge of the principles of Hittite writing - towards the end of his work, he was forced to re-translate even those texts that he had previously supposedly translated, because he discovered errors in his own translations.
It is clear that errors in translations of texts directly entail errors in our ideas about ancient peoples, and even more so in ideas about the worldview of the people who made up these peoples. Only specialists who have spent many years studying ancient languages can detect such errors. And such specialists for specific languages, as a rule, are very few - they can literally be counted on one hand. And the mistake of just one person in translation can lead to errors in the ideas about ancient reality for all of us...
Another example concerns an even more ancient civilization - the civilization of the Sumerians, who lived southeast of Anatolia, in Mesopotamia - in the vast territory between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. From this civilization, quite a lot of texts written in the so-called cuneiform script have also reached us.
One of the tablets with similar cuneiform writing was found by an expedition of the University of Pennsylvania in the ancient city of Nippur. It dates back to approximately 2200 BC.
An initial analysis of the text on this tablet led researchers to the conclusion that it contains descriptions of the preparation of potions from various minerals, plants and even animals, as well as a lot of obscure terms. As a result, it was concluded that there is text on it with some “ magic spells", which were used by the ancient Sumerians in healing.
However, in 1955, linguist S. Kramer invited his friend chemist Martin Levy, a specialist in the history of natural sciences, to translate this text. And then it was discovered that the tablet contained a large number of special words and expressions that required knowledge of not only the Sumerian language, but also pharmacology, chemistry, botany and other things. In order to prepare a clear and accurate translation, it turned out to be necessary to make a complex comparison of the terms used in the text with the terminology of cuneiform documents of a later time. And in the end it turned out that the tablet contained not just descriptions of certain potions, but a fairly accurate description of the symptoms of diseases and recipes for preparing medicines for these diseases. It turned out that the substances obtained on the basis of the given exotic recipes have very effective pharmacological properties!.. And no “magic”!..
It is quite obvious that the first version of the translation led to ideas about the ancient Sumerians as people subject to the strong influence of religious prejudices. The second translation option is fully consistent with the natural science approach to the world around us. Two fundamentally different types of worldviews!..
Of course, in this case we are talking about just one sign. But where is the guarantee that other Sumerian texts are translated absolutely correctly? Nobody can give such guarantees. And this “medical plate” is a fairly clear confirmation of this. And if so, then we cannot exclude the possibility that our ideas about the worldview of the ancient Sumerians may also contain serious errors...
And even greater difficulties await us in the case of analyzing cultures from which there is no written language left at all. All we can operate with here is a certain amount of material evidence in the form of household items, images (very often quite sketchy), remains of buildings and the like. In this case, researchers are forced to put forward a lot of additional assumptions, most often boiling down to the transfer of ideas about some ancient cultures to even more ancient ones. In mathematical terms, they are engaged in simple extrapolation.
However, extrapolation is a method that can lead to very serious errors. Especially in cases where the system of phenomena, phenomena or facts under study is subject to serious changes outside the interval for which its behavior is more or less known.
This can be illustrated, say, by the example of Neanderthals - an example that has already become somewhat “classical”.
For a long time it was believed that Neanderthals were not much different from ordinary animals, and their consciousness was practically undeveloped. However, then discoveries were made that radically changed scientists' views on these ancient human relatives. And now it is believed that Neanderthals already had their own highly developed religious ideas. In particular, ideas about life after death and the so-called “cult of the bear.” Here's how Clix writes about it, for example:
“The most famous example... is the Neanderthal bear cult. The first discoveries were made in the Swiss Alps at an altitude of 2400 meters, in the so-called Dragon Hole. At the entrance to this cave there was a kind of pillow made of stones with a side of about one meter. On top lay a massive stone slab. Underneath it were several bear skulls, facing towards the entrance. Numerous bear skulls in the same orientation were discovered in the depths of the cave. One of them had a leg bone inserted into the hole above the cheekbone. The object of this ritual was a cave bear...” (F. Klix, “Awakening Thinking”).
Ethnographers are well aware that many so-called primitive tribes have a cult of certain animals. As a rule, these are animals that a particular tribe often encounters in real life, and on which human life sometimes depends.
It is quite obvious that Neanderthals living in caves periodically had to deal with the cave bear - a large and dangerous predator. And it seems quite logical to put forward the assumption - by analogy with well-known primitive tribes - that they have just a “cult of the bear”. After all, the very location of the bear skulls with their obvious orientation towards the entrance to the cave must be explained somehow. It must have some reason. Simple logic and the method of analogies lead to the hypothesis of the “cult of the bear.” But this is the very extrapolation that can produce serious errors.
Is the “cult of the bear,” which has a mystical-religious basis, the only possible explanation in this case?.. Not at all!
Everything can be explained much more simply without any “rituals” and “cults” - the skulls served to intimidate dangerous predators and prevent them from entering the cave. In this case, a completely natural reaction of animals known to us is used - the sight of dead relatives creates a feeling of danger. This reaction is still sometimes used today, when several shot birds are displayed on a pole in the garden to scare away crows. And in this case there is no longer any “mysticism” or “religious ideas”, but a rational decision based on empirical experience.
But which interpretation is correct then? And what kind of worldview did the Neanderthals have - mystical-religious or simply natural-cognitive?.. But the difference between the two options is cardinal!..
Let's take another “discovery” of researchers.
“...Neanderthals buried their dead or fallen brethren. These burials contain additional, widely varied objects that may provide an indication of the role the dead played during life. In the La Chapelle-aux-Saints cave, the burial of a man was found with a bison's leg placed on his chest. There were also many crushed bones of animals and flint tools - care for the hunter or supplies for future life in the invisible “otherworldly” world. His needs “there” were determined by analogy with the needs “here”. Excavations at Mount Carmel in Palestine support this interpretation. There is no doubt that the burials of Neanderthals were accompanied by some kind of ceremonies and rituals, the content of which, however, we cannot say anything specific. However, there could be significant regional differences. Some indirect evidence suggests that witchcraft rituals associated with hunting were widespread” (ibid.).
At first glance, it also seems logical. However, here too there is a usual extrapolation that can lead to errors. Why, in fact, do researchers immediately unambiguously interpret such finds as some kind of “evidence of magical rituals and beliefs”?..
Let's look at the facts of burials from a slightly different angle.
Life in a society (or community) requires compliance with certain rules. Among them, it is quite natural for the rule of observing the prohibition to arise, say, on someone else’s property (no matter how small and insignificant it may be in our minds). A community member who died while hunting “took with him” not only his share of the spoils, in the process of hunting which he may have died, but also his (!) tools. Such “inviolability of property rights” could obviously be a very effective means of preventing civil strife in a community (tribe), and, consequently, increasing the stability and survival of society.
Therefore, if we leave aside the question of the reality of the possibility of the continuation of the existence of the human soul after physical death, in explaining the contents of such burials we can completely dispense with the version of the “magical” ideas of the Neanderthals.
“Some incomprehensible drawings, for example a scene from the Lascaux cave, where a bison with its intestines out, bending its horns, steps on a reclining man with the head of a bird, may apparently be associated with initiation rites or preparations for hunting” (ibid.).
But it could also be much simpler - the hunter disguised himself as a bird. And such examples are well known to researchers of primitive peoples, who often use this technique to increase the efficiency of hunting. And no “magic” has anything to do with it. Nor has any “cult of the animal” anything to do with it. There is simply a use of empirical experience...
The surprise of Europeans, who at one time encountered completely incomprehensible complexes of various actions of the so-called primitive peoples associated with hunting, is quite understandable. The most careful preparation of weapons, the painting of their own bodies by hunters, collective songs and some kind of coordinated body movements that imitate hunting. Well, why isn’t this “bewitching” a future victim or “appeasing the soul” of a killed animal?..
This is exactly how it is usually interpreted. Both in relation to modern primitive peoples and in relation to ancient cultures. But this is far from the only explanation for actions that are so strange to us.
Let's look at this again from a purely pragmatic point of view.
Collective hunting requires mutual coordination of the actions of hunters, and the maximum efficiency of this coordination can be achieved only with preliminary coordination of actions by the participants in the hunt. A schematic and symbolic representation of the hunting process itself, reproduction or imitation of their actions by hunting participants, is obviously the most effective way of both preliminary coordination of the strategy and tactics of the directly planned act of hunting, and a “visual aid” for training growing young animals.
“Hunting rituals” may well serve similar purposes not before, but after the hunt. Only here can future actions be planned for a more distant future and an additional “debriefing” be carried out on the just completed hunt (which is also necessary to increase the efficiency of hunting in the future).
Well, what does the “magic” or “religiousness” of the ritual have to do with it?..
There is one more point in these rituals, noted by modern ethnographic research. Let's say, before a battle with a neighboring tribe, in the process of simulating an upcoming battle, male warriors reach in advance that emotional state that allows them to carry out future military operations as efficiently as possible. Tracking down the “invisible enemy”, his pursuit and imaginary murder turn out to be not “bewitching” the enemy, but a means of achieving that psychological state, which is the goal of the entire patriotic educational system in the modern army. Moreover, it is a very effective means, due to the well-known relationship between motor (that is, motor - in a simplified sense) activity and the emotional and psychological state, which is well known to psychologists.
And again the question arises: why, in this case, are such actions of representatives of primitive peoples interpreted as “magical”?.. The answer is quite obvious: because researchers wanted to do so under the pressure of the approach now dominant in historical science - to attribute everything to some kind of “mysticism” of primitive tribes . Extrapolation of these ideas to ancient cultures also occurs automatically...
It is clear that if we change our approach and do not force ourselves in advance to fit into some excessive “mysticism” of our ancestors, then our ideas about ancient cultures will automatically change. Moreover, they can change quite seriously - the main driving force ancient man, instead of religious and mystical superstitions, there may be an objective analysis of the surrounding reality and a pragmatic approach.
However, even in this case one should not rush to the other extreme - it is simply impossible to completely and completely deny the religious component and its significant role in the life of ancient cultures. This will be a biased approach. There is too much evidence that our ancestors really worshiped a huge number of all kinds of gods.
