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Old Babylonian Tan Terracotta Plaque:  Enthroned God on City Wall (Mesopotamia; circa 1800-1600 BC; H 2.9”)

The golden bull is a symbol of the Mesopotamian sun god Shamash. The bull-headed lyre of Ur is among the most significant artifacts that shed light on early Mesopotamian funerary rituals. University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, PA. 

Photo by Babylon Chronicle

New project inspiration: Bes the family god.

Symbols and attributes of selected Mesopotamian divinities.

ENKI - (also known as Ea) he was sumerian deity of crafts, mischief, water, seawater, lakewater, intelligence and creation. ENLIL - was considered to be the god of breath, wind, loft and breadth (height and distance).

Nergal - mesopotamian God of Underworld.

“Kukulkán (also K’uk’ulkan or K’uk’ul-chon) is a god of Mayan mytholoogy. Kukulkan is known to the K’iche’ group of Maya as Gukumatz. The name Kukulkan means “feathered serpent”, like his Aztec equivalent Quetzacoatl.

The K’iche’ Maya saw their version of Kukulkan, Gukumatz, as one of the Creators who, with Tepeu, created three versions of mankind, the first two being failures.

Mayan relics also make reference to a person named Kukulkan, which has led to some confusion about whether or not the god is referenced in certain instances. The general Mayan god Kukulkan is not well-known, with only his Gukumatz counterpart surviving in the Popol Vuh, and Quetzalcoatl surviving from accounts of the Aztecs. It is not well known whether the Yucatec and Tzotzil Maya attributed stories similar to those of Gukumatz and Quetzalcoatl to their Kukulkan.

Like all of the feathered serpent gods in Mesoamerican cultures, Kukulkan is thought to have originated in Olmec mythology.”

The Etruscans

  The Etruscans were an early Italian peoples. They begin to emerge in the 8th century BC and have their heyday in the 7th and 6th centuries. Their’s was an urban civilisation; while the rest of Italy were living in villages, the Etruscans alone had towns. These had enclosing walls, gates and temples built of stone.

  They consisted of a confederation of  “city-states” with magistrates. Materially and technologically they were advanced compared to their neighbours in the rest of Italy. They practiced draining and irrigation. They built shaft and tunnels to access metal ore deposits.

  Etruscan religion was one of books, sacred books of prophets- the chief of whom was Tages. He laid down the rules concerning ritual and prescribing the life of states and men, the interpretation of the weather, the art of reading entrails and the knowledge of conducting dead men safely to the afterlife. Their religion was highly ritualised. One of object, the famous bronze liver of Piacenza, seems to be a reference guide to reading the liver’s of sacrificed beasts with different bits referring to different gods.

  They under a Triad of gods; Tinia (Jupiter), Uni (Juno) and Menrva (Minerva), they developed a pantheon of gods similar to the Greeks. These included Voltumna/Vertummus (the first of the gods of Etruria according to Varro), Turan (Aphrodite), Fufluns (Dionysos), Turms (Hermes), Sethlans (Hephaestus), Hercle (Herakles), Maris (Ares) and Nethuns (Neptune).

  They believed in an afterlife. On one hand there was a beautiful paradise full of coolness, music and banquets, on the other their was a “hell” full of melancholy, grief, torture and suffering. In this hell ruled two monstrous spirits- Charun (Charon) and Tuchulcha (Hades). These two gods were appeased by the blood of combatants (perhaps a precursor to Roman gladiatorial contests).

  Their art was much influenced by Hellenism, like their religion. They produced sculptures (in the round, bas relief, statuettes, tripods, and sarcophagi). They developed a skill for modelling in clay and firing large scale works, particularly of note are large terra cotta sarcophagi depicting the decased. They painted their tombs with frescos, most notably at Terquinii. These survive today and are incredibly important as they are a reflection of “the great archaic painting, lost in Greece”.

  It was the Etruscan civilisation, along with the Greeks that influenced an early Rome. During the 4th to the 1st century BC they gradually yielded to Rome’s growing power.

Perun - Slavic God of thunder and lightning

Yúcahu, Taíno God

Yúcahu, was the masculine spirit of fertility in Taíno mythology,. He was one of the supreme deities or zemís of the Pre-Columbian Taíno peoples along with his mother Atabey who was his feminine counterpart. Dominant in the Caribbean region at the time of Columbus’ First voyages of Discovery, the peoples associated with Taíno culture inhabited the islands of the Bahamas, the Greater Antilles, and theLesser Antilles.

