Flood Myth: Did you mean...?

Old Testament is the Christian name for the books of the Jewish scriptures that constitute the first half of the Christian Bible. "Old" in this sense was a means to distinguish Judaism from Christianity at the creation of the New...

Chinese literature is among the most imaginative and interesting in the world. The precision of the language results in perfectly realized images whether in poetry or prose and, as with all great literature, the themes are timeless...

The Library of Ashurbanipal (7th century BCE) is the oldest known systematically organized library in the world, established in Nineveh by the Neo-Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (r. 668-627 BCE) to preserve the history and culture...

Ur was a city in the region of Sumer, in southern Mesopotamia, and its ruins lie in what is modern-day Tell el-Muqayyar, Iraq. According to biblical tradition, the city is named after the man who founded...

The Xia Dynasty (c. 2070-1600 BCE) was the first government to emerge in ancient China and the first to adopt the policy of dynastic succession. Consequently, the Xia was the first dynasty of China. Long regarded as a mythical construct...

James Longstreet (1821-1904) was a Confederate general in the American Civil War, serving chiefly under Robert E. Lee in the Eastern theater. He was regarded as one of the most effective commanders...

The Early Dynastic period in Mesopotamia is the modern-day archaeological term for the era in Mesopotamian history – circa 2900 to circa 2350/2334 BCE – during which some of...

In Greek mythology, the Titan Prometheus had a reputation as being something of a clever trickster and he famously gave the human race the gift of fire and the skill of metalwork, an action for which he was punished by Zeus, who ensured...

The pantheon of the Maya is a vast collection of deities worshipped throughout the regions of Yucatan, Quintana Roo, Campeche, Tabasco, and Chiapas in Mexico and southward through Guatemala, Belize, El...

Hathor is an ancient Egyptian goddess associated, later, with Isis and, earlier, with Sekhmet but eventually was considered the primeval goddess from whom all others were derived. She is usually depicted as a woman with the head of a...