Mythology Articles

Articles

• A comparison of the roles of the hero and the seductress in the Tain Bo Cuailgne and the Iliad

  This paper attempts to redefine the role of the “hero” in ancient Western epic poetry, focusing specifically on the Iliad of Homer and the Irish epic the Tain Bo Cuailgne, by focusing on the maintenance of a hierarchy of loyalties. Similarly, this paper demonstrates the need to expand...

• A Study on the End of The Universe in The Light of Ancient Egyptian Texts

  The subject of this thesis is a theme that has not been fully studied until today and that has long been thought to be overlooked by the ancient Egyptians in a negative way. The aim of this thesis is then to look carefully into the texts dealing with this theme to reveal how exactly the ancient Egyptians...

• Roman Interpretations of the Amazons through Literature and Art

  Modern historians and classicists have studied the ancient Greeks’ use of Amazon mythology extensively and exhaustively. Their analysis of the Amazon in literature and artwork has contributed to a better understanding of Greek society, culture, and the mindset of those ancient people. Next...

• Rhetoric of Myth, Magic, and Conversion: Ancient Irish Rhetoric

  Ancient Ireland presents an interesting case for rhetorical study. While the island is usually considered a part of geographic Europe, it long resisted the influence of cultural Europe. Unlike Britain, for example, Ireland was never conquered by Rome, and its pre-literate culture flourished beyond...

• The Eleusinian Mysteries and the Bee

  The fifth century BCE Greek historian Herodotus relates the importance of bees in ancient Greece, pointing out that the honey of neighboring countries was made using fruit, while the honey of the Greeks was produced by bees. The significance of this difference lies in that, to the Greeks of that time...

• The Witches of Thessaly

  Book 6 of Pharsalia, Lucan’s epic account of the civil war between Pompey and Caesar, is set in Thessaly on the eve of the battle of Pharsalus in 48 BCE. Pharsalus is a major Thessalian city, possibly associated with Phthia in the Homeric catalogue and home to the Thessalian hero, Achilles...

• The Atrahasis Epic: The Great Flood and the Meaning of Suffering

  The Atrahasis is the Akkadian/Babylonian epic of the Great Flood sent by the gods to destroy human life. Only the good man, Atrahasis (his name translates as `exceedingly wise') was warned of the impending deluge by the god Ea who instructed him to build an ark to save himself. Atrahasis heeded...

• Enuma Elish - The Babylonian Epic of Creation

  The Enuma Elish (also known as The Seven Tablets of Creation) is the Mesopotamian creation myth whose title is derived from the opening lines of the piece, `When on High'.  All of the tablets containing the myth, found at Ashur, Kish, Ashurbanipal's library at Nineveh, Sultantepe, and other...

• The Myth of Etana

  The Myth of Etana is the story of the Sumerian antediluvian King of Kish who ascends to heaven on an eagle to request the Plant of Birth from the gods so that he might have a son. That the myth is very old is attested to by cylinder seals depicting Etana on the eagle's back which date from the reign...

• The Myth of Adapa

  The Myth of Adapa (also known as Adapa and the Food of Life) is the Mesopotamian story of the Fall of Man in that it explains why human beings are mortal. The god of wisdom, Ea, creates the first man, Adapa, and endows him with great intelligence and wisdom but not with immortality, and when immortality...