Twelve Olympians
In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the twelve Olympians are the major deities of the Greek pantheon considered to be Zeus, Poseidon, Athena, Artemis, Aphrodite, Hephaestus and either Hestia or Dionysus. They were called Olympians. Although Hades was a major ancient Greek god, was the brother of the first generation of Olympians, he resided in the underworld, far from Olympus, thus was not considered to be one of the Olympians. Besides the twelve Olympians, there were many other cultic groupings of twelve gods; the Olympians were a race of deities consisting of a third and fourth generation of immortal beings, worshipped as the principal gods of the Greek pantheon and so named because of their residency atop Mount Olympus. They gained their supremacy in a ten-year-long war of gods, in which Zeus led his siblings to victory over the previous generation of ruling gods, the Titans, they were a family of gods, the most important consisting of the first generation of Olympians, offspring of the Titans Cronus and Rhea: Zeus, Hera and Hestia, along with the principal offspring of Zeus: Athena, Artemis, Aphrodite, Hephaestus and Dionysus.
Although Hades was a major deity in the Greek pantheon, was the brother of Zeus and the other first generation of Olympians, his realm was far away from Olympus in the underworld, thus he was not considered to be one of the Olympians. Olympic gods can be contrasted to chthonic gods including Hades, by mode of sacrifice, the latter receiving sacrifices in a bothros or megaron rather than at an altar; the canonical number of Olympian gods was twelve, but besides the principal Olympians listed above, there were many other residents of Olympus, who thus might be called Olympians. Heracles became a resident of Olympus after his apotheosis and married another Olympian resident Hebe; some others who might be considered Olympians, include the Muses, the Graces, Dione, the Horae, Ganymede. Besides the twelve Olympians, there were many other various cultic groupings of twelve gods throughout ancient Greece; the earliest evidence of Greek religious practice involving twelve gods comes no earlier than the late sixth century BC.
According to Thucydides, an altar of the twelve gods was established in the agora of Athens by the archon Pisistratus, in c. 522 BC. The altar became the central point from which distances from Athens were measured and a place of supplication and refuge. Olympia also had an early tradition of twelve gods; the Homeric Hymn to Hermes has the god Hermes divide a sacrifice of two cows he has stolen from Apollo, into twelve parts, on the banks of the river Alpheius: "Next glad-hearted Hermes dragged the rich meats he had prepared and put them on a smooth, flat stone, divided them into twelve portions distributed by lot, making each portion wholly honorable."Pindar, in an ode written to be sung at Olympia c. 480 BC, has Heracles sacrificing, alongside the Alpheius, to the "twelve ruling gods": "He enclosed the Altis all around and marked it off in the open, he made the encircling area a resting-place for feasting, honoring the stream of the Alpheus along with the twelve ruling gods."Another of Pindar's Olympian odes mentions "six double altars".
Herodorus of Heraclea has Heracles founding a shrine at Olympia, with six pairs of gods, each pair sharing a single altar. Many other places had cults of the twelve gods, including Delos, Magnesia on the Maeander, Leontinoi in Sicily; as with the twelve Olympians, although the number of gods was fixed at twelve, the membership varied. While the majority of the gods included as members of these other cults of twelve gods were Olympians, non-Olympians were sometimes included. For example, Herodorus of Heraclea identified the six pairs of gods at Olympia as: Zeus and Poseidon and Athena, Hermes and Apollo, the Graces and Dionysus and Alpheus, Cronus and Rhea, thus while this list includes the eight Olympians: Zeus, Hera, Hermes, Apollo and Dionysus, it contains three clear non-Olympians: the Titan parents of the first generation of Olympians and Rhea, the river god Alpheius, with the status of the Graces being unclear. Plato connected "twelve gods" with the twelve months, implies that he considered Pluto one of the twelve in proposing that the final month be devoted to him and the spirits of the dead.