“They call him Yúcahu Bagua Maórocoti” is the earliest mention of the zemí taken from the first page of Fray Ramón Pané’s Account of the Antiquities of the Indians. As the Taíno did not possess a written language, the name is the phonetic spelling as recorded by the Spanish missionaries, Ramón Pané, and Bartolomé de las Casas. The three names are thought to represent the Great Spirit’s epithets. Yúcahu means spirit or giver of cassava. Bagua has been interpreted as meaning both “the sea” itself and “master of the sea.” The name Maórocoti implies that he was conceived without male intervention.

He was also later known as “El Gigante Dormido”, or “Sleeping Giant”.

Yúcahu was believed to live and have a throne in the mountainous tropical rainforest ‘El Yunque’, now known as the Caribbean National Forest. He resided in the same manner of the Greek gods residing in Mount Olympus. El Yunque is a large mountain located at the reserve, that diverts hurricanes from hitting the island. The people said that Yúcahu fought with his brother Huracán (or Juracán), the hurricane god, to protect his people.

Yúcahu is also known as the god of agriculture, as well as the god of peace and tranquility, he represented goodness. This was contrasted greatly by his evil brother and Huracán. Huracán was responsible for storms, earthquakes and bad crops. He was associated with the more aggressive Caribs.

Yukiyu was also the Taino name for the region where “El Yunque” resides within. Today, it is known as Luquillo… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukiyu

In Aztec mythology, Huehuecóyotl (nahuatl ”Very old coyote”) is the auspicious god of music, dance, mischief and song of ancient Mexico. He is depicted in the Codex Borbonicus as a dancing coyote with human hands and feet, accompanied by a human drummer. The name “Very old coyote” conveyed positive meanings for the Aztec populace; coyotes were an Aztec symbol of astuteness and worldly-wisdom, pragmatism and male beauty and youthfulness. The prefix “huehue” which in Nahuatl means “very old” was attached to gods in Aztec mythology that were revered for their old age, wisdom, philosophical insights and connections to the divine. Although often appearing in stories as male, Huehuecóyotl can be gender changing, as many of the offspring of Tezcatlipoca. He can be associated with indulgence, male sexuality, good luck and story-telling. One of his prominent female lovers was Temazcalteci (also Temaxcaltechi), the goddess of bathing and sweatbaths (temazcalli), also known as Mexican sauna and Xochiquetzal, the goddess of love, beauty, female sexuality, prostitutes, flowers and young mothers. His male lovers included Opochtli, the left-handed god of trapping, hunting and fishing and Xochipilli, the god of art and games and the patron of homosexuals and male prostitutes of Mesoamerica.

As all Aztec deities, Huehuecóyotl was dualistic in his exercise of good and evil. He was perceived as a balanced god; depictions of his dark side include a coyote appearance (non-human) with black or yellow feathers, as opposed to the customary green feathers.

In most depictions of Huehuecóyotl, he is followed by a human drummer or groups of humans that appear to be friendly to him (as opposed to worshipping), which is exceptional in Mesoamerican culture. In the minds of the Aztec, the close relationship between Huehuecóyotl and humans created a favoritism towards his worship due to the practical as well as spiritual benefits perceived by the ancient Mexicans, who saw other gods either as too far away from them or too lowly; therefore Huehuecóyotl was associated with balance of the old (huehue) and the new (coyotl), the worldy and the spiritual, the male and the female, as well as youth and old age, in modest parallel with the MayanHunab Ku or the Chinese Ying-yang symbol.

Stories derived from the Codex Telleriano-Remensis make him a benign prankster, whose tricks are often played on other gods or even humans but tended to backfire and cause more trouble for himself than the intended victims. A great party-giver, he also was alleged to foment wars between humans to relieve his boredom. He is a part of the Tezcatlipoca (Smoky Mirror) family of the Mexica gods, and has their shapeshifting powers.

Those who had indications of evil fates from other gods would sometimes appeal to Huehuecóyotl to mitigate or reverse their fate. Huehuecóyotl shares many characteristics with the trickster Coyote of the North American tribes, including storytelling and choral singing.

The fourth day of the thirteen day Mexican week belonged to Huehuecóyotl.

He was the only friend to Xolotl who is the god of twins, sickness and deformity and accompanies the dead to Mictlan (the underworld of Aztec mythology). Their association is born from the canine nature of both gods.

Huehuecoyotl is the greatest god ever. Everybody else go home.

Sun Birds

Origin Shona (Zimbabwe)

Dzivaguru goddes of light, darkness and rain clouds, owned to golden swallows of light. she would release them to bring warmth and light to the people and sealing them away to bring back the night and cool air.

Nosenga son of the sky god caught the sun birds and releasing them to the world. Without having Dzivaguru to seal them away the golden birds flew fast, high and low often causing droughts.

source

fuckyeahafricanmythology: