Olympian gods: Did you mean...?

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 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...

At Kotohiragu Shrine a small shrine in Tokyo, they have a small festival with a small parade of the Shichifukujin, the Seven Lucky Gods of Japan. Hatsu Konpira is the shrine's first fair of the new year so the parade of the seven lucky gods...

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...

Shinto means 'way of the gods' and it is the oldest religion in Japan. Shinto's key concepts include purity, harmony, family respect, and subordination of the individual before the group. The faith has no founder or prophets and there is...

The Seven Lucky Gods (aka Shichifukujin) of Japanese folklore on their treasure ship or takarabune. By Hiroshige (1797-1858 CE). Woodblock print, c. 1840 CE. (Victoria & Albert Museum, London)

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

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...

A cosmogony is a creation myth, a myth that explains how the universe as we know it came into existence and is a type of story found in most, if not all, cultures that have surviving literature. Creation myths explain how the universe began...

The gods of Mesopotamia are first evidenced during the Ubaid Period (c. 5000-4100 BCE) when temples were raised to them, but their worship developed during the Uruk Period (4100-2900 BCE) and their names appear in writing beginning in the...