1.
Goa'uld characters in Stargate
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This is a list of the Goauld characters that appear in Stargate, Stargate SG-1, and Stargate Atlantis. In the Stargate fictional universe, the Goauld are an alien race that use other beings as hosts. Most Goauld pose as gods in order to control slave armies, the Goauld are extremely intelligent and have an aptitude for understanding, working with, and using technology that is superior to that of humans. They each have access to their species genetic memory from the moment of birth. As a result, no Goauld has to learn how to operate any technological device, the character is first mentioned in the season 5 episode Between Two Fires, although he is not seen in person until Revelations. In Reckoning, he is seen in two different host bodies, played by Dean Aylesworth and Rik Kiviaho, in Threads, in the persona of Jim, he is played by George Dzundza. Anubis has a tendency to make pronouncements that are excessively melodramatic even by Goauld standards, at one point Jack ONeill comments, Oh come on, who talks like that. Anubis had been banished by the System Lords thousands of years ago for crimes that were unspeakably evil even by Goauld standards, Anubis was believed to have died thereafter, but in fact he had instead tricked the Ascended being Oma Desala into helping him Ascend. Anubis thus becomes an incorporeal being who is given form by a shield and he also has himself reinstated into the ranks of the System Lords despite having attacked their holdings, with the promise of eliminating the Tauri. ONeill flies the Stargate to a distance from Earth before it explodes. In, Anubis seeks out six powerful artifacts to power a superweapon on his mothership, SG-1 finds the last artifact, the Eye of Ra, on Abydos, and at Daniel Jacksons behest hands it to Anubis in exchange for sparing Abydos. In Fallen, SG-1 lures his mothership to Vis Uban and launches an F-302 attack that disables the superweapon, Anubis then travels to Langara to investigate naqahdriah as an alternate power source for his weapon, based on information he extracts from Jonas Quinns mind. The System Lords arrive at Langara and destroy his mothership, though Anubis escapes, in the second half of season 7, Anubis creates a new army of nearly invincible Kull Warriors to replace his Jaffa. He assassinates a number of minor Goauld, absorbing their forces into his own in preparation for the war against the System Lords. In Lost City, Anubis launches an assault on Earth with a fleet of over thirty motherships. His fleet is annihilated by the Ancient drone weapons launched from the Antarctica outpost by SG-1, however, Anubis survives in energy form and possesses several SGC personnel in a bid to reach the Stargate. Carter sends him, in the body of Colonel Vasilov, to a frozen wasteland, Anubis eventually frees himself and secretly establishes dominance over Baal, possessing a succession of host bodies as each one quickly deteriorates under his influence. During the Replicator invasion of the Milky Way, he plans to use the Dakara superweapon to destroy all life in the galaxy, Anubis continues his plan after the Replicators are destroyed, outmaneuvering the Free Jaffa and conquering Dakara
2.
Triple Goddess (Neopaganism)
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The Triple Goddess has been adopted by many neopagans as one of their primary deities. These may or may not be perceived as aspects of a single divinity. The Goddess of Wiccas duotheistic theology is sometimes portrayed as the Triple Goddess, the term triple goddess can be used outside of Neopaganism to instead refer to historical goddess triads and single goddesses of three forms or aspects. The influential Hungarian scholar of Greek mythology Karl Kerenyi likewise perceived an underlying triple moon goddess in Greek mythology. Many neopagan belief systems follow Graves in his use of the figure of the Triple Goddess, in Huttons view Evans opinion owed an unmistakable debt to the Christian belief in the Virgin Mary. A poet and mythographer, Graves claimed a basis for the triple-goddess. Although Gravess work is widely discounted by academics as pseudohistory, it continues to have an influence on many areas of Neopaganism. Grimassi presents ancient literary writings that mention the concept of a Triformis goddess associated with Witchcraft. One of his source examples appears in Lucans ancient tale of a group of witches, in Lucans work the witches make the following comment, Persephone, who is the third and lowest aspect of our goddess Hecate. Grimassi concludes that this source suggests the concept of Witches having a triformis or three-fold goddess. Another source example offered by Grimassi is found in Ovids tale in which Jason swears an oath to the witch Medea and it is Grimassis contention that the Triple Goddess in Neopaganism is rooted in ancient thought and literature, from which it is ultimately derived. According to Ronald Hutton, the concept of a Triple Goddess with Maiden, Mother and Crone aspects, Graves wrote extensively on the subject of the Triple Goddess who he saw as the Muse of all true poetry in both ancient and modern literature. He thought that her ancient worship underlay much of classical Greek myth although reflected there in a more or less distorted or incomplete form, as an example of an unusually complete survival of the ancient triad he cites from the classical source Pausanias the worship of Hera in three persons. Pausanias recorded the ancient worship of Hera Pais, Hera Teleia, skelton was here following the Latin poet Ovid. Graves posited that Greece had been settled by a matriarchal goddess-worshipping people before being invaded by successive waves of patriarchal Indo-European speakers from the north, much of Greek myth in his view recorded the consequent religious political and social accommodations until the final triumph of patriarchy. Graves did not invent this picture but drew from nineteenth and early twentieth century scholarship and this account has not been disproved, but alternative explanations have emerged, and it is not accepted as a consensus view. In the 1949 novel Seven Days in New Crete, Graves extrapolated this theory into a future society where the worship of the Triple Goddess is the main form of religion. In her discussion of James Mellaarts theories regarding Çatalhöyük, Lynn Meskell says it is probable that the Triple Goddess originated with the work of Jane Ellen Harrison
3.
Ancient Egyptian deities
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Ancient Egyptian deities are the gods and goddesses worshipped in ancient Egypt. The beliefs and rituals surrounding these gods formed the core of ancient Egyptian religion, the gods complex characteristics were expressed in myths and in intricate relationships between deities, family ties, loose groups and hierarchies, and combinations of separate gods into one. Deities diverse appearances in art—as animals, humans, objects, and combinations of different forms—also alluded, through symbolism, to their essential features. In different eras, various gods were said to hold the highest position in society, including the solar deity Ra, the mysterious god Amun. The highest deity was usually credited with the creation of the world, some scholars have argued, based in part on Egyptian writings, that the Egyptians came to recognize a single divine power that lay behind all things and was present in all the other deities. Gods were assumed to be present throughout the world, capable of influencing natural events, people interacted with them in temples and unofficial shrines, for personal reasons as well as for larger goals of state rites. Egyptians prayed for help, used rituals to compel deities to act. Humans relations with their gods were a part of Egyptian society. The beings in ancient Egyptian tradition who might be labeled as deities are difficult to count, Egyptian texts list the names of many deities whose nature is unknown and make vague, indirect references to other gods who are not even named. The Egyptologist James P. Allen estimates that more than 1,400 deities are named in Egyptian texts, the Egyptian languages terms for these beings were nṯr, god, and its feminine form nṯrt, goddess. Scholars have tried to discern the nature of the gods by proposing etymologies for these words, but none of these suggestions has gained acceptance. The hieroglyphs that were used as ideograms and determinatives in writing these words show some of the traits that the Egyptians connected with divinity, the most common of these signs is a flag flying from a pole. Similar objects were placed at the entrances of temples, representing the presence of a deity, other such hieroglyphs include a falcon, reminiscent of several early gods who were depicted as falcons, and a seated male or female deity. The feminine form could also be written with an egg as determinative, connecting goddesses with creation and birth, or with a cobra, the Egyptians distinguished nṯrw, gods, from rmṯ, people, but the meanings of the Egyptian and the English terms do not match perfectly. The term nṯr may have applied to any being that was in some way outside the sphere of everyday life, Egyptian religious art also depicts places, objects, and concepts in human form. These personified ideas range from deities that were important in myth and ritual to obscure beings, only mentioned once or twice, confronting these blurred distinctions between gods and other beings, scholars have proposed various definitions of a deity. One widely accepted definition, suggested by Jan Assmann, says that a deity has a cult, is involved in some aspect of the universe, according to a different definition, by Dimitri Meeks, nṯr applied to any being that was the focus of ritual. From this perspective, gods included the king, who was called a god after his coronation rites, and deceased souls, likewise, the preeminence of the great gods was maintained by the ritual devotion that was performed for them across Egypt
4.
Ancient Canaanite religion
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Canaanite religion was polytheistic, and in some cases monolatristic. Baalat or Baalit, the wife or female counterpart of Baal Baal Hadad, holy One, putative goddess of love. Resheph, god of plague and of healing Shachar and Shalim, twin mountain gods of dawn and dusk, Shalim was linked to the netherworld via the evening star and associated with peace Shamayim, god of the heavens, paired with Eretz, the land or earth. Shapash, also transliterated Shapshu, goddess of the sun, sometimes equated with the Mesopotamian sun god Shamash, yarikh, god of the moon and husband of Nikkal Canaanites believed that following physical death, the npš departed from the body to the land of Mot. Bodies were buried with goods, and offerings of food. Dead relatives were venerated and sometimes asked for help, none of the inscribed tablets found in 1929 in the Canaanite city of Ugarit has revealed a cosmology. Any idea of one is often reconstructed from the much later Phoenician text by Philo of Byblos, after much Greek, from the union of El Elyon and his consort were born Uranus and Ge, Greek names for the Heaven and the Earth. In Canaanite mythology there were twin mountains Targhizizi and Tharumagi which hold the firmament up above the earth-circling ocean, thereby bounding the earth. W. F. Albright, for example, says that El Shaddai is a derivation of a Semitic stem that appears in the Akkadian shadû and shaddāû or shaddûa, one of the names of Amurru. Philo of Byblos states that Atlas was one of the Elohim, harriet Lutzky has presented evidence that Shaddai was an attribute of a Semitic goddess, linking the epithet with Hebrew šad breast as the one of the Breast. The idea of two mountains being associated here as the breasts of the Earth, fits into the Canaanite mythology quite well, the ideas of pairs of mountains seem to be quite common in Canaanite mythology. The late period of this makes it difficult to tell what influences may have informed Philos writings. In the Baal Cycle, Baal Hadad is challenged by and defeats Yam, afterward, with the help of Athirat and Anat, Baal persuades El to allow him a palace. El approves, and the palace is built by Kothar-wa-Khasis, after the palace is constructed, Baal gives forth a thunderous roar out of the palace window and challenges Mot. Mot enters through the window and swallows Baal, sending him to the Underworld, with no one to give rain, there is a terrible drought in Baals absence. The other deities, especially El and Anat, are distraught that Baal has been taken to the Underworld, Anat goes to the Underworld, attacks Mot with a knife, grinds him up into pieces, and scatters him far and wide. With Mot defeated, Baal is able to return and refresh the Earth with rain and it is considered virtually impossible to reconstruct a clear picture of Canaanite religious practices. Although child sacrifice was known to surrounding peoples there is no reference to it in ancient Phoenician or Classical texts, the biblical representation of Canaanite religion is always negative
5.