And here another question arises. If this took place, then it must have a reason. Moreover, the reason is quite important, because it did not give rise to rapidly changing everyday superstitions, but to stable religious systems that persisted for a very, very long time.
For a society in which, as indicated above, it was quite possible that a pragmatic approach dominated, this reason should be all the more important. After all, it is quite obvious that without the presence of such a reason, without the constant stimulation of those same “religious ideas,” a pragmatic society would quickly abandon them.
So what was this reason?..
Official version
In the most simplified form, the reason for the emergence of religious cults and rituals presented by modern science comes down to the fact that ancient man did not have enough knowledge about the world around him. This ancient man, they say, did not know that natural laws govern phenomena and events in the world, and explained what was happening around him by the action of certain supernatural forces - spirits and gods. Plurality and diversity of objects and phenomena real world led to the multiplicity of these very supernatural forces. This is exactly what historical science has been teaching us, starting from school.
But if for a schoolchild such an explanation may seem quite logical and understandable at first glance, then the skeptical analytical mind of an adult is able to discern a very serious contradiction in this version.
Really. In order to “invent” certain “supernatural entities” that do not exist in reality (as the same version presents) that control everything around, a person must have a sufficiently developed thinking. Moreover: he must have a very developed ability specifically for abstract thinking. Meanwhile, the version presented by historical science is based on exactly the opposite - on the fact that ancient man had primitive thinking, which is characterized by the dominance of the principle “what I see is what I sing.” In other words, primitive thinking is focused on a simple description of surrounding phenomena, and not at all on the invention of abstractions.
And if we analyze from this point of view the existing ancient images, texts and other artifacts that are not directly related to the religious sphere of activity, then this is exactly the conclusion we will get. The “visual-applied” orientation of thinking will be simply obvious here. And this can be easily traced throughout almost the entire ancient history right up to the period of antiquity - until the times of ancient Greek culture, when (and only when) mythopoetic creativity in the full sense of the word appears, and when a person begins to create in the sphere of abstract images and abstract concepts.
But why then in the sphere of religious activity does this same “primitive man” manage to rise to the heights of the highest abstractions thousands of years earlier?.. It does not happen that in one sphere a person is capable of something, but in another he is absolutely incapable of doing anything. the same.
The contradiction is obvious. Moreover, this contradiction “works” against the basic position of the same version, according to which man is driven by the same completely natural laws.
How to be?..
Perhaps the only somewhat related answer to this question in historical science is still the Lévy-Bruhl theory, which since its inception has been repeatedly subjected to (sometimes harsh) criticism from historians themselves and other researchers.
“Lévy-Bruhl proceeded from the understanding of primitive thinking as qualitatively different from thinking modern man. Primitive thinking is prelogical, logical laws and abstract categories are not characteristic of it; the world is perceived in it through the prism of the so-called law of mystical participation (participation) - the identification of phenomena that are incompatible from the point of view of logic and common sense. An object can be itself and at the same time something else, be here and at the same time in another place. By virtue of the law of participation, everything in the world - people, real and fictitious objects and creatures - seems mystically interconnected. The leading place in Lévy-Bruhl's constructions is occupied by the concept of collective consciousness, imposing itself on individual consciousness, determining it - a concept put forward by Durkheim and his school. To understand primitive beliefs, one cannot start from the individual psyche, as was done before; they are a social phenomenon and represent a part of social consciousness, which has its own laws. Like Durkheim and Mauss, Lévy-Bruhl believes that in primitive society collective ideas dominate; at later stages of historical development they do not disappear completely, but here their specific weight is much less. Primitive collective ideas include emotions and volitional acts, reality in them is mystically colored...” (V. Kabo, “The Origin of Religion: History of the Problem”).
“Towards the end of his life, Lévy-Bruhl revised many of his previous views, trying especially to soften the opposition between primitive and modern thinking. And indeed, they cannot be opposed as fundamentally different systems of thinking: it is not so much human thinking that changes as the world with which it deals at different stages of historical development, but it itself is fundamentally one. Logical laws thinking in all known human societies is the same,” Lévy-Bruhl now asserted. However, he still believed that primitive thinking is characterized by a mystical orientation, that both the “affective category of the supernatural” and the phenomenon of participation retain their significance here. Lévy-Bruhl always considered participation as a fundamental property of primitive thinking. It became in his constructions key concept, with the help of which only primitive collective ideas can be explained” (ibid.).
We will not analyze Lévy-Bruhl’s texts in detail, especially since others have already done this for us. Let us note that anyone can also do this and be convinced that the only (!) characteristic that distinguishes primitive thinking from the thinking of modern man, according to Lévy-Bruhl, is its so-called “mysticism.”
But what do we mean by “mysticism”?..
We usually interpret this term either as “belief in the supernatural” or (in a more expanded interpretation) as “belief in the reality of illusions.”
If we approach from the position of an expanded interpretation, we get the following: the religious and mystical life of ancient people was generated by their very primitive thinking only because it has the property of belief in illusion. Excellent!.. There is nothing to say: the oil is oily because it has the property of being oily...
If we return to a narrower and more specific interpretation of the term “mysticism” as belief in the supernatural, then not everything is smooth here either. Firstly, Lévy-Bruhl does not explain or justify in any way why he attributes to primitive thinking the property of belief in the supernatural (giving it the status of a distinctive property!). He simply introduces this position as an axiom. And secondly, in modern society there are by no means a small number of people whose thinking has the same belief in the supernatural, that is, this property ceases to be a distinctive feature of primitive thinking.
Here we again come to a question that has already been touched upon: why, in fact, is it considered that primitive thinking is “mystical”?.. On what basis do researchers claim that the entire way of life of primitive man is literally permeated with belief in the supernatural and, accordingly, is subordinate to early forms of religion ?..
When describing and analyzing primitive societies, for example, much attention is paid to such attributes as initiation rites, taboos, totems, shamanism, etc. At the same time, European researchers, say, in initiation rites were struck primarily by the external features of the rites: their solemnity, significance, colorfulness, and sometimes cruelty...
But let's look under the outer shell.
If we discard the “colorful tinsel”, which is very different in different primitive societies, then we can state that the essence of initiation rites comes down to the transition of a community member from one social group within the community to another. It doesn’t matter whether this is purely related to physiological changes due to reaching puberty or to the acquisition of some skills and knowledge. Another thing is important - the social role of the individual in the community changes, and consequently, the rules of his interaction with other members of the community change.
But man is to a very large extent a social being. Therefore, behind the words “he becomes a different person” (after the initiation rite) one finds not only “pure symbolism”, but also a very real basis. He really becomes a different (!) person.
The initiation rite in this case performs several important functions at once. Firstly, it records for other members of the community the change in the status of the initiate. And secondly, it helps the initiate himself to psychologically adapt to a new social role. The “old” person “died” - “a new one was born.” In essence, we are only dealing with a kind of “visualization in simple images” of an important social change. That's all...
But isn’t this what modern “rites of passage” boil down to: prom; delivery of a passport, certificate or diploma; dedication to students; admission to the party; inauguration celebrations upon assumption of a high government post?.. It is quite obvious that in its very essence it is all the same. However, do we see “mysticism” in them?..
Knowledge of the cultural traditions of our society frees us from such a “mystical” interpretation. But then why not look at the initiation rites of primitive peoples from the same positions (only with adjustments to the corresponding cultural tradition)?..
With the taboo system, things are much simpler. Here, it was not difficult for researchers to see behind it a system regulating the rules of behavior of individuals in society. The version of the “mysticism of consciousness” of primitive peoples arises here only due to the fact that in an attempt to explain the origin (or meaning) of certain taboos, the “savage” uses a version that is inaccessible to the analytical logic of the researcher and the cause-and-effect relationships known to this researcher.
But aren’t there many rules, norms and laws in modern society, the reasons for which are impossible or difficult to explain?..
How many people can explain, for example, why a certain part of everyday language is prohibited for use in society (we are talking about the so-called “profanity”)?.. Or why you cannot wear anything other than a tuxedo or a formal suit to official receptions, and you must have a tie or a bow tie?.. Is that customary?.. But why!?. What does "accepted" mean?
I’m willing to bet that in the discussions of the majority on these topics, a knowledgeable specialist (if there is one at all) will easily discover such a mass of erroneously constructed cause-and-effect relationships that, under other conditions, a researcher of primitive peoples will automatically write off the “mystical” ideas. But will this “mysticism” take place in reality?..
Let us now take such an object of primitive peoples as a totem. The totem refers to the “classical” attribute of “mystical” thinking. Here there is involvement (participation, according to Lévy-Bruhl) of the totem of a certain area and even of each member of the tribe. Here is the “animation” of an animal totem or even an inanimate object (an idol, for example)…
But let’s look at this “obvious mysticism” from a slightly different angle...
Try, dear reader, to determine for yourself the content of the term “homeland”... Wouldn’t you find in the essence of this very “homeland” a connection with a certain geographical region and with a certain circle of other people?.. But will there be such a relationship and integrity (sometimes very difficult to discern? and even more difficult to formulate) complete abstraction, fiction or mysticism?.. Perhaps almost everyone will be indignant at such an interpretation and will be right.
Behind the term “homeland” one can find a completely natural and really existing phenomenon, which correlates with a certain circle of people connected by a mass of territorial, cultural and sometimes even consanguineous ties into a single whole, into a single system. A dual system, having both material and spiritual-immaterial connections. But spiritual-immaterial connections, as it turns out upon closer analysis, are not “mystical” at all, but obey completely natural laws - albeit very peculiar ones (see the author’s book “The Code of the Universe”).
In exactly the same way, the totem correlates with a certain dual system - a tribe (clan, community). He is the embodiment of this system with the totality of its connections, and is its unique symbol.
How a child uses some objects in a game to symbolically represent objects that are inaccessible at a particular moment in time, but really exist; Likewise, primitive man sees the totem as the embodiment of his society. However, even now fully grown people in modern society carry state flags to rallies and draw national emblems, without even thinking about the fact that they are essentially using the same “totems”!..