The Roman poet Ennius gives the Roman equivalents as six male-female complements, preserving the place of Vesta, who played a crucial role in Roman religion as a state goddess maintained by the Vestals. There is no single canonical list of the twelve Olympian gods; the thirteen gods and goddesses most considered to be one of the twelve Olympians are listed below. Most listings include either one or the other of the following deities as one of the twelve Olympians. Notes^ Romans associated Phoebus with Helios and the sun itself, they used the Greek name Apollon in a Latinized form Apollo.^ According to an alternate version of her birth, Aphrodite was born of Uranus, Zeus' grandfather, after Cronus threw his castrated genitals into the sea. This supports the etymology of her name, "foam-born"; as such, Aphrodite would belong to the same generation as Cronus, Zeus' father, would be Zeus' aunt
Boustrophedon
Boustrophedon is a type of bi-directional text seen in ancient manuscripts and other inscriptions. Every other line of writing is reversed, with reversed letters. Rather than going left-to-right as in modern European languages, or right-to-left as in Arabic and Hebrew, alternate lines in boustrophedon must be read in opposite directions; the individual characters are reversed, or mirrored. It was a common way of writing in stone in Ancient Greece. Many ancient scripts, such as Safaitic and Sabaean, were or written boustrophedonically, but in Greek it is found most in archaic inscriptions, becoming less and less popular throughout the Hellenistic period. By analogy, the term may be used in other areas to describe this kind of alternation of motion or writing. For example, it is used to describe the print head motion of certain dot matrix printers. In that case, while the print head moves in opposite directions on alternate lines, the printed text is not in boustrophedon format; the Hungarian folklorist Gyula Sebestyén writes that ancient boustrophedon writing resembles how the Hungarian rovás-sticks of Old Hungarian writing were made by shepherds.
The notcher holds the wooden stick in his left hand, cutting the letters with his right hand from right to left. When the first side is complete, he flips the stick over vertically and starts to notch the opposite side in the same manner; when unfolded horizontally, the final result is writing which starts from right to left, continues from left to right in the next row, with letters turned upside down. Sebestyén states that the ancient boustrophedon writings were copied from such wooden sticks with cut letters, applied for epigraphic inscriptions; the wooden boards and other incised artifacts of Rapa Nui bear a boustrophedonic script called Rongorongo, which remains undeciphered. In Rongorongo, the text in alternate lines was rotated 180 degrees rather than mirrored; the Luwian language had hieroglyphic Luwian, that read boustrophedon. The Hieroglyphic Luwian is read boustrophedon, with the direction of any individual line pointing into the front of the animals or body parts constituting certain hieroglyphs.
However, unlike Egyptian hieroglyphs with their numerous ideograms and logograms, which show an easy directionality, the lineal direction of the text in hieroglyphic Luwian is harder to see. A modern example of boustrophedonics is the numbering scheme of sections within survey townships in the United States and Canada. In both countries, survey townships are divided into a 6-by-6 grid of 36 sections. In the U. S. Public Land Survey System, Section 1 of a township is in the northeast corner, the numbering proceeds boustrophedonically until Section 36 is reached in the southeast corner. Canada's Dominion Land Survey uses boustrophedonic numbering, but starts at the southeast corner; the term is used by postmen in the United Kingdom to describe street numbering which proceeds serially in one direction turns back in the other. This is in contrast to the more common method of odd and numbers on opposite sides of the street both increasing in the same direction. Rongorongo of Easter Island was written in reverse boustrophedon.
In art history, it additionally means. Another example is the boustrophedon transform, known in mathematics. Sometimes computer printers with a typewriter-like moving type head print boustrophedon text if set up incorrectly; the IBM 1360 Photo-Digital Storage System records its data boustrophedonically. Additionally, the Indus script, although still undeciphered, can be written boustrophedonically; the Avoiuli script used on Pentecost Island in Vanuatu is written boustrophedonically by design. The constructed language Ithkuil uses a boustrophedon script; the Atlantean language created by Marc Okrand for Disney's 2001 film Atlantis: The Lost Empire is written in boustrophedon to recreate the feeling of flowing water. The code language used in The Montmaray Journals, Kernetin, is written boustrophedonically, it is used for secret communication. Mirror writing Sator square is read boustrophedon in one interpretation Stoichedon A Web-based Boustrophedon text reader A Boustrophedon text reader Boustrophedon Speed-Reader Write out zigzag text from the bottom up Zig Zag Text
Dodona
Dodona in Epirus in northwestern Greece was the oldest Hellenic oracle dating to the second millennium BCE according to Herodotus. The earliest accounts in Homer describe Dodona as an oracle of Zeus. Situated in a remote region away from the main Greek poleis, it was considered second only to the oracle of Delphi in prestige. Aristotle considered the region around Dodona to have been part of Hellas and the region where the Hellenes originated; the oracle was first under the control of the Thesprotians before it passed into the hands of the Molossians. It remained an important religious sanctuary until the rise of Christianity during the Late Roman era. During classical antiquity, according to various accounts and priests in the sacred grove interpreted the rustling of the oak leaves to determine the correct actions to be taken. According to a new interpretation, the oracular sound originated from bronze objects hanging from oak branches and sounded with the wind blowing, similar to a wind chime.