Ancient Egyptian religion
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Ancient Egyptian religion was a complex system of polytheistic beliefs and rituals which were an integral part of ancient Egyptian society. It centered on the Egyptians interaction with many deities who were believed to be present in, and in control of, rituals such as prayers and offerings were efforts to provide for the gods and gain their favor. Formal religious practice centered on the pharaoh, the king of Egypt and he acted as the intermediary between his people and the gods and was obligated to sustain the gods through rituals and offerings so that they could maintain order in the universe. The state dedicated enormous resources to Egyptian rituals and to the construction of the temples, individuals could interact with the gods for their own purposes, appealing for their help through prayer or compelling them to act through magic. These practices were distinct from, but closely linked with, the formal rituals, the popular religious tradition grew more prominent in the course of Egyptian history as the status of the Pharaoh declined. Another important aspect was the belief in the afterlife and funerary practices, the Egyptians made great efforts to ensure the survival of their souls after death, providing tombs, grave goods, and offerings to preserve the bodies and spirits of the deceased. The religion had its roots in Egypts prehistory and lasted for more than 3,000 years, the details of religious belief changed over time as the importance of particular gods rose and declined, and their intricate relationships shifted. At various times, certain gods became preeminent over the others, including the sun god Ra, the creator god Amun, for a brief period, in the theology promulgated by the Pharaoh Akhenaten, a single god, the Aten, replaced the traditional pantheon. Ancient Egyptian religion and mythology left behind many writings and monuments, along with significant influences on ancient, the beliefs and rituals now referred to as ancient Egyptian religion were integral within every aspect of Egyptian culture. Their language possessed no single term corresponding to the modern European concept of religion, the characteristics of the gods who populated the divine realm were inextricably linked to the Egyptians understanding of the properties of the world in which they lived. The Egyptians believed that the phenomena of nature were divine forces in and these deified forces included the elements, animal characteristics, or abstract forces. The Egyptians believed in a pantheon of gods, which were involved in all aspects of nature and their religious practices were efforts to sustain and placate these phenomena and turn them to human advantage. This polytheistic system was complex, as some deities were believed to exist in many different manifestations. Conversely, many forces, such as the sun, were associated with multiple deities. The diverse pantheon ranged from gods with vital roles in the universe to minor deities or demons with very limited or localized functions. It could include gods adopted from foreign cultures, and sometimes humans, deceased Pharaohs were believed to be divine, and occasionally, distinguished commoners such as Imhotep also became deified. The depictions of the gods in art were not meant as representations of how the gods might appear if they were visible. Instead, these depictions gave recognizable forms to the deities by using symbolic imagery to indicate each gods role in nature
6.
New Kingdom of Egypt
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Radiocarbon dating places the exact beginning of the New Kingdom between 1570–1544 BC. The New Kingdom followed the Second Intermediate Period and was succeeded by the Third Intermediate Period and it was Egypt’s most prosperous time and marked the peak of its power. The later part of period, under the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties is also known as the Ramesside period. It is named after the pharaohs that took the name of Ramesses I. Egyptian armies fought Hittite armies for control of modern-day Syria, the Eighteenth Dynasty contained some of Egypts most famous Pharaohs, including Ahmose I, Hatshepsut, Thutmose III, Amenhotep III, Akhenaten and Tutankhamun. Queen Hatshepsut concentrated on expanding Egypts external trade by sending an expedition to the land of Punt. Thutmose III expanded Egypts army and wielded it with success to consolidate the empire created by his predecessors. This resulted in a peak in Egypts power and wealth during the reign of Amenhotep III, during the reign of Thutmose III, Pharaoh, originally referring to the kings palace, became a form of address for the person who was king. Akhenatens religious fervor is cited as the reason why he was written out of Egyptian history. Under his reign, in the 14th century BC, Egyptian art flourished and attained a level of realism. Towards the end of the 18th Dynasty, the situation had changed radically, Ramesses II sought to recover territories in the Levant that had been held by the 18th Dynasty. His campaigns of reconquest culminated in the Battle of Kadesh, where he led Egyptian armies against those of the Hittite king Muwatalli II. Ramesses was caught in historys first recorded military ambush, although he was able to rally his troops, the outcome of the battle was undecided with both sides claiming victory at their home front, ultimately resulting in a peace treaty between the two nations. The last great pharaoh from the New Kingdom is widely considered to be Ramesses III, in the eighth year of his reign the Sea Peoples invaded Egypt by land and sea. Ramesses III defeated them in two great land and sea battles and he incorporated them as subject peoples and settled them in Southern Canaan although there is evidence that they forced their way into Canaan. Their presence in Canaan may have contributed to the formation of new states, such as Philistia and he was also compelled to fight invading Libyan tribesmen in two major campaigns in Egypts Western Delta in his sixth year and eleventh year respectively. The heavy cost of this warfare slowly drained Egypts treasury and contributed to the decline of the Egyptian Empire in Asia. Something in the air prevented much sunlight from reaching the ground, one proposed cause is the Hekla 3 eruption of the Hekla volcano in Iceland but the dating of this remains disputed
7.
Stele
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A stele is a stone or wooden slab, generally taller than it is wide, erected in ancient Western culture as a monument. Grave steles were often used for funerary or commemorative purposes, Stelae as slabs of stone would also be used as ancient Greek and Roman government notices or as boundary markers to mark borders or property lines. The surface of the stele usually has text, ornamentation, or both, the ornamentation may be inscribed, carved in relief, or painted. Traditional Western gravestones may technically be considered the equivalent of ancient stelae. The most famous example of an inscribed stela leading to increased understanding is the Rosetta Stone, an informative stele of Tiglath-Pileser III is preserved in the British Museum. Two steles built into the walls of a church are major documents relating to the Etruscan language, unfinished standing stones, set up without inscriptions from Libya in North Africa to Scotland were monuments of pre-literate Megalithic cultures in the Late Stone Age. The Pictish stones of Scotland, often carved, date from between the 6th and 9th centuries. An obelisk is a kind of stele. The Insular high crosses of Ireland and Britain are specialized steles, totem poles of North and South America that are made out of stone may also be considered a specialized type of stele. Gravestones, typically with inscribed name and often with inscribed epitaph, are among the most common types of stele seen in Western culture. Most recently, in the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin, the memorial is meant to be read not only as the field, but also as an erasure of data that refer to memory of the Holocaust. Steles have been the medium of stone inscription in China since the Tang dynasty. Chinese steles are generally rectangular stone tablets upon which Chinese characters are carved intaglio with a funerary, commemorative and they can commemorate talented writers and officials, inscribe poems, portraits, or maps, and frequently contain the calligraphy of famous historical figures. During the Han dynasty, tomb inscriptions containing biographical information on deceased people began to be written on stone tablets rather than wooden ones, erecting steles at tombs or temples eventually became a widespread social and religious phenomenon. Emperors found it necessary to promulgate laws, regulating the use of funerary steles by the population, Steles are found at nearly every significant mountain and historical site in China. The First Emperor made five tours of his domain in the 3rd century BC and had Li Si make seven stone inscriptions commemorating and praising his work, of which fragments of two survive. One of the most famous mountain steles is the 13 m high stele at Mount Tai with the calligraphy of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang commemorating his imperial sacrifices there in 725. A number of stone monuments have preserved the origin and history of Chinas minority religious communities
8.
Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt
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The Nineteenth Dynasty of ancient Egypt was one of the periods of the Egyptian New Kingdom. Founded by Vizier Ramesses I, whom Pharaoh Horemheb chose as his successor to the throne, the warrior kings of the early 18th Dynasty had encountered only little resistance from neighbouring kingdoms, allowing them to expand their realm of influence easily. The situation had changed radically towards the end of the 18th Dynasty, the Hittites gradually extended their influence into Syria and Canaan to become a major power in international politics, a power that both Seti I and his son Ramesses II would need to deal with. The Pharaohs of the 19th dynasty ruled for one hundred and ten years. Seti Is reign is considered to be 11 years and not 15 years by both J. von Beckerath and Peter Brand, who wrote a biography on this pharaohs reign. Consequently, it will be amended to 11 years or 1290-1279 BC, therefore, Setis father and predecessor would have ruled Egypt between 1292-1290 BC. Many of the pharaohs were buried in the Valley of the Kings in Thebes, more information can be found on the Theban Mapping Project website. New Kingdom Egypt reached the zenith of its power under Seti I and Ramesses II, who campaigned vigorously against the Libyans and the Hittites. The city of Kadesh was first captured by Seti I, who decided to concede it to Muwatalli of Hatti in a peace treaty between Egypt and Hatti. He ultimately accepted that a campaign against the Hittites was a drain on Egypts treasury and military. In his 21st regnal year, Ramesses signed the first recorded peace treaty with Urhi-Teshubs successor, Hattusili III, Ramesses II even married two Hittite princesses, the first after his second Sed Festival. At least as early as Josephus, it was believed that Moses lived during the reign of Ramesses II and this dynasty declined as internal fighting between the heirs of Merneptah for the throne increased. Amenmesse apparently usurped the throne from Merneptahs son and successor, Seti II, after his death, Seti regained power and destroyed most of Amenmesses monuments. Both Bay and Setis chief wife Twosret had a reputation in Ancient Egyptian folklore. After Siptahs death, Twosret ruled Egypt for two years, but she proved unable to maintain her hold on power amid the conspiracies. She was likely ousted in a revolt led by Setnakhte, founder of the Twentieth Dynasty, Nineteenth dynasty of Egypt Family Tree
9.
Museo Egizio
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The Museo Egizio is an archaeological museum in Turin, Italy, specialising in Egyptian archaeology and anthropology. It houses one of the largest collections of Egyptian antiquities with more than 30,000 artefacts, in 2015 it received about 772,900 visitors. This exotic piece spurred King Charles Emmanuel III to commission botanist Vitaliano Donati to travel to Egypt in 1753, Donati returned with 300 pieces recovered from Karnak and Coptos, which became the nucleus of the Turin collection. In 1824, King Charles Felix acquired the material from the Drovetti collection, in the same year, Jean-François Champollion used the huge Turin collection of papyri to test his breakthroughs in deciphering the hieroglyphic writing. In 1950 a parapsychologist was contacted to pinpoint them, to no avail, in 1833, the collection of Piedmontese Giuseppe Sossio was added to the Egyptian Museum. The collection was complemented and completed by the finds of Egyptologist Ernesto Schiaparelli and its last major acquisition was the small temple of Ellesiya, which the Egyptian government presented to Italy for her assistance during the Nubian monument salvage campaign in the 1960s. Through all these years, the Egyptian collection has always been in Turin, in the designed for the purpose of housing it. Only during the Second World War was some of the moved to the town of Agliè. The museum became an experiment of the Italian government in privatization of the nations museums when the Fondazione Museo delle Antichità Egizie was officially established at the end of 2004, on April 1,2015 a new layout of the museum was opened. Items of interest include, Assemblea dei Re a term indicating a collection of statues representing all the kings of the New Kingdom. Temple of Tuthmosi III Sarcophagi, mummies and books of the dead originally belonging to the Drovetti collection, mensa Isiaca Tomba Dipinta usually closed to the public. The Turin King List The Egyptian Museum owns three different versions of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, including the most ancient copy known. An integral illustrated version and the copy of the First Royal Architect Kha. On more than one occasion the director of the Museum was asked to remove the two copies of the book on display and stock them in a deep and dark basement, at the time of writing, none of these requests appears to have been put into practice. In the film The Italian Job the entrance hall of the Museo Egizio is the place where the tow the security van in order to transfer the bullion to the three getaway Minis. Egyptian Museum Grand Egyptian Museum Egyptian Museum of Berlin List of museums of Egyptian antiquities Wolfgang Kosack, papyruskodex 63000. IV im Museo Egizio di Torino. Einleitung, Textbearbeitung und Übersetzung herausgegeben von Wolfgang Kosack, in Parallelzeilen ediert, kommentiert und übersetzt von Wolfgang Kosack
10.
Hathor
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Hathor is an Ancient Egyptian goddess who personified the principles of joy, feminine love, and motherhood. She was one of the most important and popular throughout the history of Ancient Egypt. Hathor was worshipped by royalty and common people alike, in tomb paintings, she is often depicted as Mistress of the West, welcoming the dead into the next life. In other roles, she was a goddess of music, dance, foreign lands and she was believed to assist women in childbirth. She was also believed to be the goddess of miners. Hathor is commonly depicted as a cow goddess with horns in which is set a sun disk with Uraeus, twin feathers are also sometimes shown in later periods as well as a menat necklace. The Ancient Egyptians viewed reality as multi-layered in which deities who merge for various reasons, while retaining divergent attributes and myths, were not seen as contradictory but complementary. In a complicated relationship Hathor is at times the mother, daughter and wife of Ra and, like Isis, is at times described as the mother of Horus, the cult of Osiris promised eternal life to those deemed morally worthy. Originally the justified dead, male or female, became an Osiris but by early Roman times females became identified with Hathor, the Ancient Greeks sometimes identified Hathor with the goddess Aphrodite. Hathor is ambiguously depicted until the fourth dynasty, in the historical era Hathor is shown using the imagery of a cow deity. At times they are regarded as one and the goddess, though likely having separate origins. The evidence pointing to the deity being Hathor in particular is based on a passage from the Pyramid texts which states that the Kings apron comes from Hathor, from the Old Kingdom she was also called Lady of the Sycamore in her capacity as a tree deity. Hathor had a relationship with Ra. At times she is the eye of Ra and considered his daughter and she absorbed this role from another cow goddess Mehet-Weret who was the mother of Ra in a creation myth and carried him between her horns. As a mother she gave birth to Ra each morning on the eastern horizon, the Milky Way was seen as a waterway in the heavens, sailed upon by both the sun deity and the moon, leading the ancient Egyptians to describe it as The Nile in the Sky. Hathor also was favoured as a protector in desert regions, as Serabit el-Khadim was where turquoise was mined, Hathors titles included Lady of Turquoise, Mistress of Turquoise, and Lady of Turquoise Country. Hathors identity as a cow, perhaps depicted as such on the Narmer Palette, meant that she identified with another ancient cow-goddess of fertility. The assimilation of Bat, who was associated with the sistrum, in this later form, Hathors cult became centred in Dendera in Upper Egypt and it was led by priestesses and priests who also were dancers, singers and other entertainers
11.
