Gods: Did you mean...?

The term 'mythology' comes from the Greek mythos (story-of-the-people) and logos (word or speech), meaning the spoken story of a people. Every civilization of the ancient world developed a belief system, which is characterized as 'mythology'...

The Nile River was the source of life for the ancient Egyptians and so figured prominently in their religious beliefs. At night, the Milky Way was considered a heavenly Nile, associated with Hathor, and provider of all good things. The Nile...

Join World History Encyclopedia as they chat with Tim Pauketat all about his new book Gods of Thunder: How Climate Change, Travel, and Spirituality Reshaped Precolonial America, published by Oxford University Press. Kelly: Thank you so much...

Today, traveling an hour by ferry from Piraeus, the port of Athens, the first remnant of Aegina's great past a visitor will see is the lonely pillar of Apollo rising from the trees on the hill of Kolona. Once a splendid complex of three buildings...

The 12 gods of Mount Olympus were the most important deities in ancient Greece. In this collection, we examine each of the 12 in detail. With their all-too-human qualities in Greek mythology, the Olympian gods were capable of displaying great...

The Aztecs of northern Mesoamerica (c. 1345 and 1521 CE) worshipped some of the weirdest, most fantastic and downright scary gods seen anywhere in history. The Aztec civilization and the empire it created revolved around winning special favour...

Gods of Thunder by Timothy R. Pauketat, Oxford University Press, 2023.

This image gallery is a visual guide to the gods and goddesses of ancient Egypt. It includes depictions of many of Egypt's more iconic and widely worshipped deities, along with brief descriptions of their roles in Egyptian religion. Each...

The worship of Egyptian gods dates to the Predynastic Period in Egypt (c. 6000 to c. 3150 BCE) but is no doubt much older as the veneration of these deities was already established in rudimentary form through rock carvings dated to c. 6000...

The gods of Mesopotamia are first evidenced during the Ubaid Period (circa 6500-4000 BCE) when temples were raised to them, but their worship developed during the Uruk Period (circa 4000-3100 BCE) and their names appear in writing beginning...