If we take into account that society, as a single system, has well-defined spiritual and non-material properties, then we have the right to use the term “collective consciousness” in relation to it. Then primitive man may overestimate the abilities of the collective consciousness of his society, attributing to the totem the properties of rational behavior, but still in this he reflects a completely objective reality!..
And finally, another phenomenon often found in primitive societies, which is directly related to the theme of gods and mystical-religious ideas, is the so-called “animism,” that is, the “animation” of animals and plants.
“...characteristic features of archaic thinking. Its first property is a high degree of fusion of the individual with the nature around him. Direct and constant confrontation with forces in the physical world and biological environment, the scale of which exceeds the imagination of an individual, creates a highly emotional and ultimately deeply personal relationship with these forces. This is most clearly expressed in animistic thinking, which populates nature with deities, demons and spirits. The action of natural forces is attributed to fantastic causes. In accordance with mental habits, these causes are isolated and come into use as the animation of things and phenomena. The oldest tales convey from hoary prehistory the remnants of this thinking: animals speak to each other like people, thunder and lightning are caused by a humanoid creature; illnesses are caused by spirits; the dead and gods wander along invisible paths, however, preserving the thoughts, feelings, desires and hopes of the living” (F. Clix, “Awakening Thinking”).
It would seem that the phenomenon of animism is completely consistent with the picture of the origin of the mystical and religious ideas of ancient peoples that academic science paints for us. However, a more detailed analysis reveals no more “mysticism” even here than in everything else.
If you do not stand blindly on primitive materialistic positions, but analyze real facts, then we have to admit that all our everyday life and all our experience indicates that in addition to the material physical body, a person also has some active spiritual-immaterial component, better known as the “soul”. Even Natalya Petrovna Bekhtereva, who for a long time headed first the Brain Center of the USSR Academy of Sciences and then the Institute of the Human Brain, was forced to admit that it is impossible to explain all the features of human activity only by the presence of a material brain - it is also necessary to assume that he has a soul as something special, but a really existing “something”.
But if a person has such an active spiritual-immaterial component as a “soul,” then the simplest logic tells us that we have no right to deny to animals and plants the existence of a similar spiritual-immaterial component – albeit a less developed one. Which, however, is fully confirmed by empirical level… Consciousness (in the expanded sense of this term) does not appear suddenly and immediately. In a certain sense, both the animal has consciousness (not to be confused with self-consciousness!), and so does the plant (although here I prefer the term “preconsciousness”). For more details, see the author’s book “The Code of the Universe”...
But in this case it turns out that the most basic position of animism has a very real basis!.. And it turns out that in their ideas both the members of the modern primitive tribe and our ancient ancestors were guided not at all by some kind of “mysticism”, but by a reflection of a completely objective reality!..
It is curious that the “details” and “details” of animism, upon closer analysis, also turn out to be devoid of any mysticism. Take, for example, the ability of animals to “talk.” Let’s just take into account that in fact in a broad sense In words, the term “talk” implies not only the exchange of sound signals, but includes the entire complex of methods for transmitting information from one object to another. Then, from these positions, it will turn out that it is quite possible to “talk” with animals if you understand their “language” (and even the author uses quotation marks here, paying more tribute to tradition than trying to reflect the essence). This is well known not only to natural biologists who have devoted their lives to the study of animals. Perhaps any competent “dog owner” knows that he is able to talk to his dog in the full sense of the word, sometimes achieving an amazing degree of communication and mutual understanding. Moreover, even if he is a convinced atheist, devoid of any mystical-religious inclinations...
However, if with animals and plants everything is quite simple and clear, then with the “animation” of the forces of nature the situation is somewhat more complicated. In Klix (as in the general view of modern academic science), everything is lumped together - animism as such (that is, a certain “humanization” of animals and plants), and the “animation” of natural elements. But is this legal?..
Let's carry out the following logical chain. Let’s assume that we are the owners of that same “primitive consciousness.” It is not something unusual or strange for us that animals, plants, and even inanimate objects have their own souls - stones, rivers, rocks, and the like. But then we (due to the primitiveness of our thinking) have no reason at all to endow animals, plants, and especially inanimate objects with a human (!) soul. It is much more natural to correlate the image of the soul with the image of the object itself. A fox running past has its own “fox” soul - it will not have arms or legs, but will have four paws and a tail. A hare hiding under a bush has its own “hare” soul. A tree rustling with its crown is the soul of a tree in the form of that very tree. But then the stone will also have its own “stone” soul, which no longer has paws and a tail. And even more so, there is no need to put a soul in the form of a person in stone.
The same can be said with regard to natural elements. A river should have its own “river” soul, similar to a water stream, and not a person with arms, legs and a head. As a last resort, you can still imagine (with your primitive consciousness) the soul of the river in the form of one of its inhabitants - for example, a huge fish moving large masses of water with its body.
A thundercloud must have the soul of a cloud, not a person. And it’s much more likely to imagine a bonfire in the sky, from which lightning sparks periodically fly out, than to imagine some kind of Zeus throwing fiery arrows. So, from the “animation” of animals, plants and even natural elements, the idea of hominid gods, gods in human form, does not automatically follow (as academic science presents to us). Anthropomorphic (that is, “humanoid”) gods are generally inexplicable from this point of view. And even more than that: their very appearance in the ideas of primitive man is unnatural and illogical!..
The exclusivity of anthropomorphic gods
The modern version of the ideas of ancient people, presented by academic science, has another significant drawback. In it, literally everything is dumped into one heap - souls, spirits and gods. However, these concepts have very significant differences.
The soul for a person is something quite “understandable”. This is what he constantly feels in himself and perceives it as an integral part of himself. In the overwhelming majority of cases, he cannot see the souls of other people - this can only be done by people with extraordinary abilities (shamans, sorcerers and others whom we would now call people with extrasensory abilities). But feeling his own soul inside himself, a person easily perceives the idea that other people also have their own soul.
Within the framework of ideas about the soul as something “not entirely material,” it is also easy to imagine the emergence of the idea of the possibility of the posthumous existence of the soul, that is, the continued existence of the human soul after his physical death. And in light of Robert Moody's fairly well-known research into post-mortem experiences and clinical death It can be stated that for an ancient person (not burdened with modern materialistic ideas), ideas about the posthumous existence of the soul could also be only a generalization of some, albeit not entirely ordinary, but still empirical experience. “Mysticism” again turns out to have absolutely nothing to do with it...
The soul of the deceased leaves this material world - again, it is not visible to the vast majority of people. Therefore, she moves to a certain “spirit world”. Here souls and spirits become essentially one and the same. Since the study of the world of spirits is not the subject of this book, we will not dwell on it here.
But anthropomorphic gods differ sharply from both the human soul and the spirit. First of all, if we focus on ancient texts, they are periodically present directly among people in a state that is completely accessible to the ordinary vision of an ordinary person. They are visible!..
These gods physically live next to people. They often need ordinary material houses and material food (although they do not refuse spiritual food at all).
Moreover: anthropomorphic gods are not at all invulnerable. They can be physically injured - and the wounds will also be quite visible. Sometimes you can even kill them - if not with the usual primitive weapons (although this does happen), then certainly with some “divine” weapon. And if it is very difficult for a person to do this, then there are plenty of cases of defeat and even murder of anthropomorphic gods by other gods in ancient legends and traditions.
And as is easy to see in the same legends and traditions, anthropomorphic gods stand apart from souls and spirits. Ancient man never identified his soul with the gods. The gods could take her away, dispose of her, could even give her some kind of privileged position in the afterlife, but the soul of a person could never do anything like that in relation to God himself or the soul of God.
It should also be separately emphasized that when it comes to ancient anthropomorphic gods, it is necessary to remember that our ancestors put a completely different meaning into this concept than we now put into the concept of “God”. Our “God” is a supernatural omnipotent being who lives outside the material world and controls everyone and everything. The ancient anthropomorphic gods are not at all so comprehensively powerful - their abilities, although many times greater than the abilities of people, are not at all infinite. Moreover, quite often these gods, in order to do something, need special additional objects, structures or installations - even “divine” ones.
In general, we can say that ancient anthropomorphic gods are much more similar to ordinary people - they only have abilities and capabilities that are significantly greater than the abilities and capabilities of an ordinary ancient person. At the same time (which is very important) our ancestors quite clearly distance themselves from these characters of legends and traditions, calling them not people, not “heroes” or “heroes”, but precisely “gods”. And the closest thing would be to compare these gods with, say, modern people, equipped with the most modern equipment, who found themselves in contact with representatives of some primitive tribe in the Amazon jungle. Members of this tribe could well mistake modern people for those very “gods”. Only the “gods” they met in reality...
But our ancestors, if we go by ancient texts, perceived anthropomorphic gods precisely as very real persons with their own habits, whims and other “troubles”!.. The gods here look much more like completely natural beings - like representatives of a certain civilization , which has gone far ahead in its development than human civilization. And this, in my opinion, is one of the most important factors in the ideas of ancient cultures about gods.
Is this similarity coincidental?..
As practice shows, such accidents practically never occur in life...
And it would be even more strange to expect such a similarity between the relationship between gods and people with the contact of two civilizations of different levels for gods who were purely a product of the primitive thinking of ancient man. The primitive mind with the dominance of the “mystical principle” in it is simply not capable of such a result. And certainly not capable of maintaining such a “mental result” in the culture of many nations for many millennia.
But if we abandon the currently accepted approach to anthropomorphic gods as a product of fantasies and inventions of the primitive mind, it turns out that in some ancient times our ancestors came into contact with another, much more developed civilization. A result that modern historical science does not consider at all as a possible version of our past.
And the question naturally arises: do we have any reason to consider the very possibility of simultaneous coexistence on our planet of two civilizations, radically different from each other in terms of development level?..
However, in my opinion, the question should be rephrased and put in a completely different way.
What reasons do we have? NOT consider the possibility of simultaneous coexistence of two civilizations of different levels of development in some of our distant past?..
Based on calm and common sense reasoning, one has to admit that there are simply no such grounds. And if so, then with a truly scientific approach to ancient history, we not only can, but simply must consider this possibility!..