Min (god)
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Min is an ancient Egyptian god whose cult originated in predynastic times. He was represented in different forms, but was often represented in male human form, shown with an erect penis which he holds in his left hand. As Khem or Min, he was the god of reproduction, as Khnum, he was the creator of all things, the maker of gods and men. His cult was strongest in Coptos and Akhmim, where in his honour great festivals were held celebrating his “coming forth” with a procession and presentation of offerings. His other associations include the desert and links to the god Horus. Flinders Petrie excavated two statues of Min at Qift which are now in the Ashmolean Museum and it is thought by some that they are pre-dynastic. Although not mentioned by name a reference to he whose arm is raised in the East in the Pyramid Texts is thought to refer to Min and his importance grew in the Middle Kingdom when he became even more closely linked with Horus as the deity Min-Horus. By the New Kingdom he was fused with Amun in the deity Min-Amun-kamutef. Mins shrine was crowned with a pair of bull horns, as the central deity of fertility and possibly orgiastic rites Min became identified by the Greeks with the god Pan. He also had connections with Nubia, however, his main centres of worship were Qift and Akhmim. In Egyptian art, Min was depicted as being covered in shrouds, wearing a crown with feathers, and often holding his penis erect in his left hand and a flail in his upward facing right hand. Around his forehead, Min wears a red ribbon that trails to the ground, even some war goddesses were depicted with the body of Min, and this also led to depictions, ostensibly of Min, with the head of a lioness. In the 19th century, there was an erroneous transcription of the Egyptian for Min as ḫm. Since Khem was worshipped most significantly in Akhmim, the identity of Khem was reinforced. However, Akhmim is a corruption of ḫm-mnw, meaning Shrine of Min. In Hymn to Min it is said, Min, Lord of the Processions, God of the High Plumes, Son of Osiris and Isis, mins wives were Iabet and Repyt. The God Min to the End of the Old Kingdom, ISBN9780856686788 Media related to Min at Wikimedia Commons Site on Min, with some pictures
12.
Resheph
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Resheph was a deity associated with plague in ancient Canaanite religion. The originally Eblaite and Canaanite deity was adopted into ancient Egyptian religion in the late Bronze Age during the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt as a god of horses, in Biblical Hebrew, רֶשֶׁף resheph is a noun interpreted as flame, lightning but also burning fever, plague, pestilence. The name is found in the third millennium tablets from Ebla, as Rašap, listed as divinity of the cities of Atanni, Gunu, Tunip, and Shechem. Rasap was also one of the gods of the city of Ebla having one of the four city gates named in his honor. References to ršp gn have been found at Ebla and Ugarit and these have been variously interpreted as associating Resheph with the shield and protection, or the city Gunu, or gardens, or the cemetery. Ršp was an important Ugaritic deity and he had the byname of tġr špš door-warden of the Sun. Sacrifices to Ršp were performed in gardens, Ugaritic Ršp was equated with Mesopotamian Nergal. Fauth argued that ršp in the later Canaanite period no longer referred to a god and could be used as a byname. Teixidor based on an epithet ḥṣ in Kition identifies Ršp as a god who strikes his victims with arrows as Homeric Apollo. Resheph is mentioned in Ugaritic mythological texts such as the epic of Kirta and The Mare, although the iconography of Resheph shares the gazelle with that of the Egyptian-Canaanite Shed, Cornelius writes that the rest of the attributes are totally different. Resheph was adopted as a deity in Egypt under Amenhotep II during the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt as god of horses. Originally adopted into the cult, Resheph became a popular deity in the Twentieth Dynasty while disappearing from royal inscriptions. In this later period, Resheph often appears with Qetesh and Min, in this time, however, most his stelae are found in Deir el-Medina, a settlement of Syrian craftsmen. The theonym is usually written as hieroglyphic ršpw, where the final -w is added in analogy to other Egyptian divine names, in Biblical Hebrew, resheph רֶשֶׁף means flame, firebolt, derived from שָׂרַף to burn. Resheph as a name, a grandson of Ephraim, occurs in 1 Chronicles 7,25. In Habakkuk 3,5, describing the procession of Eloah from Teman and Mount Paran, mention deber and resheph as going before him, in the King James Version translated as pestilence and burning coals. Due to the discovery of both deber and resheph as theonyms in Ebla, this passage has been reinterpreted as describing a procession of the retinue of El going to war with Yam. In Job 5,7, there is mention of the sons of resheph, translated in the Septuagint as νεοσσοὶ δὲ γυπὸς the young of the vulture, Ancient Canaanite religion Religions of the ancient Near East Shed Wolfgang Helck, Die Beziehungen Ägyptens zu Vorderasien im 3
13.
Louvre
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The Louvre or the Louvre Museum is the worlds largest museum and a historic monument in Paris, France. A central landmark of the city, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the citys 1st arrondissement, approximately 38,000 objects from prehistory to the 21st century are exhibited over an area of 72,735 square metres. The Louvre is the second most visited museum after the Palace Museum in China. The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace, originally built as a fortress in the late 12th century under Philip II, remnants of the fortress are visible in the basement of the museum. Due to the expansion of the city, the fortress eventually lost its defensive function and. The building was extended many times to form the present Louvre Palace, in 1692, the building was occupied by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres and the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, which in 1699 held the first of a series of salons. The Académie remained at the Louvre for 100 years, during the French Revolution, the National Assembly decreed that the Louvre should be used as a museum to display the nations masterpieces. The museum opened on 10 August 1793 with an exhibition of 537 paintings, because of structural problems with the building, the museum was closed in 1796 until 1801. The collection was increased under Napoleon and the museum renamed Musée Napoléon, the collection was further increased during the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X, and during the Second French Empire the museum gained 20,000 pieces. Holdings have grown steadily through donations and bequests since the Third Republic, whether this was the first building on that spot is not known, it is possible that Philip modified an existing tower. According to the authoritative Grand Larousse encyclopédique, the name derives from an association with wolf hunting den, in the 7th century, St. Fare, an abbess in Meaux, left part of her Villa called Luvra situated in the region of Paris to a monastery. This territory probably did not correspond exactly to the modern site, the Louvre Palace was altered frequently throughout the Middle Ages. In the 14th century, Charles V converted the building into a residence and in 1546, Francis acquired what would become the nucleus of the Louvres holdings, his acquisitions including Leonardo da Vincis Mona Lisa. After Louis XIV chose Versailles as his residence in 1682, constructions slowed, however, on 14 October 1750, Louis XV agreed and sanctioned a display of 96 pieces from the royal collection, mounted in the Galerie royale de peinture of the Luxembourg Palace. Under Louis XVI, the museum idea became policy. The comte dAngiviller broadened the collection and in 1776 proposed conversion of the Grande Galerie of the Louvre – which contained maps – into the French Museum, many proposals were offered for the Louvres renovation into a museum, however, none was agreed on. Hence the museum remained incomplete until the French Revolution, during the French Revolution the Louvre was transformed into a public museum. In May 1791, the Assembly declared that the Louvre would be a place for bringing together monuments of all the sciences, on 10 August 1792, Louis XVI was imprisoned and the royal collection in the Louvre became national property
14.
Nymphaea caerulea
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Nymphaea caerulea, known primarily as blue lotus, but also blue water lily, and sacred blue lily, is a water lily in the genus Nymphaea. Like other species in the genus, the plant contains the psychoactive alkaloid apomorphine and it was known to the Ancient Egyptian civilizations. Its original habitat may have been along the Nile and other parts of East Africa and it spread more widely in ancient times, including to the Indian subcontinent and Thailand. The leaves are rounded, 25–40 cm across, with a notch at the leaf stem. The flowers are 10–15 cm in diameter, in fact, the flower buds rise to the surface over a period of two to three days, and when ready, open around 9,30 am and close about 3,00 pm. The flowers and buds do not rise above the water in the morning, the flowers have pale bluish-white to sky-blue or mauve petals, smoothly changing to a pale yellow in the centre of the flower. Along with the lotus, Nymphaea lotus are also native to Egypt. The plant and flower are very frequently depicted in Egyptian art, N. caerulea was considered extremely significant in Egyptian mythology, regarded as a symbol of the sun, since the flowers are closed at night and open again in the morning. At Heliopolis, the origin of the world was taught to have been when the sun god Ra emerged from a flower growing in primordial waters. At night, he was believed to retreat into the flower again. Due to its colour, it was identified, in some beliefs, as having been the original container, in a manner to an egg, of Atum. As such, its properties form the origin of the variant of the Ogdoad cosmogeny. It was the symbol of the Egyptian deity Nefertem, some evidence indicates the clinical effects of plants including N. caerulea that contain the psychoactive alkaloid apomorphine were known to both the Mayans and the Ancient Egyptians. The mildly sedating effects of N. caerulea makes it a candidate for the lotus plant eaten by the mythical Lotophagi in Homers Odyssey. This lotus has been used to produce perfumes since ancient times, N. caerulea is illegal in Latvia since November 2009. Possession of quantities up to 1 gram are fined up to 280 euros, possession of larger quantities can be punished by up to 15 years in prison. N. caerulea was banned in Poland in March 2009, possession and distribution lead to a criminal charge. N. caerulea is illegal in Russia since April 2009 along with spice and related products, Salvia divinorum, Argyreia nervosa, and others
15.
Creation myth
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A creation myth is a symbolic narrative of how the world began and how people first came to inhabit it. While in popular usage the term often refers to false or fanciful stories, formally. Cultures generally regard their creation myths as true, in the society in which it is told, a creation myth is usually regarded as conveying profound truths, metaphorically, symbolically and sometimes in a historical or literal sense. They are commonly, although not always, considered cosmogonical myths – that is, Creation myths often share a number of features. They often are considered sacred accounts and can be found in all known religious traditions. They are all stories with a plot and characters who are either deities, human-like figures, or animals and they are often set in a dim and nonspecific past that historian of religion Mircea Eliade termed in illo tempore. Creation myths develop in oral traditions and therefore typically have multiple versions, found throughout human culture, Creation myth definitions from modern references, A symbolic narrative of the beginning of the world as understood in a particular tradition and community. Creation myths are of importance for the valuation of the world, for the orientation of humans in the universe. Creation myths tell us how things began, all cultures have creation myths, they are our primary myths, the first stage in what might be called the psychic life of the species. As cultures, we identify ourselves through the collective dreams we call creation myths, … Creation myths explain in metaphorical terms our sense of who we are in the context of the world, and in so doing they reveal our real priorities, as well as our real prejudices. Our images of creation say a deal about who we are. A philosophical and theological elaboration of the myth of creation within a religious community. Religion professor Mircea Eliade defined the word myth in terms of creation, Myth narrates a history, it relates an event that took place in primordial Time. All creation myths are in one sense etiological because they attempt to explain how the world was formed, in the past historians of religion and other students of myth thought of them as forms of primitive or early-stage science or religion and analyzed them in a literal or logical sense. However they are seen as symbolic narratives which must be understood in terms of their own cultural context. Charles Long writes, The beings referred to in the myth – gods, animals, the myths should not be understood as attempts to work out a rational explanation of deity. While creation myths are not literal explications they do serve to define an orientation of humanity in the world in terms of a birth story. They are the basis of a worldview that reaffirms and guides how people relate to the world, to any assumed spiritual world
16.