According to Nicholas Hammond, Dodona was an oracle devoted to a Mother Goddess, joined and supplanted in historical times by the Greek deity Zeus. Although the earliest inscriptions at the site date to c. 550–500 BCE, archaeological excavations conducted for more than a century have recovered artifacts as early as the Mycenaean era, many now at the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, some in the archaeological museum at nearby Ioannina. There was an ancient tradition that Dodona was founded as a colony from the city named Dodona, in Thessaly. Cult activity at Dodona was established in some form during the Late Bronze Age. During the post-Mycenaean period, evidence of activity at Dodona is scant, but there is a resumption of contact between Dodona and southern Greece during the Archaic period with the presence of bronze votive offerings from southern Greek cities. Archaeologists have found Illyrian dedications and objects that were received by the oracle during the 7th century BCE; until 650 BCE, Dodona was a religious and oracular centre for northern tribes: only after 650 BCE did it become important for the southern tribes.
Zeus was worshipped at Dodona as "Zeus Naios" or "Naos" and as "Zeus Bouleus". According to Plutarch, the worship of Jupiter at Dodona was set up by Pyrrha; the earliest mention of Dodona is in Homer, only Zeus is mentioned in this account. In the Iliad, Achilles prays to "High Zeus, Lord of Dodona, living afar off, brooding over wintry Dodona". No buildings are mentioned, the priests slept on the ground with unwashed feet. No priestesses are mentioned in Homer; the oracle features in another passage involving Odysseus, giving a story of his visit to Dodona. Odysseus's words "bespeak a familiarity with Dodona, a realization of its importance, an understanding that it was normal to consult Zeus there on a problem of personal conduct."The details of this story are as follows. Odysseus says to the swineherd Eumaeus that he was seen among the Thesprotians, having gone to inquire of the oracle at Dodona whether he should return to Ithaca or in secret. Odysseus repeats the same tale to Penelope, who may not yet have seen through his disguise.
According to some scholars, Dodona was an oracle of the Mother Goddess attended by priestesses. She was identified at other sites as Gaia; the oracle was shared by Dione. By classical times, Dione was relegated to a minor role elsewhere in classical Greece, being made into an aspect of Zeus's more usual consort, Hera — but never at Dodona. Many dedicatory inscriptions recovered from the site mention both "Dione" and "Zeus Naios". According to some archaeologists, not until the 4th century BCE, was a small stone temple to Dione added to the site. By the time Euripides mentioned Dodona and Herodotus wrote about the oracle, the priestesses appeared at the site. Though it never eclipsed the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi, Dodona gained a reputation far beyond Greece. In the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes, a retelling of an older story of Jason and the Argonauts, Jason's ship, the "Argo", had the gift of prophecy, because it contained an oak timber spirited from Dodona. In c. 290 BCE, King Pyrrhus made Dodona the religious capital of his domain and beautified it by implementing a series of construction projects.