And here, as a fairly obvious consequence, we get a good criterion for choosing between two different options for the appearance of anthropomorphic gods in the ideas of our ancestors. If, in the case of the accepted view of academic science on this issue, it was simply pointless to look for any objective and material evidence, then in the case of the reality of contact between ancient cultures and a more developed civilization, such evidence not only can, but should exist!.. Time does not erase everything down to the ground. Something must remain!..
If no evidence of such contact is found, we will have to return again to the version of “fantasies” and “fictions” of primitive consciousness, which has some kind of incomprehensible “mysticism”. But if real traces of contact between two civilizations are discovered, the currently accepted version of the explanation of anthropomorphic gods will simply not be needed. And these same gods, and their presence in the views of our ancestors, will receive a completely rational explanation.
Possible search directions
It would seem, what is there to look for here?.. After all, archaeologists and historians, who have been studying ancient civilizations for so many years, “have not found” any signs of any civilization that would differ sharply in level of development from those known to us from school textbooks?..
However, it should be borne in mind that the result of research is sometimes very dependent on the subjective attitudes of the researchers themselves. And if the version of contact with another highly developed civilization is not taken into account from the very beginning, then no one will simply look for anything on this issue, and, accordingly, “will not find it.”
Therefore, let’s abstract from the “subjective verdict” accepted in current academic science and accept the version ancient contact different civilizations as at least possibly acceptable, let’s take the path of simple logic and first determine what we could be looking for here.
At first glance, the task of searching for traces of the ancient gods (that is, traces of an unknown ancient civilization) seems as vague as in the famous Russian fairy tale: “go there - I don’t know where; find something - I don’t know what.” However, in fact, not everything is so bad, since very important information that can help in solving this problem can be found directly in ancient legends and traditions that have come down to our time.
Why exactly there?.. Yes, because, following simple logic, it is easy to come to the conclusion that if some contacts of two very different civilizations took place in the distant past, then some could have survived (we don’t know which ones yet). and whether) “eyewitness accounts” of these contacts have been preserved. And if they are preserved somewhere, then they can be precisely in ancient legends and traditions - transmitted orally or in the form of texts and drawings written on something.
What can you learn from these sources?..
Firstly, the most striking characteristic of the gods is that they had capabilities and abilities that far exceeded the abilities and capabilities of the people who lived during the period of the events described.
And secondly, we are clearly talking about quite ancient, from a historical point of view, times - about the period when the first human civilizations known to us were just emerging and rising to their feet (such as, say, Egyptian, Sumerian, Harappan and the like ). After all, legends and traditions, being themselves very ancient, directly indicate that the events described in them date back to even more ancient times.
Archaeologists and historians have worked hard to reconstruct a picture of life in such civilizations. Including in that part that concerns the capabilities of people at the corresponding stage of development of society. And for now we will assume that in general (only in general!) this reconstructed picture corresponds to what happened in reality.
Then, based on the same simple logic, it turns out that we need to look for such artifacts and traces of events that significantly go beyond the capabilities of known ancient civilizations and that do not fit into the picture of the life and capabilities of people at this stage of social development.
The task seems to be greatly simplified. But…
The problem is that historians and archaeologists, when describing ancient societies, really do not like to mention traces and artifacts that do not fit into this very description. And this is quite natural - who will accept such a picture into which something does not fit. As a result, it turns out that looking for descriptions of such traces and artifacts in textbooks, scientific papers, archaeological and historical publications is practically useless. And as practice shows, this logical conclusion is fully confirmed in practice...
In addition, the overwhelming majority of archaeologists and historians have a purely humanitarian education. And the further the development of science goes, the more the gap between different branches of knowledge widens, the more “humanitarian” the system of training archaeologists and historians becomes. Meanwhile, when we talk about the possibilities of a particular civilization, the lion’s share of them is occupied by those opportunities that relate not to the humanitarian, but to the “technical” aspects of culture.
On the one hand, this further aggravates the situation, since the view of a humanist easily passes by what would be very important for a person with a technical education, and as a result, many important “technical” details simply do not fall into the descriptions of ancient artifacts - their archaeologists and historians do not notice. Moreover, on trips to archaeological sites, we had to make sure that sometimes they not only “don’t notice” (that is, they pretend not to see), but even physically don’t even see - the historian’s gaze often passes by (in the literal sense of the word) significant for the parts technician!..
But on the other hand, these same reasons lead to the fact that on the shelves of museums you can sometimes see things that - historians and archaeologists understand what these things mean for techies - would instantly disappear in some “bins”, since such objects sometimes not only do not fit into the picture of the capabilities of known ancient civilizations, but directly undermine it. And this, on the contrary, greatly simplifies the task of our search.
Fortunately, not only professional historians and archaeologists are interested in ancient cultures and monuments. And by now, a whole direction of so-called “alternative” historical literature has appeared, in which the authors purposefully focus attention specifically on “anomalies” that do not fit into the stereotypical perception of ancient cultures.
True, there is a “but” here too...
The big problem is that the overwhelming majority of authors of this very alternative literature often sin with a very careless attitude to the facts. And moreover, in pursuit of sensation and circulation, as well as in the desire to “prove” their theory in any way, these authors often use very dubious information without any verification of its reliability or greatly distort real data involuntarily or even deliberately. As a result (according to my personal estimates), the reliability of information in such literature as a whole is now approximately “fifty-fifty” - that is, in simple terms, it contains only about half the truth, and the other half consists of fantasies and even outright lies...
Some “don’t see” and hide information, others fantasize and lie. What to do?..
If just reading books at home and in libraries, as well as combing the Internet, does not give anything, the only option remains is to go to the site and look at archaeological finds and objects with your own eyes. Check, search, evaluate and compare.
And, starting in 2004, we gradually formed a group of enthusiasts, each of whom realized that “no one will do what we need for us.” Nowadays, this group of enthusiasts, under the auspices of the Foundation for the Development of Science “III Millennium”, has carried out a whole series of survey and research expeditions to Egypt, Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, Ethiopia, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Greece, Turkey and a number of other Mediterranean countries in order to search for various “historical and archaeological anomalies” that do not fit into the academic picture of the distant past. The material presented below is based primarily on information collected during these expeditions, which has already formed the basis for a number of books and more than twenty hours of documentaries from the series “Forbidden Topics of History”...
Megaliths
Of course, in search of traces of the ancient civilization of the gods, the eye first falls on the so-called megaliths - ancient structures made of large and even huge stones. Pyramids, temples, palaces, fortresses, menhirs, dolmens and so on and so forth made from blocks weighing several tens and hundreds of tons, which “alternative” researchers have long paid attention to...
For example, blocks weighing one hundred tons are quite common in structures on the Giza Plateau in Egypt. Here the builders placed such blocks at the base of the second pyramid (the so-called Pyramid of Khafre), in the walls of the pyramid temples, the Temple of the Sphinx and the Granite Temple.
But even a hundred tons is not the limit. In ancient structures one can find examples of the use of much heavier stone blocks. For example, in Lebanese Baalbek, on the western side of the complex, in the masonry of the wall there are so-called trilithons - three huge limestone blocks, each of which reaches a length of about 21 meters, a height of 5 meters and a width of 4 meters (see Fig. 1-c) . If we take into account that the local limestone is quite dense, and take its specific gravity to be 2.5 g/cm3, then it turns out that trilithons weigh about 1000 tons each! And with such an enormous weight, they are not at all at ground level, but raised to a considerable height - to the very top of the masonry, also made of quite large blocks!.. Let's say, the row under the trilithons consists of stone blocks, although one and a half to two times smaller, but Each such block can carry the weight of a dozen modern heavy Abrams-type tanks!…
Not far from the Baalbek complex, in a quarry there is the so-called “Southern Stone” - a block that was not completely separated from the rock mass and remained in its place. Its dimensions are even larger - 23 meters long, 5.3 meters wide and 4.5 meters high. This gives a weight of about 1400 tons!..
Although the South Stone remained in the quarry, the builders clearly intended to use it. And if you take into account the size of this block and architectural features in the western part of the Baalbek complex, then the version suggests itself that the “Southern Stone” should have been laid on top of the trilithons!..
There is a similar example in Aswan, Egypt. Here, in the granite quarries, an obelisk about 42 meters long remained lying (see Fig. 2-ts). Each side of its square base is 4.2 meters long, which (taking into account the fact that the density of Aswan granite is at least 2.7 g/cm3) gives a weight of almost two thousand tons!!!
In both cases, the ancient craftsmen clearly had no doubt that they would be able to successfully complete the work begun and deliver these stone colossuses to their destination. But how?!.
Historians suggest that we accept the version that the ancient builders delivered such solid blocks by hand using the simplest devices and mechanisms, thus performing an almost heroic feat.
However, in ancient times it was not just single stones that were moved, which could still be allowed for such “heroic deeds.” In the same Baalbek, blocks weighing hundreds of tons are laid along the entire perimeter of the so-called Temple of Jupiter, forming a row on which trilithons are located. In total, it turns out to be at least fifty giant blocks, which are not just laid, but adjusted to each other so that the joints of the blocks are sometimes even invisible to the eye!..
Dozens of equally massive blocks were used in the construction of Sacsayhuaman, an ancient fortress near the capital of Peru, Cusco. But here the stone monoliths had to be moved not across the plain, but in the mountains!..
And not tens, but hundreds of hundred-ton (or more) blocks can be seen in buildings in Egypt. And if we take into account that everything mentioned together constitutes only a very small part of the ancient megaliths, then we are not dealing with isolated cases of heroic feat, but in fact with mass construction (without exaggeration - on an industrial scale) from huge stones!..
This no longer fits in with the rather low (I would even say primitive) level of technology development that took place at the dawn of ancient human civilizations. This already (at least from the point of view of banal logic) just creates the feeling of that very “anomaly” that should not exist, but it still exists...
Another thing is that supporters of the version of manual labor and transportation of such huge stones using the push-pull method are not at all convinced by such examples. They prefer to refer to a certain “mobilization of all the resources of society” and “a long period of construction” - they say, a drop wears away a stone, and, wasting the lives of entire generations, our ancestors still did it all themselves.