Anat
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Anat or Anath is a major northwest Semitic goddess. In the Ugaritic Ba‘al/Hadad cycle ‘Anat is a violent war-goddess, a virgin who is the sister and, according to a disputed theory. Ba‘al is usually called the son of Dagan and sometimes the son of El, ‘Anats titles used again and again are virgin ‘Anat and sister-in-law of the peoples. Her character in this passage anticipates her subsequent warlike role against the enemies of Baal. the daughter of El. Later, when Ba‘al is believed to be dead, she seeks after Ba‘al like a cow for its calf and finds his body and buries it with great sacrifices and weeping. Text CTA10 tells how ‘Anat seeks after Ba‘al who is out hunting, finds him, following the birth she brings the new calf to Ba‘al on Mount Zephon. Nowhere in these texts is ‘Anat explicitly Ba‘al Hadads consort, to judge from later traditions ‘Athtart is more likely to be Ba‘al Hadads consort. Complicating matters is that northwest Semitic culture permitted more than one wife and he then added to this insult by asking what would a woman do with a bow. Like Inanna in the Epic of Gilgamesh, ‘Anat complained to El, ‘Anat launched her attendant Yatpan in hawk form against Aqhat to knock the breath out of him and to steal the bow back. Her plan succeeds, but Aqhat is killed instead of merely beaten, in her rage against Yatpan, Yatpan runs away and the bow and arrows fall into the sea. ‘Anat mourned for Aqhat and for the curse that this act would bring upon the land, the focus of the story then turns to Paghat, the wise younger sister of Aqhat. She sets off to avenge her brothers death and to restore the land which has been devastated by drought as a result of the murder. It breaks at a dramatic moment when Paghat discovers that the mercenary whom she has hired to help her avenge the death is, in fact, Yatpan. The parallels between the story of ‘Anat and her revenge on Mot for the killing of her brother are obvious, in the end, the seasonal myth is played out on the human level. Gibson thinks Rahmay, co-wife of El with Athirat, is also the goddess ‘Anat, use of dual names of deities in Ugaritic poetry are an essential part of the verse form, and that two names for the same deity are traditionally mentioned in parallel lines. In the same way, Athirat is called Elath in paired couplets, the poetic structure can also be seen in early Hebrew verse forms. Anat first appears in Egypt in the 16th dynasty along with other northwest Semitic deities and she was especially worshiped in her aspect of a war goddess, often paired with the goddess Ashtart. In the Contest Between Horus and Set, these two appear as daughters of Re and are given as allies to the god Set
17.
Astarte
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Astarte or Ashtoreth is the Hellenized form of the Middle Eastern goddess Ishtar, worshipped from the Bronze Age through classical antiquity. The name is associated with her worship in the ancient Levant among the Canaanites. She was also celebrated in Egypt following the importation of Levantine cults there, the name Astarte is sometimes also applied to her cults in Mesopotamian cultures like Assyria and Babylonia. Astarte is one of a number of associated with the chief goddess or female divinity of those peoples. She is recorded in Akkadian as As-dar-tu, the form of Ishtar. The name appears in Ugaritic as ʻAthtart or ʻAṭtart, in Phoenician as Ashtart or Aštart, the Hebrews also referred to the Ashtarot or Astartes in the plural. The Etruscan Pyrgi Tablets record the name Uni-Astre, Astarte was connected with fertility, sexuality, and war. Her symbols were the lion, the horse, the sphinx, the dove, pictorial representations often show her naked. She has been known as the deified morning and/or evening star, Astarte was worshipped in Syria and Canaan beginning in the first millennium BC and was first mentioned in texts from Ugarit. She came from the same Semitic origins as the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar, and her worship spread to Cyprus, where she may have been merged with an ancient Cypriot goddess. This merged Cypriot goddess may have been adopted into the Greek pantheon in Mycenaean, other major centers of Astartes worship were the Phoenician city states of Sidon, Tyre, and Byblos. Coins from Sidon portray a chariot in which a globe appears and she was often depicted on Sidonian coins as standing on the prow of a galley, leaning forward with right hand outstretched, being thus the original of all figureheads for sailing ships. In Sidon, she shared a temple with Eshmun, coins from Beirut show Poseidon, Astarte, and Eshmun worshipped together. Other centers were Cythera, Malta, and Eryx in Sicily from which she became known to the Romans as Venus Erycina, a bilingual inscription on the Pyrgi Tablets dating to about 500 BC found near Caere in Etruria equates Astarte with Etruscan Uni-Astre, that is, Juno. At Carthage Astarte was worshipped alongside the goddess Tanit, the Aramean goddess Atargatis may originally have been equated with Astarte, but the first element of the name Atargatis appears to be related to the Ugaritic form of Asherahs name, Athirat. In the Baʿal Epic of Ugarit, Athirat, the consort of the god El, Astarte arrived in ancient Egypt during the 18th dynasty along with other deities who were worshipped by northwest Semitic people. She was especially worshipped in her aspect as a warrior goddess, in the Contest Between Horus and Set, these two goddesses appear as daughters of Ra and are given as allies to the god Set, here identified with the Semitic name Hadad. Plutarch, in his On Isis and Osiris, indicates that the King and Queen of Byblos, in the description of the Phoenician pantheon ascribed to Sanchuniathon, Astarte appears as a daughter of Epigeius and Ge, and sister of the god Elus
18.
Asherah
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Asherah, in ancient Semitic religion, is a mother goddess who appears in a number of ancient sources. She appears in Akkadian writings by the name of Ašratu, Asherah is generally considered identical with the Ugaritic goddess ʼAṯirat. Asherah is identified as the consort of the Sumerian god Anu, and Ugaritic El, the oldest deities of their respective pantheons, as well as Yahweh. This role gave her a high rank in the Ugaritic pantheon. Despite her association with Yahweh in extra-biblical sources, Yahweh in the Bible commands the destruction of her shrines so as to maintain purity of worship to Yahweh Himself. The Book of Jeremiah, written circa 628 BC, possibly refers to Asherah when it uses the title Queen of Heaven in Jeremiah 7, 16-18 and Jeremiah 44, for a discussion of the Queen of Heaven in the Hebrew Bible, see Queen of heaven. In the Ugaritic texts Athirat is almost always given her full title rbt ʼaṯrt ym, rabat ʼAṯirat yammi and this occurs 12 times in the Baʿal Epic alone. The name is understood by various translators and commentators to be from the Ugaritic root ʼaṯr stride, cognate with the Hebrew root ʼšr, there she appears to champion Yam, in his struggle with Baal. Her other main divine epithet was qaniyatu ʾilhm which may be translated as the creatrix of the Gods. In those texts, Athirat is the consort of the god El, there is one reference to the 70 sons of Athirat and she is also called Elat and Qodesh, holiness. Athirat in Akkadian texts appears as Ashratum, the wife of Anu, among the Hittites this goddess appears as Asherdu or Asertu, the consort of Elkunirsa and mother of either 77 or 88 sons. Among the Amarna letters a King of the Amorites is named Abdi-Ashirta, in Egypt, beginning in the Eighteenth Dynasty, a Semitic goddess named Qudshu Holiness begins to appear prominently, equated with the native Egyptian goddess Hathor. Some think this is Athirat/Ashratu under her Ugaritic name, some biblical scholars believe that Asherah at one time was worshiped as the consort of Yahweh, the national God of Israel. Josiahs grandfather Manasseh had erected one of such statues, the inscriptions found invoke not only Yahweh but El and Baal, and two include the phrases Yahweh of Samaria and his Asherah and Yahweh of Teman and his Asherah. The Asherah is most likely a cultic object, although the relationship of this object to Yahweh and to the goddess Asherah, in another inscription called Yahweh and his Asherah, there appears a cow feeding its calf. If Asherah is to be associated with Hathor/Qudshu, it can then be assumed that the cow is whats being referred to as Asherah, william Devers book Did God Have a Wife. The word Asherah is translated in Greek as alsos, grove, or alse, groves, or occasionally by dendra, trees, Vulgate in Latin provided lucus or nemus, the association of Asherah with trees in the Hebrew Bible is very strong. For example, she is found under trees and is made of wood by human beings, trees described as being an asherah or part of an asherah include grapevines, pomegranates, walnuts, myrtles, and willows
19.
Mycenae
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Mycenae is an archaeological site in Greece, located about 90 kilometres southwest of Athens, in the north-eastern Peloponnese. Argos is 11 kilometres to the south, Corinth,48 kilometres to the north, from the hill on which the palace was located, one can see across the Argolid to the Saronic Gulf. In the second millennium BC, Mycenae was one of the centres of Greek civilization. The period of Greek history from about 1600 BC to about 1100 BC is called Mycenaean in reference to Mycenae, at its peak in 1350 BC, the citadel and lower town had a population of 30,000 and an area of 32 hectares. Although the citadel was built by Greeks, the name Mukanai is thought not to be Greek, legend has it that the name was connected to the Greek word mycēs. Thus, Pausanias ascribes the name to the legendary founder Perseus, the earliest written form of the name is Mykēnē, which is found in Homer. The reconstructed Mycenaean Greek name of the site is Mukānai, which has the form of a plural like Athānai, the change of ā to ē in more recent versions of the name is the result of a well-known sound change in later Attic-Ionic. An EH–MH settlement was discovered near a well on top of the Kalkani hill southwest of the acropolis. The first burials in pits or cist graves manifest in the MH period on the west slope of the acropolis, during the Bronze Age, the pattern of settlement at Mycenae was a fortified hill surrounded by hamlets and estates, in contrast to the dense urbanity on the coast. Richer grave goods mark the burials as possibly regal, mounds over the top contained broken drinking vessels and bones from a repast, testifying to a more than ordinary farewell. A walled enclosure, Grave Circle A, included six more shaft graves, with nine female, eight male, Grave goods were more costly than in Circle B. The presence of engraved and inlaid swords and daggers, with points and arrowheads, leave little doubt that warrior chieftains. Some art objects obtained from the graves are the Silver Siege Rhyton, the Mask of Agamemnon, the Cup of Nestor, Alan Wace divided the nine tholos tombs of Mycenae into three groups of three, each based on architecture. His earliest – the Cyclopean Tomb, Epano Phournos, and the Tomb of Aegisthus – are dated to LHIIA, burial in tholoi is seen as replacing burial in shaft graves. The care taken to preserve the shaft graves testifies that they were by then part of the royal heritage, being more visible, the tholoi all had been plundered either in antiquity, or in later historic times. Within these walls, much of which can still be seen, the final palace, remains of which are currently visible on the acropolis of Mycenae, dates to the start of LHIIIA,2. Earlier palaces must have existed, but they had cleared away or built over. The construction of palaces at that time with an architecture was general throughout southern Greece
20.