A wall was built around the oracle itself and the holy tree, as well as temples to Dione and Heracles. In 219 BCE, the Aetolians, under the leadership of General Dorimachus and burned the temple to the ground. During the late 3rd century BCE, King Philip V of Macedon reconstructed all the buildings at Dodona. In 167 BCE, Dodona was destroyed by the Romans, but was rebuilt by Emperor Augustus in 31 BCE. By the time the traveller Pausanias visited Dodona in the 2nd century CE, the sacred grove had been reduced to a single oak. In 241 CE, a priest named. In 362 CE, Emperor Julian consulted the oracle prior to his military campaigns against the Pers
Deity
A deity is a supernatural being considered divine or sacred. The Oxford Dictionary of English defines deity as "a god or goddess". C. Scott Littleton defines a deity as "a being with powers greater than those of ordinary humans, but who interacts with humans, positively or negatively, in ways that carry humans to new levels of consciousness, beyond the grounded preoccupations of ordinary life". In the English language, a male deity is referred to as a god, while a female deity is referred to as a goddess. Religions can be categorized by. Monotheistic religions accept only one deity, polytheistic religions accept multiple deities. Henotheistic religions accept one supreme deity without denying other deities, considering them as aspects of the same divine principle. Although most monotheistic religions traditionally envision their God as omnipotent, omniscient and eternal, none of these qualities are essential to the definition of a "deity" and various cultures conceptualized their deities differently.
Monotheistic religions refer to God in masculine terms, while other religions refer to their deities in a variety of ways – masculine, feminine and without gender. Many ancient cultures – including the ancient Mesopotamians, Greeks and Norsemen– personified natural phenomena, variously as either deliberate causes or effects; some Avestan and Vedic deities were viewed as ethical concepts. In Indian religions, deities were envisioned as manifesting within the temple of every living being's body, as sensory organs and mind. Deities were envisioned as a form of existence after rebirth, for human beings who gain merit through an ethical life, where they become guardian deities and live blissfully in heaven, but are subject to death when their merit is lost; the English language word "deity" derives from Old French deité, the Latin deitatem or "divine nature", coined by Augustine of Hippo from deus. Deus is related through a common Proto-Indo-European origin to *deiwos; this root yields the ancient Indian word Deva meaning "to gleam, a shining one", from *div- "to shine", as well as Greek dios "divine" and Zeus.
Deva is masculine, the related feminine equivalent is devi. Etymologically, the cognates of Devi are Greek thea. In Old Persian, daiva- means "demon, evil god", while in Sanskrit it means the opposite, referring to the "heavenly, terrestrial things of high excellence, shining ones"; the linked term "god" refers to "supreme being, deity", according to Douglas Harper, is derived from Proto-Germanic *guthan, from PIE *ghut-, which means "that, invoked". Guth in the Irish language means "voice"; the term *ghut- is the source of Old Church Slavonic zovo, Sanskrit huta-, from the root *gheu-,An alternate etymology for the term "god" comes from the Proto-Germanic Gaut, which traces it to the PIE root *ghu-to-, derived from the root *gheu-. The term *gheu- is the source of the Greek khein "to pour"; the German root was a neuter noun. The gender of the monotheistic God shifted to masculine under the influence of Christianity. In contrast, all ancient Indo-European cultures and mythologies recognized both masculine and feminine deities.
There is no universally accepted consensus on what a deity is, concepts of deities vary across cultures. Huw Owen states that the term "deity or god or its equivalent in other languages" has a bewildering range of meanings and significance, it has ranged from "infinite transcendent being who created and lords over the universe", to a "finite entity or experience, with special significance or which evokes a special feeling", to "a concept in religious or philosophical context that relates to nature or magnified beings or a supra-mundane realm", to "numerous other usages". A deity is conceptualized as a supernatural or divine concept, manifesting in ideas and knowledge, in a form that combines excellence in some or all aspects, wrestling with weakness and questions in other aspects, heroic in outlook and actions, yet tied up with emotions and desires. In other cases, the deity is a principle or reality such as the idea of "soul"; the Upanishads of Hinduism, for example, characterize Atman as deva, thereby asserting that the deva and eternal supreme principle is part of every living creature, that this soul is spiritual and divine, that to realize self-knowledge is to know the supreme.