Many techies understand that ordinary arithmetic does not work here at all. Organizing and implementing large-scale construction is not a simple sum of one-time efforts. And here we need to talk about fundamentally different technologies.
But be that as it may, the situation now has developed that - in relation to the size of the blocks and the scale of construction - the arguments of one side do not have any effect on the other side, which sometimes cites the same arguments as proof of its point of view. This debate has already been going on for decades and can last forever, since humanists don’t even want to listen to techies...
Meanwhile, there are examples that are completely out of the ordinary. Let's say, the “anomaly” becomes literally obvious in cases where we see the similarity of work with similar megaliths on different continents. Not only does the size of the huge blocks create a complete feeling of some kind of “standardization” used by the builders and determined, apparently, by the technologies at their disposal. There are more surprising examples.
For example, the megalithic masonry of an ancient object in the town of Aladzha-huyuk in the territory of modern Turkey, like a twin brother, repeats the features of a similar masonry in the center of the city of Cusco in Peru (see Fig. 3-c). Not only are the blocks practically the same size, there is absolutely the same style of masonry - the so-called polygonal masonry, in which the blocks are articulated with each other along a surface of a complex shape with many angles, creating all sorts of additional “hooks” and “fastenings”. Moreover, even the chamfer along the edge of each block is made in the same style.
You don’t need to be an expert to understand that the same masters worked here. Well, if not exactly the same, then using the same technology and having the same capabilities. In other words, these structures, despite the fact that they are located in different hemispheres of the planet, have one “author” - the same civilization.
Meanwhile, historians attribute Aladzha-huyuk to the times of the Hittite Empire (II millennium BC), and the construction of Cusco is attributed to the Incas in the period immediately preceding the Spanish conquest of South America - that is, as much as three thousand years later!.. In addition, that there were no contacts between the continents before Columbus...
Then where does such similarity come from between objects so distant from each other in time and space?.. It simply cannot be explained. Moreover, historians and archaeologists do not even mention the very fact of this similarity. It is of no interest to representatives of academic science, since it not only does not fit into the constructed picture of ancient history, but completely undermines it. The simplest logical explanation of this similarity in the form of a common authorship does not suit them even more so...
Therefore, we will not delve into the analysis of the arguments (which, in my personal opinion, speak in favor of the fact that known human civilizations have nothing to do with the creation of a significant part of megalithic objects), but will pay attention to one much more important aspect of the scale of megalithic construction.
Header photo: Mother Mnemosyne by T-R-Brownrigg @ Deviantart.com
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Each of the peoples of the Ancient World had their own deities, powerful and not so powerful. Many of them had unusual abilities and were owners of wonderful artifacts that gave them additional strength, knowledge and, ultimately, power.
Amaterasu ("Great Goddess Who Illuminates the Heavens")
Country: Japan
Essence: Sun Goddess, ruler of the heavenly fields
Amaterasu is the eldest of three children of the progenitor god Izanaki. She was born from drops of water with which he washed his left eye. She took possession of the upper heavenly world, while her younger brothers got the night and the watery kingdom.
Amaterasu taught people how to cultivate rice and weave. The imperial house of Japan traces its ancestry from her. She is considered the great-grandmother of the first Emperor Jimmu. The rice ear, mirror, sword and carved beads given to her became sacred symbols of imperial power. According to tradition, one of the emperor's daughters becomes the High Priestess of Amaterasu.
Yu-Di (“Jade Sovereign”)
Country: China
Essence: Supreme Overlord, Emperor of the Universe
Yu-Di was born at the moment of the creation of Earth and Heaven. The Heavenly, Terrestrial, and Underground worlds are subject to him. All other deities and spirits are subordinate to him.
Yu-Di is absolutely emotionless. He sits on a throne in a robe embroidered with dragons and holding a jade tablet in his hands. Yu Di has an exact address: the god lives in a palace on Mount Yujingshan, which resembles the court of the Chinese emperors. Under it function heavenly councils responsible for various natural phenomena. They perform all sorts of actions that the Lord of Heaven himself does not condescend to do.
Quetzalcoatlus ("Feathered Serpent")
Country: Central America
Essence: Creator of the world, lord of the elements, creator and teacher of people
Quetzalcoatl not only created the world and people, but also taught them the most important skills: from agriculture to astronomical observations. Despite his high status, Quetzalcoatl sometimes acted in a very peculiar way. For example, in order to get maize grains for people, he entered an anthill, turning into an ant himself, and stole them.
Quetzalcoatl was depicted both as a feathered serpent (the body symbolizing the Earth, and the feathers representing vegetation) and as a bearded man wearing a mask.
According to one legend, Quetzalcoatl voluntarily went into overseas exile on a raft of snakes, promising to return. Because of this, the Aztecs initially mistook the conquistador leader Cortes for the returned Quetzalcoatl.
Baal (Balu, Baal, "Lord")
Country: Middle East
Essence: Thunderer, god of rain and elements. In some myths - the creator of the world
Baal, as a rule, was depicted either as a bull or as a warrior riding on a cloud with a lightning spear. During the festivities in his honor, mass orgies took place, often accompanied by self-mutilation. It is believed that in some areas Baal was brought and human casualties. From his name comes the name of the biblical demon Beelzebub (Ball-Zebula, “Lord of the Flies”).
Ishtar (Astarte, Inanna, "Lady of Heaven")
Country: Middle East
Essence: Goddess of fertility, sex and war
Ishtar, sister of the Sun and daughter of the Moon, was associated with the planet Venus. Associated with the legend of her journey to the underworld was the myth of nature dying and reborn every year. She often acted as an intercessor for people before the gods. At the same time, Ishtar was responsible for various feuds. The Sumerians even called wars “the dances of Inanna.” As a goddess of war, she was often depicted riding a lion, and was probably a prototype of the Whore of Babylon riding on a beast.
The passion of the loving Ishtar was destructive for both gods and mortals. For her many lovers, everything usually ended in big trouble or even death. The worship of Ishtar included temple prostitution and was accompanied by mass orgies.
Ashur ("Father of the Gods")
Country: Assyria
Essence: God of War
Ashur – main god Assyrians, god of war and hunting. His weapon was a bow and arrow. As a rule, Ashur was depicted together with bulls. Its other symbol is the solar disk above the tree of life. Over time, as the Assyrians expanded their possessions, he began to be considered the consort of Ishtar. The High Priest of Ashur was the Assyrian king himself, and his name often became part of the royal name, as, for example, the famous Ashurbanipal, and the capital of Assyria was called Ashur.
Marduk ("Son of Clear Sky")
Country: Mesopotamia
Essence: Patron of Babylon, god of wisdom, ruler and judge of the gods
Marduk defeated the embodiment of chaos Tiamat, driving the “evil wind” into her mouth, and took possession of the book of destinies that belonged to her. After that, he cut Tiamat's body and created Heaven and Earth from them, and then created the entire modern, ordered world. The other gods, seeing the power of Marduk, recognized his supremacy.
Marduk's symbol is the dragon Mushkhush, a mixture of scorpion, snake, eagle and lion. Various plants and animals were identified with the body parts and entrails of Marduk. Main temple Marduk - a huge ziggurat (step pyramid) probably became the basis of the legend of the Tower of Babel.
Yahweh (Jehovah, "He Who Is")
Country: Middle East
Essence: Single tribal god of the Jews
Yahweh's main function was to help his chosen people. He gave the Jews laws and strictly monitored their implementation. In clashes with enemies, Yahweh provided the chosen people with assistance, sometimes the most direct. In one of the battles, for example, he threw huge stones at his enemies, in another case he abolished the law of nature, stopping the sun.
Unlike most other gods of the ancient world, Yahweh is extremely jealous, and forbids the worship of any deities except himself. Severe punishments await those who disobey. The word “Yahweh” is a replacement for the secret name of God, which is forbidden to be spoken out loud. It was impossible to create his images either. In Christianity, Yahweh is sometimes identified with God the Father.
Ahura-Mazda (Ormuzd, “God the Wise”)
Country: Persia
Essence: Creator of the World and all that is good in it
Ahura Mazda created the laws by which the world exists. He endowed people with free will, and they can choose the path of good (then Ahura Mazda will favor them in every possible way) or the path of evil (serving Ahura Mazda's eternal enemy Angra Mainyu). Ahura Mazda's assistants are the good beings of Ahura created by him. He is surrounded by them in the fabulous Garodman, the house of chants.
The image of Ahura Mazda is the Sun. He is older than the whole world, but at the same time, eternally young. He knows both the past and the future. In the end, he will achieve the final victory over evil, and the world will become perfect.
Angra Mainyu (Ahriman, "Evil Spirit")
Country: Persia
Essence: The embodiment of evil among the ancient Persians
Angra Mainyu is the source of everything bad that happens in the world. He spoiled the perfect world created by Ahura Mazda, introducing lies and destruction into it. He sends diseases, crop failures, natural disasters, gives birth to predatory animals, poisonous plants and animals. Under the command of Angra Mainyu are the devas, evil spirits, who carry out his evil will. After Angra Mainyu and his minions are defeated, an era of eternal bliss should begin.
Brahma ("Priest")
Country: India
Essence: God is the creator of the world
Brahma was born from a lotus flower and then created this world. After 100 years of Brahma, 311,040,000,000,000 earthly years, he will die, and after the same period of time a new Brahma will self-generate and create a new world.
Brahma has four faces and four arms, which symbolizes the cardinal directions. Its indispensable attributes are a book, a rosary, a vessel with water from sacred Ganges, crown and lotus flower, symbols of knowledge and power. Brahma lives on the top of the sacred Mount Meru and rides on a white swan. The descriptions of the action of Brahma's weapon Brahmastra are reminiscent of the description of nuclear weapons.
Vishnu ("All-encompassing")
Country: India
Essence: God is the keeper of the world
The main functions of Vishnu are maintaining the existing world and opposing evil. Vishnu appears in the world and acts through his incarnations, avatars, the most famous of which are Krishna and Rama. Vishnu has blue skin and wears yellow clothes. He has four hands in which he holds a lotus flower, a mace, a conch shell and Sudarshana (a rotating disk of fire, his weapon). Vishnu reclines on the giant multi-headed snake Shesha, which swims in the world's Causal Ocean.