Minoan civilization
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The Minoan civilization was an Aegean Bronze Age civilization on the island of Crete and other Aegean islands which flourished from about 2600 to 1100 BC. It preceded the Mycenaean civilization of Ancient Greece, the civilization was rediscovered at the beginning of the 20th century through the work of British archaeologist Arthur Evans. It has been described as the earliest of its kind in Europe, the term Minoan, which refers to the mythical King Minos, originally described the pottery of the period. Minos was associated in Greek mythology with the labyrinth and the Minotaur, according to Homer, Crete once had 90 cities. The Minoan period saw trade between Crete and Aegean and Mediterranean settlements, particularly the Near East, traders and artists, the Minoan cultural influence reached beyond Crete to the Cyclades, Egypts Old Kingdom, copper-bearing Cyprus, Canaan and the Levantine coast, and Anatolia. Some of its best art is preserved in the city of Akrotiri on the island of Santorini, although the Minoan language and writing systems remain undecipherable and are subjects of academic dispute, they apparently conveyed a language entirely different from the later Greek. The reason for the end of the Minoan period is unclear, theories include Mycenaean invasions from mainland Greece, the term Minoan refers to the mythical King Minos of Knossos. Its origin is debated, but it is attributed to archeologist Arthur Evans. Minos was associated in Greek mythology with the labyrinth, which Evans identified with the site at Knossos. However, Karl Hoeck had already used the title Das Minoische Kreta in 1825 for volume two of his Kreta, this appears to be the first known use of the word Minoan to mean ancient Cretan, Evans said that applied it, not invented it. Hoeck, with no idea that the archaeological Crete had existed, had in mind the Crete of mythology, although Evans 1931 claim that the term was unminted before he used it was called a brazen suggestion by Karadimas and Momigliano, he coined its archaeological meaning. Instead of dating the Minoan period, archaeologists use two systems of relative chronology, the first, created by Evans and modified by later archaeologists, is based on pottery styles and imported Egyptian artifacts. Evans system divides the Minoan period into three eras, early, middle and late. These eras are subdivided—for example, Early Minoan I, II and III, another dating system, proposed by Greek archaeologist Nicolas Platon, is based on the development of architectural complexes known as palaces at Knossos, Phaistos, Malia and Kato Zakros. Platon divides the Minoan period into pre-, proto-, neo-, the relationship between the systems in the table includes approximate calendar dates from Warren and Hankey. The Thera eruption occurred during a phase of the LM IA period. Efforts to establish the volcanic eruptions date have been controversial, the eruption is identified as a natural event catastrophic for the culture, leading to its rapid collapse. Although stone-tool evidence exists that hominins may have reached Crete as early as 130,000 years ago, evidence for the first anatomically-modern human presence dates to 10, the oldest evidence of modern human habitation on Crete are pre-ceramic Neolithic farming-community remains which date to about 7000 BC
21.
Crete
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Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, 88th-largest island in the world and the fifth-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and Corsica. Crete and a number of surrounding islands and islets constitute the region of Crete, the capital and the largest city is Heraklion. As of 2011, the region had a population of 623,065, Crete forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece, while retaining its own local cultural traits. It was once the centre of the Minoan civilization, which is regarded as the earliest recorded civilization in Europe. The island is first referred to as Kaptara in texts from the Syrian city of Mari dating from the 18th century BC, repeated later in Neo-Assyrian records and it was also known in ancient Egyptian as Keftiu, strongly suggesting a similar Minoan name for the island. The current name of Crete is thought to be first attested in Mycenaean Greek texts written in Linear B, through the words
22.
Kassites
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The Kassites were a people of the ancient Near East, who controlled Babylonia after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire c.1531 BC and until c.1155 BC. The endonym of the Kassites was probably Galzu, although they have also referred to by the names Kaššu. They gained control of Babylonia after the Hittite sack of the city in 1595 BC, the horse, which the Kassites worshipped, first came into use in Babylonia at this time. The Kassite language has not been classified, however, several Kassite leaders bore Indo-European names, and they might have had an Indo-European elite similar to the Mitanni, who ruled over the Hurro-Urartian-speaking Hurrians of Asia Minor. The original homeland of the Kassites is not well known, but appears to have located in the Zagros Mountains. However the Kassites were – like the Elamites, Gutians and Manneans who preceded them – linguistically unrelated to the Iranian-speaking peoples who came to dominate the region a millennium later. They first appeared in the annals of history in the 18th century BC when they attacked Babylonia in the 9th year of the reign of Samsu-iluna, the son of Hammurabi. The Hittites had carried off the idol of the god Marduk, but the Kassite rulers regained possession, returned Marduk to Babylon, the circumstances of their rise to power are unknown, due to a lack of documentation from this so-called Dark Age period of widespread dislocation. No inscription or document in the Kassite language has been preserved, Babylon under Kassite rulers, who renamed the city Karanduniash, re-emerged as a political and military power in Mesopotamia. A newly built capital city Dur-Kurigalzu was named in honour of Kurigalzu I and their success was built upon the relative political stability that the Kassite monarchs achieved. They ruled Babylonia practically without interruption for almost four hundred years— the longest rule by any dynasty in Babylonian history, Kassite kings established trade and diplomacy with Assyria. Egypt, Elam, and the Hittites, and the Kassite royal house intermarried with their royal families, There were foreign merchants in Babylon and other cities, and Babylonian merchants were active from Egypt to Assyria and Anatolia. A further treaty between Kurigalzu I and Ashur-bel-nisheshu of Assyria was agreed in the mid 15th century, Babylon was sacked by the Assyrian king Ashur-uballit I ) in the 1360s after the Kassite king in Babylon who was married to the daughter of Ashur-uballit was murdered. Ashur-uballit promptly marched into Babylonia and avenged his son-in-law, deposing the king and installing Kurigalzu II of the royal Kassite line as king there and his successor Enlil-nirari also attacked Babylonia and his great grandson Adad-nirari I annexed Babylonian territory when he became king. Tukulti-Ninurta I not content with merely dominating Babylonia went further, conquering Babylonia, deposing Kashtiliash IV, the Kassite kings maintained control of their realm through a network of provinces administered by governors. Almost equal with the cities of Babylon and Dur-Kurigalzu, the revived city of Nippur was the most important provincial center. Nippur, the great city, which had been virtually abandoned c.1730 BC, was rebuilt in the Kassite period. In fact, under the Kassite government, the governor of Nippur, the prestige of Nippur was enough for a series of 13th century BC Kassite kings to reassume the title governor of Nippur for themselves
23.
Lothal
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Lothal is one of the most prominent cities of the ancient Indus valley civilisation, located in the Bhāl region of the modern state of Gujarāt and dating from 3700 BCE. Discovered in 1954, Lothal was excavated from 13 February 1955 to 19 May 1960 by the Archaeological Survey of India, the official Indian government agency for the preservation of ancient monuments. It was a vital and thriving trade centre in ancient times, with its trade of beads, gems and valuable ornaments reaching the far corners of West Asia, the techniques and tools they pioneered for bead-making and in metallurgy have stood the test of time for over 4000 years. Lothal is situated near the village of Saragwala in the Dholka Taluka of Ahmedabad district and it is six kilometres south-east of the Lothal-Bhurkhi railway station on the Ahmedabad-Bhavnagar railway line. It is also connected by roads to the cities of Ahmedabad, Bhavnagar, Rajkot. The nearest cities are Dholka and Bagodara, the findings consist of a mound, a township, a marketplace, and the dock. Adjacent to the excavated areas stands the Archaeological Museum, where some of the most prominent collections of Indus-era antiquities in India are displayed, when British India was partitioned in 1947, most Indus sites, including Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, became part of Pakistan. The Archaeological Survey of India undertook a new program of exploration, many sites were discovered across northwestern India. Lothal stands 670 kilometers from Mohenjo-daro, which is in Sindh, the meaning of Lothal in Gujarati to be the mound of the dead is not unusual, as the name of the city of Mohenjo-daro in Sindhi means the same. People in villages neighbouring to Lothal had known of the presence of an ancient town, as recently as 1850, boats could sail up to the mound. In 1942, timber was shipped from Broach to Saragwala via the mound, a silted creek connecting modern Bholad with Lothal and Saragwala represents the ancient flow channel of a river or creek. Speculation suggests that owing to the small dimensions of the main city, Lothal was not a large settlement at all. However, the ASI and other contemporary archaeologists assert that the city was a part of a river system on the trade route of the ancient peoples from Sindh to Saurashtra in Gujarat. Lothal provides with the largest collection of antiquities in the archaeology of modern India and it is essentially a single culture site—the Harappan culture in all its variances is evidenced. An indigenous micaceous Red Ware culture also existed, which is believed to be autochthonous, two sub-periods of Harappan culture are distinguished, the same period is identical to the exuberant culture of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro. After the core of the Indus civilisation had decayed in Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, Lothal seems not only to have survived and its constant threats - tropical storms and floods - caused immense destruction, which destabilised the culture and ultimately caused its end. Topographical analysis also shows signs that at about the time of its demise, thus the cause for the abandonment of the city may have been changes in the climate as well as natural disasters, as suggested by environmental magnetic records. Lothal is based upon a mound that was a salt marsh inundated by tide, small channel widths when compared to the lower reaches suggest the presence of a strong tidal influence upon the city—tidal waters ingressed up to and beyond the city
24.
Dilmun
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Dilmun, or Telmun, was an ancient Semitic-speaking country mentioned throughout the history of Mesopotamia from the 3rd millennium BC onwards. It is regarded as one of the oldest civilizations in the Middle East, based on textual evidence, it is located in the Persian Gulf on a trade route between Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley Civilisation, close to the sea and to artesian springs. Dilmun was an important trading centre, at the height of its power, it controlled the Persian Gulf trading routes. According to some theories, the Sumerians regarded Dilmun as a sacred place. Dilmun was mentioned by the Mesopotamians as a partner, a source of copper. The scholarly consensus is that Dilmun encompassed Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and this area is certainly what is meant by references to Dilmun among the lands conquered by King Sargon of Akkad and his descendants. It is often stated that the Sumerians described Dilmun as a garden paradise in the Epic of Gilgamesh. The Sumerian tale of the paradise of Dilmun may have been an inspiration for the Garden of Eden story. However, that is modern speculation since the home of Utnapishtim is never indicated as Dilmun. Dilmun was an important trading center from the fourth millennium to 800 BC. At the height of its power, Dilmun controlled the Persian Gulf trading routes, Dilmun was very prosperous during the first 300 years of the second millennium. Dilmuns commercial power began to decline between 1000 BC and 800 BC because piracy flourished in the Persian Gulf, in 600 BC, the Neo-Babylonian Empire, and later the Persian Empire, ruled Dilmun. The Dilmun civilization is mentioned first in Sumerian cuneiform clay tablets dated to the third millennium BC, found in the temple of goddess Inanna. The adjective Dilmun is used to describe a type of axe and one specific official, one of the earliest inscriptions mentioning Dilmun is that of king Ur-Nanshe of Lagash found in a door-socket, The ships of Dilmun brought him wood as tribute from foreign lands. Dilmun was mentioned in two letters dated to the reign of Burna-Buriash II recovered from Nippur, during the Kassite dynasty of Babylon and these letters were from a provincial official, Ilī-ippašra, in Dilmun to his friend Enlil-kidinni, the governor of Nippur. The names referred to are Akkadian and these letters and other documents, hint at an administrative relationship between Dilmun and Babylon at that time. Assyrian inscriptions recorded tribute from Dilmun, there are other Assyrian inscriptions during the first millennium BC indicating Assyrian sovereignty over Dilmun. One of the sites discovered in Bahrain suggests that Sennacherib, king of Assyria, attacked northeast Arabia
25.
Mother goddess
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A mother goddess is a goddess who represents, or is a personification of nature, motherhood, fertility, creation, destruction or who embodies the bounty of the Earth. When equated with the Earth or the world, such goddesses are sometimes referred to as Mother Earth or as the Earth Mother. Many different goddesses have represented motherhood in one way or another, others have represented the fertility of the earth. Several small, voluptuous figures have been found during excavations of the Upper Paleolithic. This sculpture is estimated to have been carved 35,000 years ago, some archaeologists believe they were intended to represent goddesses, while others believe that they could have served some other purpose. The Paleolithic period extends from 2.5 million years ago to the introduction of agriculture around 10,000 BCE, archaeological evidence indicates that humans migrated to the Western Hemisphere before the end of the Paleolithic, so cultures around the world share its characteristics. It is the prehistoric era distinguished by the development of stone tools, regional differences in the development of this stage of tool development are quite varied. During this time, native cultures appear in the Western Hemisphere, regular seasonal occupation or permanent settlements begin to be seen in excavations. Herding and keeping of cattle, goats, sheep, and pigs is evidenced along with the presence of dogs, almost without exception, images of what Marija Gimbutas interpreted as mother goddesses have been discovered in all of these cultures. Numerous female figurines from Neolithic Çatalhöyük in Anatolia have been interpreted as evidence of a mother-goddess cult, james Mellaart, who led excavation at the site in the 1960s, suggests that the figures represent a Great goddess, who headed the pantheon of an essentially matriarchal culture. A seated female figure, flanked by what Mellaart describes as lionesses, was found in a grain-bin, she may have intended to protect the harvest and grain. The seated or enthroned goddess-like figure flanked by lionesses, has suggested as a prototype Cybele. They also left behind many ceramic remains of pottery and clay figurines, some of these figurines appear to represent the mother goddess. Malta has some of the oldest buildings in the world, and has many fertility figures or pieces of fertility figures throughout the temples, the most famous is the Sleeping Lady, recovered from the Hypogeum of Ħal-Saflieni, and held in the National Museum of Archaeology, Malta. Similarly, mother goddess figurines are found in the contemporaneous Ozieri culture of Sardinia. James Frazer and others advance the idea that worship in ancient Europe. According to Gimbutas Kurgan Hypothesis, Old European cultures were disrupted by expansion of Indo-European speakers from modern-day Ukraine, in 1968 the archaeologist Peter Ucko proposed that the many images found in graves and archaeological sites of Neolithic cultures were toys. The graves he was describing dated from Predynastic Egypt and Neolithic Crete, Mother goddesses are present in the earliest images discovered among the archaeological finds in Ancient Egypt
26.
