Ba’al – the Levant – West Asian gods
Ba'al from Ugarit (Louvre Museum, Paris) He who shall not be named? All along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, in what's now Lebanon, Syria, and Israel, and down into [...]
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09, 2017
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09, 2017
Attis and Cybele – West Asian mythology
Cybele and Attis standing together, while two much smaller human worshippers pray to them. From the Hellenistic kingdoms, in what is now Turkey, in the 100s BC Who was Cybele? [...]
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09, 2017
Who is Astarte? West Asian religion
The goddess Astarte in the Late Bronze Age The goddess Astarte As early as about 3000 BC, Astarte was a Semitic goddess of love and fertility. People worshipped her in Mesopotamia and in the [...]
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09, 2017
Who is Ahura Mazda? Zoroastrianism and West Asian religion
A carving of the Zoroastrian god Ahura Mazda, from the Louvre museum in Paris Who is Ahura Mazda? About 1500 BC, people in India and Iran worshipped a sky god they called [...]
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09, 2017
West Asian religion – Ottoman and Safavid, Sunni and Shiite
Shah Mosque, Ishfahan, Iran (1611-38) West Asia was divided into two big empires in the 1500s AD - the Ottoman Empire and the Safavid Empire. Both the Ottomans and the Safavids followed Islam, but they followed two different kinds of [...]
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09, 2017
Maya gods and religion
For the Maya gods, a Maya pyramid at Tonina (ca. 700 AD) A Maya creation story Maya people believed that the world was created by One Deer. One Deer created [...]
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09, 2017
Central and South American religion
Maya Corn King on a plate Polytheism in the Americas The people who lived in South and Central America before 1500 were polytheistic - they believed in many different gods. Because they [...]
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09, 2017
Mayan Corn God – Central American religion
Maya pyramid to the Corn God at Tonina (ca. 700 AD) Because corn (maize) was Mayan people's main food, their most important god was the Corn God. A popular Mayan story was [...]
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09, 2017
Aztec gods and rituals – Central American religion
The Aztec god of seeds, Xipe Totec (ca 1500 AD) Who were the Aztec gods? Aztec people were polytheistic - they had many gods. That's the same as like the people of China, India, or Africa at [...]
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09, 2017
Heloise and Abelard – Middle Ages in Europe
Heloise and Abelard Who was Heloise? The story of Heloise (HELL-oh-ees) and her husband Peter Abelard is one of the saddest stories of Western history. Heloise was born about 1100 [...]