Theism is the belief in the existence of one or more deities. Polytheism is the belief in and worship of multiple deities, which are assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, with accompanying rituals. In most polytheistic religions, the different gods and goddesses are representations of forces of nature or ancestral principles, can be viewed either as autonomous or as aspects or emanations of a creator God or transcendental absolute principle, which manifests immanently in nature. Henotheism accepts the existence of more than one deity, but considers all deities as equivalent representations or aspects of the same divine principle, the highest. Monolatry is the belief that many deities exist, but that only one of these deities may be validly worshipped. Monotheism is the belief. A monotheistic deity, known as "God", is u
Spa
A spa is a location where mineral-rich spring water is used to give medicinal baths. Spa towns or spa resorts offer various health treatments, which are known as balneotherapy; the belief in the curative powers of mineral waters goes back to prehistoric times. Such practices have been popular worldwide, but are widespread in Europe and Japan. Day spas are quite popular, offer various personal care treatments; the term is derived from the name of the town of Spa, whose name is known back from Roman times, when the location was called Aquae Spadanae, sometimes incorrectly connected to the Latin word spargere meaning to scatter, sprinkle or moisten. Since medieval times, illnesses caused by iron deficiency were treated by drinking chalybeate spring water. In 16th-century England, the old Roman ideas of medicinal bathing were revived at towns like Bath, in 1596 William Slingsby, to the Belgian town discovered a chalybeate spring in Yorkshire, he built an enclosed well at what became known as Harrogate, the first resort in England for drinking medicinal waters in 1596 Dr Timothy Bright after discovering a second well called the resort The English Spaw, beginning the use of the word Spa as a generic description.
It is claimed, in a commercial context, that the word is an acronym of various Latin phrases, such as salus per aquam or sanitas per aquam, meaning "health through water". This is unlikely: the derivation does not appear before the early 21st century and is a backronym as there is no evidence of acronyms passing into the language before the 20th century. Spa therapies have existed since the classical times when taking bath with water was considered as a popular means to treat illnesses; the practice of traveling to hot or cold springs in hopes of effecting a cure of some ailment dates back to prehistoric times. Archaeological investigations near hot springs in France and Czech Republic revealed Bronze Age weapons and offerings. In Great Britain, ancient legend credited early Celtic kings with the discovery of the hot springs in Bath, England. Many people around the world believed that bathing in a particular spring, well, or river resulted in physical and spiritual purification. Forms of ritual purification existed among the Native Americans, Egyptians and Romans.
Today, ritual purification through water can be found in the religious ceremonies of Jews, Christians and Hindus. These ceremonies reflect the ancient belief in purifying properties of water. Complex bathing rituals were practiced in ancient Egypt, in prehistoric cities of the Indus Valley, in Aegean civilizations. Most these ancient people did little building construction around the water, what they did construct was temporary in nature; some of the earliest descriptions of western bathing practices came from Greece. The Greeks began bathing regimens; these Aegean people utilized small bathtubs, wash basins, foot baths for personal cleanliness. The earliest such findings are the baths in the palace complex at Knossos and the luxurious alabaster bathtubs excavated in Akrotiri, Santorini, they established public baths and showers within their gymnasium complexes for relaxation and personal hygiene. Greek mythology specified that certain natural springs or tidal pools were blessed by the gods to cure disease.
Around these sacred pools, Greeks established bathing facilities for those desiring healing. Supplicants left offerings to the gods for healing at these sites and bathed themselves in hopes of a cure; the Spartans developed a primitive vapor bath. At Serangeum, an early Greek balneum, bathing chambers were cut into the hillside from which the hot springs issued. A series of niches cut into the rock above the chambers held bathers' clothing. One of the bathing chambers had a decorative mosaic floor depicting a driver and chariot pulled by four horses, a woman followed by two dogs, a dolphin below. Thus, the early Greeks used the natural features, but expanded them and added their own amenities, such as decorations and shelves. During Greek civilization, bathhouses were built in conjunction with athletic fields; the Romans emulated many of the Greek bathing practices. Romans surpassed the Greeks in the complexity of their baths; this came about by many factors: the larger size and population of Roman cities, the availability of running water following the building of aqueducts, the invention of cement, which made building large edifices easier and cheaper.