Canaan
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Canaan was a Semitic-speaking region in the Ancient Near East during the late 2nd millennium BC. The name Canaan occurs commonly in the Hebrew Bible, in particular, the references in Genesis 10 and Numbers 34 define the Land of Canaan as extending from Lebanon southward to the Brook of Egypt and eastward to the Jordan River Valley. References to Canaan in the Bible are usually backward-looking, referring to a region that had something else. The term Canaanites serves as an ethnic catch-all term covering various indigenous populations—both settled, the Amarna Letters and other cuneiform documents use Kinaḫḫu, while other sources of the Egyptian New Kingdom mention numerous military campaigns conducted in Ka-na-na. Canaan had significant geopolitical importance in the Late Bronze Age Amarna period as the area where the spheres of interest of the Egyptian, Hittite, Mitanni and Assyrian Empires converged. Much of the knowledge about Canaan stems from archaeological excavation in this area at sites such as Tel Hazor, Tel Megiddo. The English term Canaan comes from the Hebrew כנען, via Greek Χαναάν Khanaan and it appears as KUR ki-na-ah-na in the Amarna letters, and knʿn is found on coins from Phoenicia in the last half of the 1st millennium. It first occurs in Greek in the writings of Hecataeus as Khna, scholars connect the name Canaan with knʿn, Kanaan, the general Northwest Semitic name for this region. An early explanation derives the term from the Semitic root knʿ to be low, humble, purple cloth became a renowned Canaanite export commodity which is mentioned in Exodus. The dyes may have named after their place of origin. The purple cloth of Tyre in Phoenicia was well known far, however, according to Robert Drews, Speisers proposal has generally been abandoned. The Late Bronze Age state of Ugarit is considered quintessentially Canaanite archaeologically, Jonathan Tubb states that the term ga-na-na may provide a third millennium reference to Canaanite while at the same time stating that the first certain reference is in the 18th century BC. See Ebla-Biblical controversy for further details, Mari letters A letter from Mutu-bisir to Shamshi-Adad I of the Old Assyrian Empire has been translated, It is in Rahisum that the brigands and the Canaanites are situated. It was found in 1973 in the ruins of Mari, an Assyrian outpost at that time in Syria, additional unpublished references to Kinahnum in the Mari letters refer to the same episode. Alalakh texts A reference to Ammiya being in the land of Canaan is found on the Statue of Idrimi from Alalakh in modern Syria. After a popular uprising against his rule, Idrimi was forced into exile with his mothers relatives to seek refuge in the land of Canaan, the other references in the Alalakh texts are, AT154 AT181, A list of Apiru people with their origins. All are towns, except for Canaan AT188, A list of Muskenu people with their origins, the letters are written in the official and diplomatic East Semitic Akkadian language of Assyria and Babylonia, though Canaanitish words and idioms are also in evidence. May the king ask Yanhamu about these matters, may the king ask his commissioner, who is familiar with Canaan EA151, Letter from Abimilku to the Pharaoh, The king, my lord wrote to me, write to me what you have heard from Canaan
27.
Ptah
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In Egyptian mythology, Ptah is the demiurge of Memphis, god of craftsmen and architects. In the triad of Memphis, he is the spouse of Sekhmet and he was also regarded as the father of the sage Imhotep. Ptah is the Creator god par excellence, He is considered the demiurge who existed before all other things, and by his willfulness, thought the world. It was first conceived by Thought, and realized by the Word, Ptah conceives the world by the thought of his heart and that which Ptah commanded was created, with which the constituents of nature, fauna, and flora, are contained. He also plays a role in the preservation of the world and this document has been known as the Memphite Theology, and shows the god Ptah, the god responsible for the creation of the universe by thought and by the word. Ptah is the patron of craftsmanship, metalworking, carpenters, shipbuilders, from the Middle Kingdom onwards, he was one of five major Egyptian gods with Ra, Isis, Osiris and Amun. He is sometimes represented as a dwarf, naked and deformed, frequently associated with the god Bes, his worship then exceeded the borders of the country and was exported throughout the eastern Mediterranean. Thanks to the Phoenicians, we find figures of Ptah in Carthage, from the Old Kingdom, he quickly absorbs the appearance of Sokar and Tatenen, ancient deities of the Memphite region. His form of Sokar is found contained in its white shroud wearing the Atef crown, in this capacity, he represents the god of the necropolis of Saqqara and other famous sites where the royal pyramids were built. Gradually he formed with Osiris a new deity called Ptah-Sokar-Osiris, statuettes representing the human form, half-human, half-hawk, or simply in its falcon form will be systematically placed in tombs to accompany and protect the dead on their journey to the West. His Tatenen form is represented by a young and vigorous man wearing a crown with two tall plumes that surround the solar disk and he thus embodies the underground fire that rumbles and raises the earth. As such, he was revered by metalworkers and blacksmiths. In this form also, Ptah is the master of ceremonies for Heb Sed, in the holy of holies of his temple in Memphis, as well as in his great sacred boat, he drove in procession to regularly visit the region during major holidays. Ptah was also symbolized by two birds with human heads adorned with solar disks, symbols of the souls of the god Re, the two Ba are also identified as the twin gods Shu and Tefnut and are associated with the djed pillar of Memphis. Finally, Ptah is embodied in the bull, Apis. Frequently referred to as a herald of Re, the animal is the link with the god Re from the New Kingdom. He even received worship in Memphis, probably at the heart of the temple of Ptah. As god of craftsmen, the cult of the god Ptah quickly spread throughout Egypt, for this reason, the oratory of Ptah who listens to prayers was built near the site of Deir el-Medina, the village where the workers and craftsmen were confined
28.
Eye of Ra
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The Eye of Ra or Eye of Re is a being in ancient Egyptian mythology that functions as a feminine counterpart to the sun god Ra and a violent force that subdues his enemies. The Eye goddess acts as mother, sibling, consort, and she is his partner in the creative cycle in which he begets the renewed form of himself that is born at dawn. The Eyes violent aspect defends Ra against the agents of disorder that threaten his rule and this dangerous aspect of the Eye goddess is often represented by a lioness or by the uraeus, or cobra, a symbol of protection and royal authority. The Eye of Ra is similar to the Eye of Horus, which belongs to a different god, Horus, but represents many of the same concepts. The disastrous effects when the Eye goddess rampages out of control, the Eye of Ra was involved in many areas of ancient Egyptian religion, including in the cults of the many goddesses who are equated with it. Its life-giving power was celebrated in temple rituals, and its dangerous aspect was invoked in the protection of the pharaoh, of sacred places, the Egyptians often referred to the sun and the moon as the eyes of particular gods. The right eye of the god Horus, for instance, was equated with the sun, however, in Egyptian belief, many terms and concepts are fluid, so the sun could also be called the Eye of Horus. The yellow or red disk-like sun emblem in Egyptian art represents the Eye of Ra, because of the great importance of the sun in Egyptian religion, this emblem is among the most common religious symbols in all of Egyptian art. Although Egyptologists usually call this emblem the sun disk, its shape in Egyptian relief sculpture suggests that the Egyptians may have envisioned it as a sphere. The emblem often appears atop the heads of solar-associated deities, including Ra himself, the disk could even be regarded as Ras physical form. At other times, the sun god, in forms, is depicted inside the disk shape as if enclosed within it. The disk is often called Ras daughter in Egyptian texts, as the sun, the Eye of Ra is a source of heat and light, and it is associated with fire and flames. It is also equated with the red light that appears before sunrise, the presence of the feminine suffix -t in jrt may explain why these independent eyes were thought of as female. The Eye of Ra, in particular, is involved in the sun gods creative actions. In Egyptian mythology, the emergence from the horizon each morning is likened to Ras birth, an event that revitalizes him. Ra emerges from the body of a goddess who represents the sky—usually Nut, depictions of the rising sun often show Ra as a child contained within the solar disk. In this context, the Egyptologist Lana Troy suggests, the disk may represent the womb from which he is born or the placenta that emerges with him. The Eye of Ra can also take the form of a goddess, Ra was sometimes said to enter the body of the sky goddess at sunset, impregnating her and setting the stage for his rebirth at sunrise
29.
Goa'uld
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The Goauld are a symbiotic race of ancient astronauts from the American-Canadian military science fiction television franchise Stargate. The Goauld are parasites from the planet P3X-888, integrated within a host, most of the time a human, the resulting creatures are a powerful race bent on galactic conquest and domination, largely without pity, compassion or remorse. In the first eight seasons of Stargate SG-1, they are the greatest extraterrestrial threat to Earth known to the Stargate Command. The Goauld are the enemies of SG-1 for most of the show. They also appear in the Stargate Atlantis episode Critical Mass, and in the DVD movie Stargate and they are pejoratively called snakes or snakeheads by Jack ONeill. The Goauld were created by writers Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich for the 1994 movie, although the alien race in the film was never named, the pilot episode Children of the Gods established that the alien race seen in the movie are the Goauld. In the series, it is confirmed that they are a race that uses hosts to survive. They were the dominant species in our galaxy, the pharaoh mask in the opening credits was made out of fiber glass and was modeled in the workshop. The sequence was filmed with a camera to give a better depth of field. The Jaffa look in the series was copied from the Egyptian look of Ra from the film, the look of the Goauld, such as Apophis, was initially based on Ra in the feature film. Since the eighth season of Stargate SG-1 was intended to be the last, the producers had finished it with the defeat of the Goauld, however, when the Sci Fi Channel renewed the series, the producers had grown tired of writing endings. Having had good experiences with the first season of Stargate Atlantis, thus they considered the beginning of Season 9 as the pilot of a new show and replaced the Goauld with the Ori as the main villains. The Goauld still appeared in the show, but on a basis under the command of Baal. The astronomers David J. Tholen and Roy A. Tucker enjoyed the SG-1 arch villain Apophis so much that they named their discovered near-Earth asteroid 99942 Apophis, in the Stargate universe, the word Goauld means god. The Goauld evolved on the planet P3X-888, where there are populations of primitive Goauld. Their original hosts were the Unas, also native to the planet, the Goauld largely abandoned P3X-888 after deciphering the Stargate, spreading throughout the galaxy and conquering other races. The Goauld ruled Earth for thousands of years, in the personae of gods from Earths classical religions and it is never clarified, however, whether the Goauld impersonate deities that already existed in human mythology or if they themselves were the origin of those deities. From the humans, the Goauld engineered the Jaffa, who serve as soldiers and incubators for their young and they also transplanted significant numbers of humans from Earth throughout the galaxy via the Stargate network to serve as slaves and potential hosts
30.
