Portal:Myths

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The Myths Portal

1929 Belgian banknote, depicting Ceres, Neptune and caduceus

Myth is a genre of folklore or theology consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. For folklorists, historians, philosophers or theologians this is very different from the use of "myth" which simply meaning something that is not true. Instead, the truth value of a myth is not a defining criterion.

Myths are often endorsed by secular and religious authorities and are closely linked to religion or spirituality. Many societies group their myths, legends, and history together, considering myths and legends to be true accounts of their remote past. In particular, creation myths take place in a primordial age when the world had not achieved its later form. Other myths explain how a society's customs, institutions, and taboos were established and sanctified. There is a complex relationship between recital of myths and the enactment of rituals. (Full article...)

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Goddess Ishtar on an Akkadian Empire seal, 2350–2150 BCE. She is equipped with weapons on her back, has a horned helmet, is trampling a lion held on a leash and is accompanied by the star of Shamash.

Inanna is the ancient Mesopotamian goddess of love, war, and fertility. She is also associated with beauty, sex, divine law, and political power. Originally worshiped in Sumer, she was known by the Akkadian Empire, Babylonians, and Assyrians as Ishtar (and occasionally the logogram 𒌋𒁯). Her primary title was "the Queen of Heaven".

She was the patron goddess of the Eanna temple at the city of Uruk, her early main cult center. In archaic Uruk she was worshiped in three forms: morning Inanna (Inana-UD/hud), evening Inanna (Inanna sig) and princely Inanna (Inanna NUN), the former two reflecting the phases of her associated planet Venus. Her most prominent symbols included the lion and the eight-pointed star. Her husband was the god Dumuzid (later known as Tammuz), and her sukkal (attendant) was the goddess Ninshubur, later conflated with the male deities Ilabrat and Papsukkal. (Full article...)

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An eight-armed seated woman dressed in a sari, holding a child and various weapons, ripping the womb of a woman, lying on her lap, while trampling a man

  • ... that Tamil Hindu parents dedicate their one-month-old children to the goddess Periyachi (pictured), who is depicted ripping a woman's womb?


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siren in classical Greek funerary statue
Attic funerary statue of a siren, playing on a tortoiseshell lyre, c. 370 BC

In Greek mythology, sirens (Ancient Greek: singular: Σειρήν, Seirḗn; plural: Σειρῆνες, Seirênes) are humanlike beings with alluring voices; they appear in a scene in the Odyssey in which Odysseus saves his crew's lives. Roman poets place them on some small islands called Sirenum scopuli. In some later, rationalized traditions, the literal geography of the "flowery" island of Anthemoessa, or Anthemusa, is fixed: sometimes on Cape Pelorum and at others in the islands known as the Sirenuse, near Paestum, or in Capreae. All such locations were surrounded by cliffs and rocks.

Sirens continued to be used as a symbol for the dangerous temptation embodied by women regularly throughout Christian art of the medieval era. "Siren" can also be used as a slang term for a woman considered both very attractive and dangerous. (Full article...)

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