Shiva ("Merciful")
Country: India
Essence: God is the destroyer
Shiva's main task is to destroy the world at the end of each world cycle in order to make room for a new creation. This happens during the dance of Shiva - Tandava (therefore Shiva is sometimes called the dancing god). However, he also has more peaceful functions - a healer and a deliverer from death.
Shiva sits in lotus position on a tiger skin. There are snake bracelets on his neck and wrists. On Shiva's forehead there is a third eye (it appeared when Shiva's wife, Parvati, jokingly covered his eyes with her palms). Sometimes Shiva is depicted as a lingam (an erect penis). But sometimes he is also depicted as a hermaphrodite, symbolizing the unity of the male and female principles. According to popular beliefs, Shiva smokes marijuana, so some believers consider this activity a way to understand him.
Ra (Amon, "Sun")
Country: Egypt
Essence: Sun God
Ra, the main god of Ancient Egypt, was born from the primordial ocean of his own free will, and then created the world, including the gods. He is the personification of the Sun, and every day with a large retinue he travels across the sky in a magic boat, thanks to which life in Egypt becomes possible. At night, the boat of Ra sails along the underground Nile through afterworld. The Eye of Ra (sometimes considered an independent deity) had the ability to pacify and subjugate enemies. The Egyptian pharaohs traced their origins to Ra, and called themselves his sons.
Osiris (Usir, "The Mighty One")
Country: Egypt
Essence: God of rebirth, ruler and judge of the underworld.
Osiris taught people agriculture. His attributes are associated with plants: the crown and boat are made of papyrus, he holds bundles of reeds in his hands, and the throne is covered with greenery. Osiris was killed and cut into pieces by his brother, evil god Seth, but was resurrected with the help of his wife and sister Isis. However, having conceived the son Horus, Osiris did not remain in the world of the living, but became the ruler and judge of the kingdom of the dead. Because of this, he was often depicted as a swaddled mummy with free hands, in which he holds a scepter and flail. IN Ancient Egypt The tomb of Osiris was highly revered.
Isis ("The Throne")
Country: Egypt
Essence: Intercessor Goddess.
Isis is the embodiment of femininity and motherhood. All segments of the population turned to her with pleas for help, but, first of all, the oppressed. She especially patronized children. And sometimes she acted as a defender of the dead in front of afterlife judgment.
Isis was able to magically resurrect her husband and brother Osiris and give birth to his son Horus. In popular mythology, the floods of the Nile were considered the tears of Isis, which she shed for Osiris, who remained in the world of the dead. The Egyptian pharaohs were called the children of Isis; sometimes she was even depicted as a mother feeding the pharaoh with milk from her breast.
The image of the “veil of Isis” is known, meaning the concealment of the secrets of nature. This image has long attracted mystics. No wonder Blavatsky’s famous book is called “Isis Unveiled.”
Odin (Wotan, "The Seer")
Country: Northern Europe
Essence: God of war and victory
Odin is the main god of the ancient Germans and Scandinavians. He travels on the eight-legged horse Sleipnir or on the ship Skidbladnir, the size of which can be changed at will. Odin's spear, Gugnir, always flies to the target and hits on the spot. He is accompanied by wise crows and predatory wolves. Odin lives in Valhalla with a squad of the best fallen warriors and warlike Valkyrie maidens.
In order to gain wisdom, Odin sacrificed one eye, and in order to understand the meaning of the runes, he hung on the sacred tree Yggdrasil for nine days, nailed to it with his own spear. Odin's future is predetermined: despite his power, on the day of Ragnarok (the battle preceding the end of the world) he will be killed by the giant wolf Fefnir.
Thor (Thunder)
Country: Northern Europe
Essence: Thunderer
Thor is the god of the elements and fertility among the ancient Germans and Scandinavians. This is a hero god who protects not only people, but also other gods from monsters. Thor was depicted as a giant with a red beard. His weapon is the magic hammer Mjolnir (“lightning”), which can only be held with iron gloves. Thor is girded with a magic belt that doubles his strength. He rides across the sky in a chariot drawn by goats. Sometimes he eats goats, but then resurrects them with his magic hammer. On the day of Ragnarok, the last battle, Thor will deal with the world serpent Jormungandr, but he himself will die from his poison.
Gods of the ancient world, powerful and not so powerful. Many of them had unusual abilities and were owners of wonderful artifacts that gave them additional strength, knowledge and, ultimately, power.
Amaterasu ("Great Goddess Who Illuminates the Heavens")
Country: Japan Essence: Sun Goddess, ruler of the heavenly fields
Amaterasu- the eldest of three children of the progenitor god Izanaki. She was born from drops of water with which he washed his left eye. She took possession of the upper heavenly world, while her younger brothers got the night and the watery kingdom. Amaterasu taught people how to cultivate rice and weave. The imperial house of Japan traces its ancestry from her.
She is considered the great-grandmother of the first Emperor Jimmu. The rice ear, mirror, sword and carved beads given to her became sacred symbols of imperial power. According to tradition, one of the emperor's daughters becomes the High Priestess of Amaterasu.
Yu-Di (“Jade Sovereign”)
Country: China Essence: Supreme Overlord, Emperor of the Universe
Yu-Di was born at the moment of the creation of Earth and Heaven. The Heavenly, Terrestrial, and Underground worlds are subject to him. All other deities and spirits are subordinate to him. Yu-Di is absolutely emotionless. He sits on a throne in a robe embroidered with dragons and holding a jade tablet in his hands.
Yu Di has an exact address: the god lives in a palace on Mount Yujingshan, which resembles the court of the Chinese emperors. Under it there are celestial councils responsible for various natural phenomena. They perform all sorts of actions that the Lord of Heaven himself does not condescend to do.
Quetzalcoatlus ("Feathered Serpent")
Country: Central America Essence: Creator of the world, lord of the elements, creator and teacher of people
Quetzalcoatlus not only created the world and people, but also taught them the most important skills: from agriculture to astronomical observations. Despite his high status, Quetzalcoatl sometimes acted in a very peculiar way. For example, in order to get maize grains for people, he entered an anthill, turning into an ant himself, and stole them.
Quetzalcoatl was depicted both as a feathered serpent (the body symbolizing the Earth, and the feathers representing vegetation) and as a bearded man wearing a mask. According to one legend, Quetzalcoatl voluntarily went into overseas exile on a raft of snakes, promising to return. Because of this, the Aztecs initially mistook the conquistador leader Cortes for the returned Quetzalcoatl.
Baal (Balu, Baal, "Lord")
Country: Middle East Essence: Thunderer, god of rain and elements.
In some myths, the creator of the world, Baal, was usually depicted either in the form of a bull or as a warrior riding on a cloud with a lightning spear. During the festivities in his honor, mass orgies took place, often accompanied by self-mutilation.
It is believed that human sacrifices were also made to Baal in some areas. From his name comes the name of the biblical demon Beelzebub (Ball-Zebula, “Lord of the Flies”).
Ishtar (Astarte, Inanna, "Lady of Heaven")
Country: Middle East Essence: Goddess of fertility, sex and war
Ishtar, sister of the Sun and daughter of the Moon, was associated with the planet Venus. Associated with the legend of her journey to the underworld was the myth of nature dying and reborn every year. She often acted as an intercessor for people before the gods. At the same time, Ishtar was responsible for various feuds. The Sumerians even called wars “the dances of Inanna.”
As a goddess of war, she was often depicted riding a lion, and was probably a prototype of the Whore of Babylon riding on a beast. The passion of the loving Ishtar was destructive for both gods and mortals. For her many lovers, everything usually ended in big trouble or even death. The worship of Ishtar included temple prostitution and was accompanied by mass orgies.
Ashur ("Father of the Gods")
Country: Assyria Essence: God of War
- the main god of the Assyrians, the god of war and hunting. His weapon was a bow and arrow. As a rule, he was depicted with bulls. Its other symbol is the solar disk above the tree of life. Over time, as the Assyrians expanded their possessions, he began to be considered the consort of Ishtar. The Assyrian king himself was the high priest, and his name often became part of the royal name, as, for example, the famous Ashurbanipal, and the capital of Assyria was called Ashur.
Marduk ("Son of Clear Sky")
Country: Mesopotamia Essence: Patron of Babylon, god of wisdom, ruler and judge of the gods
Marduk defeated the embodiment of chaos Tiamat, driving the “evil wind” into her mouth, and took possession of the book of destinies that belonged to her. After that, he cut Tiamat's body and created Heaven and Earth from them, and then created the entire modern, ordered world.
The other gods, seeing the power of Marduk, recognized his supremacy. Marduk's symbol is the dragon Mushkhush, a mixture of scorpion, snake, eagle and lion. Various plants and animals were identified with the body parts and entrails of Marduk. The main temple of Marduk - a huge ziggurat (step pyramid) - probably became the basis of the legend of the Tower of Babel.
Yahweh (Jehovah, "He Who Is")
Country: Middle East Essence: Single tribal god of the Jews
Yahweh's main function was to help his chosen people. He gave the Jews laws and strictly monitored their implementation. In clashes with enemies, Yahweh provided the chosen people with assistance, sometimes the most direct. In one of the battles, for example, he threw huge stones at his enemies, in another case he abolished the law of nature, stopping the sun. Unlike most other gods of the ancient world, Yahweh is extremely jealous, and forbids the worship of any deities except himself.
Severe punishments await those who disobey. The word “Yahweh” is a replacement for the secret name of God, which is forbidden to be spoken out loud. It was impossible to create his images either. In Christianity, Yahweh is sometimes identified with God the Father.
Ahura-Mazda (Ormuzd, “God the Wise”)
Country: Persia Essence: Creator of the World and all that is good in it
Ahura-Mazda created the laws by which the world exists. He endowed people with free will, and they can choose the path of good (then Ahura Mazda will favor them in every possible way) or the path of evil (serving Ahura Mazda's eternal enemy Angra Mainyu). Ahura Mazda's assistants are the good beings of Ahura created by him. He is surrounded by them in the fabulous Garodman, the house of chants. The image of Ahura Mazda is the Sun. He is older than the whole world, but at the same time, eternally young. He knows both the past and the future. In the end, he will achieve the final victory over evil, and the world will become perfect.