Vala Mal Doran
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Played by former Farscape actress Claudia Black, Vala was created by Damian Kindler and Robert C. Cooper as a guest character for the season 8 episode Prometheus Unbound. Prometheus Unbound introduces Vala as a sexy and mischievous human with a Goauld background from an unnamed planet, in season 9, Vala and Daniel set off the arc of the shows new villain race, the Ori. After giving birth to the Oris new leader in season 10, Vala joins the SG-1 team to stop the enemy, Claudia Black resumed her role in the 2008 direct-to-DVD film Stargate, The Ark of Truth, which finishes the Ori arc. Black also appeared as Vala and her Goauld alter ego Qetesh in the 2008 film Stargate and she was, however, not supposed to be returning for the announced third Stargate SG-1 direct-to-DVD film that was scheduled to be filmed in spring 2009, but abandoned since then. Information about Valas past is revealed over the course of several episodes of seasons 8 through 10 of Stargate SG-1, Family Ties gives insight into Valas background with her father Jacek, a con artist who had left her and her mother to pursue his scams. As mentioned in Flesh and Blood, Vala also had a stepmother named Adria, Vala became an involuntary host to a Goauld named Qetesh in her adult life, but the Tokra were able to remove the symbiote. At the time of Valas first encounter with SG-1 team member Daniel Jackson in the season 8 episode Prometheus Unbound, she has become a thief and a con artist. She attempts to steal the Earth ship Prometheus for her own purposes, in the season 9 opener Avalon, Vala seeks out Daniel at Stargate Command. Needing his linguistic skills, she uses a Kor mak bracelet to bind them together for a hunt on Earth. After Valas and Daniels safe return to Earth, the removed bracelets cause temporary after-effects that prolong Valas stay at Stargate Command, in an attempt to stop the Ori from invading the galaxy in Beachhead, Vala goes missing and appears to have died. Vala re-appears in the late season 9 episode Crusade and informs SG-1 via the device that she is in the Ori galaxy. The Ori have impregnated her against her will many months before, when Vala tells SG-1 about the Ori army approaching, the communication link is severed. Vala is last seen onboard one of the invading Ori battlecruisers in the scene of the season 9 finale Camelot when she goes into labor. Season 10 opens with Vala giving birth to a female, the Ori call the rapidly growing child Orici, but Vala gives her the name Adria after her stepmother. Attempts to turn the child away from the Ori remain unsuccessful, having escaped the Ori, Vala is allowed sanctuary at Stargate Command and joins SG-1 on several missions, during one of which she comes face-to-face with her fully-grown daughter. Valas provisionary acceptance on Earth is only lifted in the episode of the season, Memento Mori. Vala meets Tomin again in Line in the Sand and tells him the story behind the Ancients. A final showdown in the series between Vala and Adria occurs in Dominion, which leaves Vala with the loss of her daughter
31.
Stargate SG-1
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Stargate SG-1 is an adventure and military science fiction television series and part of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayers Stargate franchise. The show, created by Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner, is based on the 1994 science fiction film Stargate by Dean Devlin, the television series was filmed in and around the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The series premiered on Showtime on July 27,1997 and moved to the Sci Fi Channel on June 7,2002, the series draws primarily upon Egyptian mythology, Greek mythology, Norse mythology and Arthurian legend. The series was a success for its first-run broadcasters and in syndication and was particularly popular in Europe. Stargate SG-1 was honored with awards and award nominations in its ten-season run. Merchandise for Stargate SG-1 includes games and toys, print media, the plot of Stargate SG-1 picks up a year after the conclusion of the events recounted in the original feature film. It follows the adventures of SG-1, a military team from Earth. The Ori, a faction of the race as the Ancients who instead use their powers to subjugate other species by religious indoctrination. The SGC is brought back into action when the Stargate is revealed to be part of a network connecting countless planets. SG teams are created to help defend Earth against the Goauld, another alien threat arises in the season 3 finale in the form of sentient machines called Replicators. Meanwhile, rogue agents of an intelligence agency on Earth. Despite Apophiss death in the beginning of season 5, the Goauld Empire remains a major foe in Stargate SG-1 until the end of season 8. The only influential Goauld in the last two seasons of Stargate SG-1 is the System Lord Baal, who is defeated in the direct-to-DVD film Stargate, Continuum. After Apophiss defeat in the season 5 premiere, the half-Ascended Goauld System Lord Anubis assumes the role of the primary antagonist of the show and this new villain possesses much of the knowledge of the Ancients and their technology. In the season 7 finale, SG-1 discovers a powerful weapon in an Ancient outpost in Antarctica that annihilates Anubiss entire fleet and also sets the stage for the spin-off series Stargate Atlantis. Baal subsumes much of Anubiss power in season 8, while Anubis, human-form Replicators begin to conquer the System Lords, but SG-1 finds and adjusts an Ancient weapon to destroy all Replicators throughout the galaxy. Near the end of season 8, it is revealed that the benevolent Ascended being Oma Desala is responsible for Anubiss original ascension. At the end of season 9, the Ori begin an evangelistic crusade with their warships and effortlessly wipe out the fleet of Earth
32.
Battle of Kadesh
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The battle is generally dated to 1274 BC in the conventional Egyptian chronology, and is the earliest battle in recorded history for which details of tactics and formations are known. It is believed to have been the largest chariot battle ever fought, as a result of the multiple Kadesh inscriptions, it is the best documented battle in all of ancient history. After expelling the Hyksos 15th dynasty around 1550 BC, the native Egyptian New Kingdom rulers became more aggressive in reclaiming control of their states borders. Thutmose I, Thutmose III and his son and coregent Amenhotep II fought battles from Megiddo north to the Orontes River, many of the Egyptian campaign accounts between c.1400 and 1300 BC reflect the general destabilization of the region of the Djahi. The reigns of Thutmose IV and Amenhotep III were undistinguished, except that Egypt continued to lose territory to Mitanni in northern Syria, during the late Egyptian 18th dynasty, the Amarna Letters tell the story of the decline of Egyptian influence in the region. The Egyptians showed flagging interest here until almost the end of the dynasty, horemheb, the last ruler of this dynasty, campaigned in this region, finally beginning to turn Egyptian interest back to this region. This process continued in the 19th Dynasty, like his father Ramesses I, Seti I was a military commander and set out to restore Egypts empire to the days of the Tuthmosis kings almost a century before. Inscriptions on Karnak temple walls record the details of his campaigns into Canaan and he took 20,000 men and reoccupied abandoned Egyptian posts and garrisoned cities. He made a peace with the Hittites, took control of coastal areas along the Mediterranean. A second campaign led to his capture of Kadesh and Amurru and his son and heir Ramesses II campaigned with him. There are historical records that record a large weapons order by Ramesses II in the prior to the expedition he led to Kadesh in his fifth regnal year. However, at point, both regions may have lapsed back into Hittite control. What exactly happened to Amurru is disputed, the Hittitologist Trevor Bryce suggests that, although it may have fallen once again under Hittite control, it is more likely Amurru remained a Hittite vassal state. The immediate antecedents to the Battle of Kadesh were the campaigns of Ramesses II into Canaan. In the fourth year of his reign, he marched north into Syria, either to recapture Amurru or, as an effort, to confirm his vassals loyalty. The recovery of Amurru was Muwatallis stated motivation for marching south to confront the Egyptians, Ramesses marched north in the fifth year of his reign and encountered the Hittites at Kadesh. Ramesses army crossed the Egyptian border in the spring of year five of his reign and, after a months march, in the spring of the fifth year of his reign, in May 1274 BC, Ramesses II launched his campaign from his capital Pi-Ramesses. The army moved beyond the fortress of Tjel and along the coast leading to Gaza, Ramesses led an army of four divisions, Amun, Re, Seth and the apparently newly formed Ptah division
33.
Cybele
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Cybele is an Anatolian mother goddess, she may have a possible precursor in the earliest neolithic at Çatalhöyük, where statues of obese women, sometimes sitting, have been found in excavations. She is Phrygias only known goddess, and was probably its state deity and her Phrygian cult was adopted and adapted by Greek colonists of Asia Minor and spread to mainland Greece and its more distant western colonies around the 6th century BC. In Greece, Cybele met with a mixed reception and she was partially assimilated to aspects of the Earth-goddess Gaia, her Minoan equivalent Rhea, and the Harvest-Mother goddess Demeter. Uniquely in Greek religion, she had a eunuch mendicant priesthood, many of her Greek cults included rites to a divine Phrygian castrate shepherd-consort Attis, who was probably a Greek invention. In Greece, Cybele is associated with mountains, town and city walls, fertile nature, in Rome, Cybele was known as Magna Mater. The Roman State adopted and developed a form of her cult after the Sibylline oracle recommended her conscription as a key religious component in Romes second war against Carthage. Roman mythographers reinvented her as a Trojan goddess, and thus an ancestral goddess of the Roman people by way of the Trojan prince Aeneas, with Romes eventual hegemony over the Mediterranean world, Romanised forms of Cybeles cults spread throughout the Roman Empire. The meaning and morality of her cults and priesthoods were topics of debate and dispute in Greek and Roman literature, no contemporary text or myth survives to attest the original character and nature of Cybeles Phrygian cult. Cybele may have evolved from an Anatolian Mother Goddess of a type found at Çatalhöyük, in Phrygian art of the 8th century BC, the cult attributes of the Phrygian mother-goddess include attendant lions, a bird of prey, and a small vase for her libations or other offerings. She is ancient Phrygias only known goddess, and was probably the highest deity of the Phrygian State, in the 2nd century AD, the geographer Pausanias attests to a Magnesian cult to the Mother of the Gods, whose image was carved into a rock-spur of Mount Sipylus. This was believed to be the oldest image of the goddess and this was the aniconic stone that was removed to Rome in 204 BC. In this view, the desire to harness her power led to her installation as a goddess of the city by Anatolian elites. To show her role as protector of cities, or city states, she was shown wearing a Mural Crown. At the same time, her power transcended any purely political usage, over time, her Phrygian cults and iconography were transformed, and eventually subsumed, by the influences and interpretations of her foreign devotees, at first Greek and later Roman. The Greeks called her Mātēr or Mētēr, or from the early 5th century Kubelē, in Pindar, walter Burkert places her among the foreign gods of Greek religion, a complex figure combining the Minoan-Mycenaean tradition with the Phrygian cult imported directly from Asia Minor. In Greece, as in Phrygia, she was a Mistress of animals, with her mastery of the world expressed by the lions that flank her. She was readily assimilated to the Minoan-Greek earth-mother Rhea, Mother of the gods, whose raucous, as an exemplar of devoted motherhood, she was partly assimilated to the grain-goddess Demeter, whose torchlight procession recalled her search for her lost daughter, Persephone. As with other deities viewed as foreign introductions, the spread of Cybeles cult was attended by conflict and her cults most often were funded privately, rather than by the polis, and her vivid and forceful character and association with the wild set her apart from the Olympian gods
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Ancient Mesopotamian religion
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The religious development of Mesopotamia and Mesopotamian culture in general was not particularly influenced by the movements of the various peoples into and throughout the area. Rather, Mesopotamian religion was a consistent and coherent tradition which adapted to the needs of its adherents over millenia of development. The earliest undercurrents of Mesopotamian religious thought date to the 4th millennium BCE, in the 3rd millennium BCE objects of worship were personified and became an expansive cast of divinities with particular functions. Mesopotamian religion finally declined with the spread of Iranian religions during the Achaemenid Empire, as with most dead religions, many aspects of the common practices and intricacies of the doctrine have been lost and forgotten over time. Mesopotamian religion is thought to have been an influence on subsequent religions throughout the world, including Canaanite, Aramean, Mesopotamian religion has the oldest body of recorded literature of any religious tradition. Other artifacts can also be useful when reconstructing Mesopotamian religion, as is common with most ancient civilizations, the objects made of the most durable and precious materials, and thus more likely to survive, were associated with religious beliefs and practices. It has also inspired various contemporary Neo-pagan groups, in the fourth millennium BCE, the first evidence for what is recognisably Mesopotamian religion can be seen with the invention in Mesopotamia of writing circa 3500 BCE. The people of Mesopotamia originally consisted of two groups, Akkadian speakers and the people of Sumer, who spoke a language isolate and these peoples were members of various city-states and small kingdoms. The Sumerians left the first records, although it is not known if they migrated into the area in prehistory or whether they were its original inhabitants and they resided in southern Mesopotamia, which was known as Sumer, and had considerable influence on the Akkadian speakers and their culture. Akkadian names first appear in the lists of these states circa 2800 BCE. They created the first city-states such as Uruk, Ur, Lagash, Isin, Kish, Umma, Eridu, Adab, Akshak, Sippar, Nippur and Larsa, each of them ruled by an ensí. The Akkadian Empire endured for two centuries before collapsing due to decline, internal strife and attacks from the north east by the Gutian people. Following a brief Sumerian revival with the Third Dynasty of Ur, Assyria asserted itself in the north circa 2100 BCE in the Old Assyrian Empire and southern Mesopotamia fragmented into a number of kingdoms, the largest being Isin, Larsa and Eshnunna. In 1894 BCE the initially minor city-state of Babylon was founded in the south by invading West Semitic-speaking Amorites and it was rarely ruled by native dynasties throughout its history. Some time after this period, the Sumerians disappeared, becoming absorbed into the Akkadian-speaking population. Assyrian kings are attested from the late 25th century BCE and dominated northern Mesopotamia and parts of Anatolia, the Amorite dynasty was deposed in 1595 BCE after attacks from mountain-dwelling people known as the Kassites from the Zagros Mountains, who went on to rule Babylon for over 500 years. Assyria defeated the Hittites and Mitanni, and its growing power forced the New Kingdom of Egypt to withdraw from the Near East, the Middle Assyrian Empire at its height stretched from the Caucasus to modern Bahrain and from Cyprus to western Iran. During the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Mesopotamian Aramaic became the lingua franca of the empire, the last written records in Akkadian were astrological texts dating from 78 CE discovered in Assyria
35.
