Flood Myth: Did you mean...?

Cuneiform is a system of writing first developed by the ancient Sumerians of Mesopotamia c. 3500 BCE. It is considered the most significant among the many cultural contributions of the Sumerians and the greatest among those of the Sumerian...

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 of Mesopotamia...

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 of...

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 Salvador and Honduras. These gods informed...

The Early Dynastic Period of Mesopotamia is the modern-day archaeological term for the era in Mesopotamian history – 2900-2334 BCE – during which some of the most significant cultural advances were made including the rise of the cities, the...

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 cow...

The Death of Gilgamesh is a Sumerian poem relating the death and afterlife of the famous hero-king of Uruk, who had become a legendary figure. The piece is dated to before the Ur III Period (2047-1750 BCE), and although its theme informs...

Greek mythology was used as a means to explain the environment in which humankind lived, the natural phenomena they witnessed and the passing of time through the days, months, and seasons. Greek myths were also intricately connected to religion...

In Greek mythology, the Minotaur was a monster with the body of a man and the head and tail of a bull. The Minotaur was the offspring of the Cretan Queen Pasiphae and a majestic bull. Due to the Minotaur's monstrous form, King Minos ordered...

Dangun Wanggeom (or Tangun) was the legendary founder of Gojoseon (Gochoson or Old Choson), the first Korean state which ruled northern Korea in the second half of the first millennium BCE. Gojoseon possessed the most advanced culture in...