Angra Mainyu (Ahriman, "Evil Spirit")
Country: Persia Essence: The embodiment of evil among the ancient Persians
Angra Mainyu- the source of everything bad that happens in the world. He spoiled the perfect world created by Ahura Mazda, introducing lies and destruction into it. He sends diseases, crop failures, natural disasters, gives birth to predatory animals, poisonous plants and animals. Under the command of Angra Mainyu are the devas, evil spirits, who carry out his evil will. After Angra Mainyu and his minions are defeated, an era of eternal bliss should begin.
Brahma ("Priest")
Country: India Essence: God is the creator of the world
Brahma was born from a lotus flower and then created this world. After 100 years of Brahma, 311,040,000,000,000 earthly years, he will die, and after the same period of time a new Brahma will self-generate and create a new world. Brahma has four faces and four arms, which symbolizes the cardinal directions. Its indispensable attributes are a book, rosary, a vessel with water from the sacred Ganges, a crown and a lotus flower, symbols of knowledge and power. Brahma lives on the top of the sacred Mount Meru and rides on a white swan. The descriptions of the action of Brahma's weapon Brahmastra are reminiscent of the description of nuclear weapons.
Vishnu ("All-encompassing")
Country: India Essence: God is the keeper of the world
The main functions of Vishnu are maintaining the existing world and opposing evil. Vishnu appears in the world and acts through his incarnations, avatars, the most famous of which are Krishna and Rama. Vishnu has blue skin and wears yellow clothes. He has four hands in which he holds a lotus flower, a mace, a conch shell and Sudarshana (a rotating disk of fire, his weapon). Vishnu reclines on the giant multi-headed snake Shesha, which swims in the world's Causal Ocean.
Shiva ("Merciful")
Country: India Essence: God is the destroyer
The main task is the destruction of the world at the end of each world cycle in order to make room for a new creation. This happens during the dance of Shiva - Tandava (therefore Shiva is sometimes called the dancing god). However, he also has more peaceful functions - a healer and a deliverer from death. Shiva sits in lotus position on a tiger skin.
There are snake bracelets on his neck and wrists. On Shiva’s forehead there is a third eye (it appeared when Shiva’s wife, Parvati, jokingly covered his eyes with her palms). Sometimes Shiva is depicted as a lingam (an erect penis). But sometimes he is also depicted as a hermaphrodite, symbolizing the unity of the male and female principles. According to popular beliefs, Shiva smokes marijuana, so some believers consider this activity a way to understand him.
Ra (Amon, "Sun")
Country: Egypt Essence: Sun God
Ra, the main god of Ancient Egypt, was born from the primordial ocean of his own free will, and then created the world, including the gods. He is the personification of the Sun, and every day with a large retinue he travels across the sky in a magic boat, thanks to which life in Egypt becomes possible. At night, Ra's boat sails along the underground Nile through the afterlife. The Eye of Ra (sometimes considered an independent deity) had the ability to pacify and subjugate enemies. The Egyptian pharaohs traced their origins to Ra, and called themselves his sons.
Osiris (Usir, "The Mighty One")
Country: Egypt Essence: God of rebirth, ruler and judge of the underworld.
Osiris taught people agriculture. His attributes are associated with plants: the crown and boat are made of papyrus, he holds bundles of reeds in his hands, and the throne is covered with greenery. Osiris was killed and cut into pieces by his brother, the evil god Set, but was resurrected with the help of his wife and sister Isis. However, having conceived the son Horus, Osiris did not remain in the world of the living, but became the ruler and judge of the kingdom of the dead. Because of this, he was often depicted as a swaddled mummy with free hands, in which he holds a scepter and flail. In Ancient Egypt, the tomb of Osiris was highly revered.
Isis ("The Throne")
Country: Egypt Essence: Intercessor Goddess.
– the embodiment of femininity and motherhood. All segments of the population turned to her with pleas for help, but, first of all, the oppressed. She especially patronized children. And sometimes she acted as a defender of the dead before the afterlife court. Isis was able to magically resurrect her husband and brother Osiris and give birth to his son Horus.
In popular mythology, the floods of the Nile were considered the tears of Isis, which she shed for Osiris, who remained in the world of the dead. The Egyptian pharaohs were called the children of Isis; sometimes she was even depicted as a mother feeding the pharaoh with milk from her breast. The image of the “veil of Isis” is known, meaning the concealment of the secrets of nature. This image has long attracted mystics. No wonder Blavatsky’s famous book is called “Isis Unveiled.”
Seth ("The Mighty")
Country: Egypt Essence: God of destruction
Set was initially revered as a warrior god, the protector of Ra. Some pharaohs even bore his name. But subsequently he gradually acquired negative traits and, in the end, became the embodiment of evil. Seth sends sandstorms, destruction, death, provokes wars and patronizes hostile foreigners.
The Day of Set, the third day of the year, was considered the most unlucky among the Egyptians. Out of envy, Seth killed his brother Osiris, but was subsequently defeated by his son, Horus, as a result of an eighty-year struggle. Seth - red hair and red eyes; He was usually depicted with the head of an aardvark.
Zeus ("Bright Sky")
Country: Greece Essence: Thunderer, head of all gods
Zeus's father, Kronos, devoured his children, but his mother replaced the newborn Zeus with a stone. Having matured, Zeus overthrew his father and forced him to spit out his brothers and sisters. Together with them and their descendants, other gods, Zeus resides on Mount Olympus.
His attributes are a shield and a double-sided axe. Zeus is menacing and vengeful: many heroes became victims of his wrath Greek mythology. The head of the gods is loving. He is often combined with earthly women; To do this, he sometimes turns into various animals (bull, eagle, swan) or even phenomena (he penetrated Danae in the form of golden rain).
Odin (Wotan, "The Seer")
Country: Northern Europe Essence: God of war and victory
Odin is the main god of the ancient Germans and Scandinavians. He travels on the eight-legged horse Sleipnir or on the ship Skidbladnir, the size of which can be changed at will. Odin's spear, Gugnir, always flies to the target and hits on the spot. He is accompanied by wise crows and predatory wolves. Odin lives in Valhalla with a squad of the best fallen warriors and warlike Valkyrie maidens.
In order to gain wisdom, Odin sacrificed one eye, and in order to understand the meaning of the runes, he hung on the sacred tree Yggdrasil for nine days, nailed to it with his own spear. Odin's future is predetermined: despite his power, on the day of Ragnarok (the battle preceding the end of the world) he will be killed by the giant wolf Fefnir.
Thor (Thunder)
Country: Northern Europe Essence: The Thunderer Thor is the god of the elements and fertility among the ancient Germans and Scandinavians.
This is a hero god who protects not only people, but also other gods from monsters. Thor was depicted as a giant with a red beard. His weapon is a magic hammer Mjolnir(“lightning”), which can only be held with iron gloves. Thor is girded with a magic belt that doubles his strength. He rides across the sky in a chariot drawn by goats.
Sometimes he eats goats, but then resurrects them with his magic hammer. In a day Ragnarok, the last battle, Thor will deal with the world serpent Jormungand, but he himself will die from its poison.
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Researchers of the past claim that the history of mankind does not know a single people who denied the existence of certain higher powers guiding their earthly and sometimes afterlife. Ideas about them changed as civilization developed, and on their basis numerous religious cults were formed, both those that have survived to this day and those that have sunk into the depths of centuries. Let us recall just some of the gods of the Ancient World, which, according to the generally accepted definition, originates in the prehistoric period and is limited to the 5th century, when the world entered the era of the early Middle Ages.
Ancient Sumerian deities
A conversation about the heroes and gods of the Ancient World should begin with a story about the religious ideas of the Sumerians, who lived on the territory of Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) and created at the beginning of the 4th millennium BC. e. first world civilization. Their beliefs and the mythology they generated were based on the worship of numerous demiurge gods - the creators of the world and everything in it, as well as the spirits who patronized people in various aspects of their lives.
These are probably the most ancient gods of the world about which fairly complete information has been preserved. The dominant place among them was occupied by the god An (or Anu). According to him, he was one of the demiurges who created the world, and existed even before the earth was separated from the sky. Among other celestials, he enjoyed such unquestioned authority that the Sumerians always depicted him as presiding over the councils of the gods, which they arranged to resolve the most important issues.
Among the Sumerian patron gods, the most famous is Marduk, whose name is associated with the founding and further development of one of the largest cities of the Ancient World - Babylon. It was believed that the city owes its rise and prosperity to him. It is characteristic that as the ancient metropolis grew, the worship of its patron took on an ever wider scale. In the pantheon of Sumerian gods, Marduk was given the same place as Jupiter among the ancient Greek celestials.
Rejected Passion
As an example of Sumerian mythology, it is appropriate to cite one of the stories about the Goddess Ishtar, who successfully patronized such seemingly incompatible things as love and war. The legend that has reached us tells how one day the heart of the goddess was inflamed with love for the brave hero Gilgamesh, who returned from a military campaign in which he won thanks to her patronage.
For the service rendered, Ishtar wished that the hero would become her husband, but was refused, since Gilgamesh had heard not only about her countless love affairs, but also about the manner of turning annoying men into spiders, wolves, rams and other dumb creatures. Of course, he didn’t get away with it, because what could be worse than the revenge of a rejected woman?
Heavenly Bull
The angry Ishtar went to heaven to her parents - the supreme god Anu and his wife Antu, to whom she told about her humiliation. To take revenge on the offender, she persuaded the old people to create for her a terrible Heavenly Bull, capable of destroying Gilgamesh. Otherwise, the obstinate daughter threatened to raise all the dead from their graves and give them the human race to be devoured.
Knowing from experience that it is useless to argue with their daughter, An and Antu fulfilled her request. The goddess returned to earth with a bull, which, having first drunk all the water in the Euphrates River, began to devour the unfortunate Sumerians. And this would have been the end of the ancient civilization, but, fortunately, the same Gilgamesh arrived in time, who, together with his friend Enkidu, defeated the monster and sacrificed its carcass to other, more decent deities.