Adonis
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Adonis, in Greek mythology, is a central figure in various mystery religions. There has been much scholarship over the centuries concerning the roles of Adonis, if any. Modern scholarship sometimes describes him as a renewed, ever-youthful vegetation god. His name is applied in modern times to handsome youths. Syrian Adonis is Gauas or Aos, akin to Egyptian Osiris, the Semitic Tammuz and Baal Hadad, the Etruscan Atunis and the Phrygian Attis, all of whom are deities of rebirth and vegetation. Circa the sixth century BC, the appearance of the cult of Adonis is reported in Jerusalem by the biblical Book of Ezekiel, the most detailed and literary version of the story of Adonis is a late one, in Book X of Ovids Metamorphoses. The central myth in its Greek telling, Smyrna, daughter of Theias, king of Assyria, Theias finds out and is determined to kill her, when the gods intervene and turn her into a myrrh tree. Nine months later the baby Adonis comes out of the tree, Aphrodite fell in love with the beautiful youth. Aphrodite sheltered Adonis as a baby and entrusted him to Persephone. Persephone was also taken by Adonis beauty and refused to him back to Aphrodite. The dispute between the two goddesses was settled by Zeus, Adonis was to spend one-third of every year with each goddess and he chose to spend two-thirds of the year with Aphrodite. Adonis died in Aphrodites arms, who came to him when she heard his groans, when he died she sprinkled the blood with nectar, from which sprang the short-lived anemone, which takes its name from the wind which so easily makes its petals fall. And so it is the blood of Adonis that each spring turns to red the torrential river, Afqa is the sacred source where the waters of the river emerge from a huge grotto in a cliff 200 metres high. It is there that the myth of Astarte and Adonis was born, adoniss birth is shrouded in confusion for those who require a single, authoritative version, for various peripheral stories circulated concerning Adonis parentage. The most widely accepted version is recounted in Ovids Metamorphoses, where Adonis is the son of Myrrha, Myrrha turned into a myrrh tree and Lucina helped the tree to give birth to Adonis. The patriarchal Hellenes sought a father for the god, and found him in Byblos and Cyprus, pseudo-Apollodorus, considered Adonis to be the son of Cinyras, of Paphos on Cyprus, and Metharme. According to pseudo-Apollodorus Bibliotheke, Hesiod, in a work that does not survive, made of him the son of Phoenix. In Cyprus, the cult of Adonis gradually superseded that of Cinyras, Hesiod made him the son of Phoenix, eponym of the Phoenicians, thus a figure of Phoenician origin, his association with Cyprus is not attested before the classical era
36.
Atargatis
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Atargatis /əˈtɑːrɡətᵻs/ or Ataratheh was the chief goddess of northern Syria in Classical Antiquity. Ctesias also used the name Derceto for her, and the Romans called her Dea Syriae, primarily she was a goddess of fertility, but, as the baalat of her city and people, she was also responsible for their protection and well-being. Her chief sanctuary was at Hierapolis, modern Manbij, northeast of Aleppo and she is sometimes described as a mermaid-goddess, due to identification of her with a fish-bodied goddess at Ascalon. However, there is no evidence that Atargatis was worshipped at Ascalon, michael Rostovtzeff called her the great mistress of the North Syrian lands. As Ataratheh, doves and fish were considered sacred to her, doves as an emblem of the Love-Goddess, according to a third-century Syriac source, In Syria and in Urhâi the men used to castrate themselves in honor of Taratha. But when King Abgar became a believer, he commanded that anyone who emasculated himself should have a cut off. And from that day to the present no one in Urhâi emasculates himself anymore, the name Atargatis derives from the Aramaic form ‘Atar‘atheh, which comes in several variants. ‘Atar‘atheh is seen as a continuation of Bronze Age goddesses, the name ‘Atar‘atheh is widely held to derive from a compound of the Aramaic form ‘Attar, which is a cognate of ‘Ațtart minus its feminine suffix -t, and ‘Attah or ‘Atā, a cognate of Anat. Alternatively, the second half may be a Palmyrene divine name ‘Athe and it has also been proposed that the element -gatis may relate to the Greek gados fish. So Atar-Gatis may simply mean the fish-goddess Atar, as a consequence of the first half of the name, Atargatis has frequently, though wrongly, been identified as ‘Ashtart. The two deities were probably of common origin and have features in common, but their cults are historically distinct. There is reference in 2 Maccabees 12, at Palmyra she appears on the coinage with a lion, or her presence is signalled with a lion and the crescent moon, an inscription mentions her. Two well preserved temples in Niha, Lebanon are dedicated to her and her wavy hair, suggesting water to Glueck, was parted in the middle. At Petra the goddess from the north was syncretised with a North Arabian goddess from the south al-Uzzah, at Dura-Europus among the attributes of Atargatis are the spindle and the sceptre or fish-spear. At her temples at Ascalon, Hierapolis Bambyce, and Edessa, Glueck noted in 1936 that to this day there is a sacred fish-pond swarming with untouchable fish at Qubbet el-Baeddwī, a dervish monastery three kilometres east of Tripolis, Lebanon. From Syria her worship extended to Greece and to the furthest West, Lucian and Apuleius give descriptions of the beggar-priests who went round the great cities with an image of the goddess on an ass and collected money. Again we find the cult in Sicily, introduced, no doubt, by slaves and mercenary troops, the leader of the rebel slaves in the First Servile War, a Syrian named Eunus, claimed to receive visions of Atargatis, whom he identified with the Demeter of Enna. In many cases Atargatis, ‘Ashtart, and other goddesses who once had independent cults and this fusion is exemplified by the Carnion temple, which is probably identical with the famous temple of ‘Ashtart at Ashtaroth-Karnaim
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Baal
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Baal, properly Baʿal, was a title and honorific meaning lord in the Northwest Semitic languages spoken in the Levant during antiquity. From its use among people, it came to be applied to gods and that use was taken over into Christianity and Islam, sometimes under the opprobrious form Beelzebub in demonology. The spelling Baal derives from the Greek Báal, which appears in the New Testament and Septuagint, and from its Latinized form Baal and these forms in turn derive from the vowel-less Northwest Semitic form BʿL. The words Biblical senses as a Phoenician deity and false gods generally were extended during the Protestant Reformation to denote any idols, icons of the saints, in such contexts, it follows the anglicized pronunciation and usually omits any mark between its two As. In modern scholarship, the half ring ⟨ ʿ ⟩ or apostrophe ⟨ ⟩ in the name Baʿal marks the original voiced pharyngeal fricative. The Northwest Semitic languages—Ugaritic, Phoenician, Hebrew, Amorite, and Aramaic—were all abjads, as such, the word baʿal was usually written as BʿL, its vowels have been reconstructed. In these languages, baʿal signified owner and, by extension, lord and it also appears as Baʿali or Baʿaly, my Lord. Cognates include the Akkadian Bēlu, Amharic bal, and Arabic baʿl, báʿal and baʿl still serve as the words for husband in modern Hebrew and Arabic respectively. They also appear in some contexts concerning the ownership of things or possession of traits, in Levantine Arabic, baʿl also serves as an adjective describing farming that relies on rainwater alone. The feminine form is baʿalah, meaning mistress in the sense of an owner or lady of the house. Suggestions in early modern scholarship also included comparison with the Celtic god, like EN in Sumerian, the Akkadian bēlu and Northwest Semitic baʿal was used as a title of various deities in the Mesopotamian and Semitic pantheons. Only a definitive article, genitive or epithet, or context could establish which particular god was meant, Baʿal was also used as a proper name by the third millennium BCE, when he appears in a list of deities at Abu Salabikh. Most modern scholarship asserts that this Baʿal—usually distinguished as The Lord —was identical with the storm and fertility god Hadad, a minority propose that Baʿal was a native Canaanite deity whose cult was identified with or absorbed aspects of Adads. Regardless of their relationship, by the 1st millennium BCE. The Phoenician Baʿal is generally identified with either El or Dagan, nonetheless, Ugaritic records show him as a weather god, with particular power over lightning, wind, rain, and fertility. The dry summers of the area were explained as Baʿals time in the underworld, anxiety about the availability of water for crops and trees increased the importance of his cult, which focused attention on his role as a rain god. He was also called upon during battle, showing that he was thought to intervene actively in the world of man, the Lebanese city of Baalbeck was named after Baal. The Baʿal of Ugarit was the epithet of Hadad but as the time passed, Baʿal was usually said to be the son of Dagan, but appears as one of the sons of El in Ugaritic sources
38.
Baalshamin
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Lord of Heaven, was a Northwest Semitic god and a title applied to different gods at different places or times in ancient Middle Eastern inscriptions, especially in Canaan/Phoenicia and Syria. The title was most often applied to Hadad, who is often titled just Ba‘al. Baalshamin was one of the two gods and the sky god of pre-Islamic Palmyra in ancient Syria. There his attributes were the eagle and the bolt, and he perhaps formed a triad with the lunar god Aglibol. Baalshamin and Baal Šamem are the most frequently used terms, as a Syrian god and as a Phoenician god and this name was originally a title of Baal Hadad, in the 2nd millennium BC, but came to designate a distinct god circa 1000 BC. The earliest known mention of this god or title is in a treaty of the 14th century BC between Suppiluliumas I, King of the Hittites, and Niqmaddu II, King of Ugarit. Although this could be a reference to Baal Hadad, and again when the name appears in a Phoenician inscription by King Yeḥimilk of Byblos, the god Baal-malage is otherwise unexplained. Baal-saphon here and elsewhere seems to be Baal Hadad, whose home is on Mount Ṣaphon in the Ugaritic texts, but interpreters disagree as to whether these are here three separate gods or three aspects of the same god, a god who causes stormy weather on the sea. In any case, inscriptions show that the cult of Baal Šamem continued in Tyre from Esarhaddons day until towards the end of the 1st millennium BC, in Sanchuniathons main mythology the god he calls in Greek Uranus/Sky has been thought by some to stand for Baal Šamem. Sky is here the actual father of Baal Hadad, as in Greek mythology and Hittite mythology, Sky is castrated by his son, who is in turn destined to be opposed by the thunder god. In Sanchuniathons story, Sky also battles Sea, Sky finds himself unable to prevail, in Nabatean texts in Greek, Baal Shamin is regularly equated with Zeus Helios, that is Zeus as a sun-god. Unfortunately, it is not clear whether Baalshamin is here regarded as a sun-god, writers in Syriac refer to Baalshamin as Zeus Olympios. Temple of Baalshamin Stuart Whatling, Arabia Syria, Palmyra — Some pictures of the temple of Baal-Shamin at Palmyra
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