As in Greece, the Roman bath became a focal center for recreational activity. As the Roman Empire expanded, the idea of the public bath spread to all parts of the Mediterranean and into regions of Europe and North Africa. With the construction of the aqueducts, the Romans had enough water not only for domestic and industrial uses, but for their leisurely pursuits; the aqueducts provided water, heated for use in the baths. Today, the extent of the Roman bath is revealed at ruins and in archaeological excavations in Europe and the Middle East; the Romans developed baths in their colonies, taking advantage of the natural hot springs occurring in Europe to construct baths at Aix and Vichy in France and Buxton in England and Wiesbaden in Germany, Austria, an
Interpretatio graeca
Interpretatio graeca is a discourse in which ancient Greek religious concepts and practices and myths are used to interpret or attempt to understand the mythology and religion of other cultures. It is thus a comparative methodology that looks for shared characteristics; the phrase may describe Greek efforts to explain others' beliefs and myths, as when Herodotus describes Egyptian religion in terms of perceived Greek analogues, or when Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Plutarch document Roman cults and practices under the names of equivalent Greek deities. Interpretatio graeca may describe non-Greeks' interpretation of their own belief systems by comparison or assimilation with Greek models, as when Romans adapt Greek myths and iconography under the names of their own gods. Interpretatio romana is comparative discourse in reference to ancient Roman religion and myth, as in the formation of a distinctive Gallo-Roman religion. Both the Romans and the Gauls reinterpreted Gallic religious traditions in relation to Roman models Imperial cult.
Jan Assmann considers the polytheistic approach to internationalizing gods as a form of "intercultural translation": The great achievement of polytheism is the articulation of a common semantic universe.... The meaning of a deity is his or her specific character as it unfolded in myths, rites, so on; this character makes a deity comparable to other deities with similar traits. The similarity of gods makes their names mutually translatable. … The practice of translating the names of the gods created a concept of similarity and produced the idea or conviction that the gods are international. Pliny the Elder expressed the "translatability" of deities as "different names to different peoples"; this capacity made possible the religious syncretism of the Hellenistic era and the pre-Christian Roman Empire. Herodotus was one of the earliest authors to engage in this form of interpretation. In his observations regarding the Egyptians, he establishes Greco-Egyptian equivalents that endured into the Hellenistic era, including Amon/Zeus, Osiris/Dionysus, Ptah/Hephaestus.
In his observations regarding the Scythians, he equates their queen of the gods, Tabiti, to Hestia and Api to Zeus and Gaia and Argimpasa to Aphrodite Urania, whilst claiming that the Scythians worshipped equivalents to Herakles and Ares, but which he doesn't name. Some pairs of Greek and Roman gods, such as Zeus and Jupiter, are thought to derive from a common Indo-European archetype, thus exhibit shared functions by nature. Others required more expansive theological and poetic efforts: though both Ares and Mars are war gods, Ares was a minor figure in Greek religious practice and deprecated by the poets, while Mars was a father of the Roman people and a central figure of archaic Roman religion; some deities dating to Rome's oldest religious stratum, such as Janus and Terminus, had no Greek equivalent. Other Greek divine figures, most notably Apollo, were adopted directly into Roman culture, but underwent a distinctly Roman development, as when Augustus made Apollo one of his patron deities.
In the early period, Etruscan culture played an intermediary role in transmitting Greek myth and religion to the Romans, as evidenced in the linguistic transformation of Greek Heracles to Etruscan Hercle to Roman Hercules. The phrase interpretatio romana was first used by the Imperial-era historian Tacitus in the Germania. Tacitus reports that in a sacred grove of the Nahanarvali, "a priest adorned as a woman presides, but they commemorate gods who in Roman terms are Castor and Pollux." Elsewhere, he identifies the principal god of the Germans as Mercury referring to Wotan. Some information about the deities of the ancient Gauls, who left no written literature other than inscriptions, is preserved by Greco-Roman sources under the names of Greek and Latin equivalents. A large number of Gaulish theonyms or cult titles are preserved, for instance, in association with Mars; as with some Greek and Roman divine counterparts, the perceived similarities between a Gallic and a Roman or Greek deity may reflect a common Indo-European origin.