The legend ends with Ishtar, standing at the walls of the ancient city of Uruk, cursing the obstinate Gilgamesh and, having gathered all the Sumerian harlots, bitterly mourns with them the destroyed bull. Why she needed representatives of the most ancient profession for this - history is silent.
Lost Civilization
It only remains to add that the pantheon of gods of the Ancient World, revered by the Sumerians, is very extensive. To the names already mentioned we will add only the most famous: Anunnaki, Adad, Bel, Dumuzi, Inanna, Tiamat, Tammuz, Sumukan, Sina and Tsarpanitu.
In the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. e. the state of Sumer gave way to the growing power of the Babylonian Empire, and Sumerian as a spoken language fell into disuse. Nevertheless, literary works were written on it for almost 2 thousand years, some of which were discovered during archaeological excavations.
Gods of Egypt
Inseparable from people’s desire to understand the world around them, which is sometimes frightening and full of impenetrable secrets for them. Evidence of the attempts of the ancient Egyptians to understand its structure is the creation of a numerous pantheon of gods who became the product of their imagination and personified natural forces for them.
A characteristic feature of the Egyptians was the belief in the divine origin of the pharaohs, on which their unlimited power was based. Both the heavenly rulers and their earthly governors were not always friendly to people, and therefore both had to be propitiated not only with prayers and praises, but also with sacrifices, the nature of which varied depending on who they were intended for.
The gods of the Ancient World and the myths telling about them have always represented a bright page. The vast pantheon of gods born on the banks of the Nile is no exception. Historians count about 2 thousand of its representatives, but no more than 100 of them enjoyed universal veneration, while the worship of the rest was local.
It is interesting to note that with the change in the balance of political forces in the country, the hierarchical position occupied by certain gods also changed. The history of the Ancient World, including Egypt, is full of turmoil and upheaval, which resulted in frequent changes of rulers, which radically changed the status of the gods they especially revered. Meanwhile, from the general pantheon one can single out a number of characters whose “rating” was consistently high throughout the history of Ancient Egyptian civilization.
The top of the divine hierarchy
This is, first of all, the creator of everything earthly ─ also known under the names Amun or Atum. It was he who was considered the father of all pharaohs. Sometimes in the imagination of the Egyptians, Amun-Ra took on a female form and was then called the goddess Amunet. This transvestite god was especially revered in Thebes, which for a long period was the capital of the state. Usually he was depicted as a man in royal vestments and a crown decorated with feathers, less often in the form of a goose or ram.
Slightly inferior to him in popularity was the god of fertility and afterlife Osiris, whose list of immediate relatives aroused the deepest respect for him. Being the son of the earth god Geb and the sky goddess Nut, he took as his wife his own sister Isis, the patroness of fertility, motherhood, health and sea travel (consanguineous marriages were not forbidden in that era). Having inherited the title of supreme ruler over time, he taught the Egyptians to cultivate the land, observe laws and honor the gods.
Deceit and love in Egyptian mythology
However, like many ancient gods of the peoples of the world, Osiris endured many different hardships and ordeals on the way to his greatness. It all started with the fact that the desert god Set, who personified the evil principle, planned to kill him and take the place of the supreme ruler himself. He carried out his insidious plan in a rather original way.
Having made a golden chest of a suitable size and invited guests, among whom was Osiris, the villain announced that he would give this jewel to anyone who could fit comfortably in it. Everyone began to try, and when it was Osiris’s turn, Seth slammed the lid of the chest, tied it with ropes and threw it into the Nile, along the waves of which it floated to God knows where.
Having learned about the disappearance of her husband, Isis went in search of him and found a chest with her husband off the Phoenician coast. But her joy turned out to be premature. Seth, who followed on his heels, got ahead of Isis and, before her eyes, chopped up her husband’s body into pieces, scattering them throughout Egypt.
But the villain had little idea who he was dealing with - the goddess collected most of the remains of Osiris, made a mummy from them, and so successfully that she soon conceived her son Horus, who later became the god of the hunt and was depicted as a man with a falcon’s head. Having matured, Horus defeated Set and helped his mother resurrect his father's mummy.
Other inhabitants of the ancient Egyptian pantheon
Let us recall some more names of the gods of the Ancient World who lived on the banks of the Nile. This is primarily the god Shu. He and his wife Tefnut were the first celestial beings created supreme god Atum and laid the foundation for the separation of the sexes. Shu was considered the god of sunlight and air. He was depicted as a man in a headdress with a train, while his wife had the appearance of a lioness.
Another god of the Ancient World, considered the embodiment of the sun, was the supreme ruler Ra. His images in the form of a man with a falcon's head, crowned with a solar disk, are often found on the walls of Egyptian temples of that ancient era. The peculiarity of Ra was his ability to be born every day from sacred cow Nuts and, having made their way across the vault of heaven, plunge into the kingdom of the dead, so that the next morning they can repeat everything all over again.
It is worth noting that Osiris, discussed above, in addition to his wife Isis, had another sister named Nephthys. She's in Egyptian mythology had a rather gloomy role as the goddess of death and mistress of the kingdom of the dead. She emerged from her underground possessions only at sunset and spent the entire night sailing across the sky in her black boat. Her image can often be seen on the lids of sarcophagi, where she appears in the form of a winged woman.
Far from it full list Egyptian gods one can continue with such names as Sekhmet, Bastet, Nepid, Thoth, Menhit, Ptah, Hathor, Shesemu, Khons, Heket and many others. Each of them has its own history and its own appearance, imprinted on the walls of temples and the interior of the pyramids.
World of the Gods of Ancient Greece
Ancient myth-making, which had a huge influence on the formation of the whole European culture, reached its highest point of flowering in Ancient Hellas. The origin of the world and the gods in Ancient Greece, as well as in Egypt, did not seem accidental. The creation of all things was attributed to the supreme creator, whose role in this case was performed by Zeus. He was the king of all other gods, the lord of lightning and the personification of the boundless sky. In Roman mythology, which became a continuation of Greek, this image corresponds to Jupiter, endowed with the same properties and inheriting the external features of its ancestor. Zeus's wife was the goddess Hera, the patroness of motherhood, who protected women during childbirth.
A characteristic feature of the Greek pantheon of gods is its elitism. Unlike the characters in Ancient Hellas, there were only 12 celestials who lived on the top of Mount Olympus and descended to earth only in case of emergency. At the same time, the status of the other deities was much lower, and they played a secondary role.
It is worth noting another characteristic feature of the Greek and Roman gods - it was customary to depict them exclusively in human form, giving perfection to the features of each. IN modern world The gods of Ancient Greece are well known, since their marble statues are an unattainable example of ancient art.
Elite of the ancient Greek pantheon
Everything that was in one way or another connected with war and accompanied by bloodshed was commanded, in the minds of the ancient Greeks, by two deities. One of them was Ares, who had an unbridled temper and delighted himself with the spectacle of heated battles. Zeus did not like him for his excessive bloodthirstiness and tolerated him on Olympus only because he was his son. The Thunderer's sympathies were on the side of his own daughter Athena, the goddess of a just war, wisdom and knowledge. Appearing on the battlefield, she pacified her overly discordant brother. In Roman mythology, she corresponds to Minerva.
It is difficult to imagine the world of heroes and gods of Ancient Greece without Apollo, the god of sunlight, a skilled healer and patron of the muses. His name became a household name thanks to his sculptural images that embodied the standard of male beauty. Several centuries later, among the Romans, Apollo was incarnated in the image of Phoebus.
The standard of female beauty, as perceived by the ancient Greeks, is the goddess of love Aphrodite, who was the prototype of the Roman Venus. Born from sea foam, the beauty took love, marriage, fertility and spring under her protection. It is very curious that, despite the abundance of the most enviable suitors, she gave her heart to the lame Hephaestus (the Romans called him Vulcan), the god of blacksmithing, preferring a hard-working and homely husband to the handsome men from the top of Olympus.
In order not to offend any of the gods of the Ancient World, who were once revered on the shores of Hellas, let us remember the patroness of the moon, fertility, hunting and female chastity Artemis (Diana among the Romans), the ruler of the kingdom of the dead Hades, the god of the seas Poseidon (aka Neptune) and the reckless drunkard god wine and fun ─ Dionysus, better known by his Roman name Bacchus.
Since over the past centuries the number of admirers of this god has not only not decreased, but is also growing every year, we will devote a few lines to him. It is known that Dionysus was born as a result of the secret love of Zeus and the Theban princess Semele. The jealous wife of the Thunderer, the goddess Hera, resorted to cunning and destroyed the passion of her lascivious husband, but could not destroy the child she hated.
Having resorted to the help of Hermes, the god of travelers and an expert on human souls, Zeus, secretly from his wife, handed over his son to be raised by the nymphs, the patronesses of the life-giving forces of nature. When Dionysus grew up and turned from a rosy-cheeked child into a beautiful young man, they gave him a grapevine and taught him how to prepare a life-giving drink from its fruits. Since then, the illegitimate became the god of wine and fun. The people of Greece worshiped him by decorating themselves with garlands of grape leaves and singing hymns in his honor.
The beginning of a new era
These 12 celestial beings do not limit the entire list of gods of the Ancient World, once sung by Greek poets, who brought to us the unique spirit of ancient myths. But only they became the inhabitants of Olympus, their images inspired outstanding sculptors and painters of subsequent eras, which brought worldwide fame to these gods hidden from us through centuries.
The history of the Ancient World is generally accepted to have ended with the fall of Rome in 476 and the abdication of its last emperor, Romulus Augustus. From that moment on, the world moved to a new stage of its development ─ the early Middle Ages. Gradually, not only the way of life of the past faded into oblivion, but also the gods who gave birth to and protected it.
Their numerous pantheon was replaced by a single God ─ Creator and Creator of all things. The cult of the former celestials was declared dark paganism, and its followers were subjected to no less cruel persecutions than those that they had recently carried out against Christians.
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