Lugus was identified with Nodens with Mars as healer and protector, Sulis with Minerva. In some cases, however, a Gallic deity is given an interpretatio romana by means of more than one god, varying among literary texts or inscriptions. Since the religions of the Greco-Roman world were not dogmatic, polytheism lent itself to multiplicity, the concept of "deity" was expansive, permitting multiple and contradictory functions within a single divinity, overlapping powers and functions among the diverse figures of each pantheon; these tendencies extended to cross-cultural identifications. In the Eastern empire, the Anatolian storm god with his double-headed axe became Jupiter Dolichenus, a favorite cult figure among soldiers. Roman scholars such as Varro interpreted the monotheistic god of the Jews into Roman terms as Caelus or Jupiter Optimus Maximus; some Greco-Roman authors seem to have understood the Jewish invocation of Yahweh Sabaoth as Sabazius. Interpretatio germanica is the practice by the Germanic peoples of identifying Roman gods with the names of Germanic deities.
According to Rudolf Simek, this occurred around the 1st century AD, when both cultures came into closer contact. Some evidence for interpretatio germanica exists in the Germanic translations of the Roman names for the days of the week: Sunday, the day of Sunnǭ, the sun, was earlier the day of Sol Invictus, th
Germany
Germany the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central and Western Europe, lying between the Baltic and North Seas to the north, the Alps to the south. It borders Denmark to the north and the Czech Republic to the east and Switzerland to the south, France to the southwest, Luxembourg and the Netherlands to the west. Germany includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,386 square kilometres, has a temperate seasonal climate. With 83 million inhabitants, it is the second most populous state of Europe after Russia, the most populous state lying in Europe, as well as the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is a decentralized country, its capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while Frankfurt serves as its financial capital and has the country's busiest airport. Germany's largest urban area is the Ruhr, with its main centres of Essen; the country's other major cities are Hamburg, Cologne, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf, Dresden, Bremen and Nuremberg. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity.
A region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period, the Germanic tribes expanded southward. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation. After the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire, the German Confederation was formed in 1815; the German revolutions of 1848–49 resulted in the Frankfurt Parliament establishing major democratic rights. In 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the revolution of 1918–19, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic; the Nazi seizure of power in 1933 led to the establishment of a dictatorship, the annexation of Austria, World War II, the Holocaust. After the end of World War II in Europe and a period of Allied occupation, Austria was re-established as an independent country and two new German states were founded: West Germany, formed from the American and French occupation zones, East Germany, formed from the Soviet occupation zone.
Following the Revolutions of 1989 that ended communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe, the country was reunified on 3 October 1990. Today, the sovereign state of Germany is a federal parliamentary republic led by a chancellor, it is a great power with a strong economy. As a global leader in several industrial and technological sectors, it is both the world's third-largest exporter and importer of goods; as a developed country with a high standard of living, it upholds a social security and universal health care system, environmental protection, a tuition-free university education. The Federal Republic of Germany was a founding member of the European Economic Community in 1957 and the European Union in 1993, it is part of the Schengen Area and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999. Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G7, the G20, the OECD. Known for its rich cultural history, Germany has been continuously the home of influential and successful artists, musicians, film people, entrepreneurs, scientists and inventors.
Germany has a large number of World Heritage sites and is among the top tourism destinations in the world. The English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine; the German term Deutschland diutisciu land is derived from deutsch, descended from Old High German diutisc "popular" used to distinguish the language of the common people from Latin and its Romance descendants. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz "popular", derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- "people", from which the word Teutons originates; the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a coal mine in Schöningen between 1994 and 1998 where eight 380,000-year-old wooden javelins of 1.82 to 2.25 m length were unearthed. The Neander Valley was the location where the first non-modern human fossil was discovered.
The Neanderthal 1 fossils are known to be 40,000 years old. Evidence of modern humans dated, has been found in caves in the Swabian Jura near Ulm; the finds included 42,000-year-old bird bone and mammoth ivory flutes which are the oldest musical instruments found, the 40,000-year-old Ice Age Lion Man, the oldest uncontested figurative art discovered, the 35,000-year-old Venus of Hohle Fels, the oldest uncontested human figurative art discovered. The Nebra sky disk is a bronze artefact created during the European Bronze Age attributed to a site near Nebra, Saxony-Anhalt, it is part of UNESCO's Memory of the World Programme. The Germanic tribes are thought to date from the Pre-Roman Iron Age. From southern Scandinavia and north Germany, they expanded south and west from the 1st century BC, coming into contact with the Celtic tribes of Gaul as well
Media related to Sulis at Wikimedia Commons
