Mythology in the Ancient World

When people wonder about Ancient Greece the first thing that comes to their minds is Greek mythology; gods and goddesses that have helped shape many historical events. “In ancient Greece, stories about gods and goddesses and heroes and monsters were an important part of everyday life.” (“Greek Mythology.”) The civilization showed that numerous characters and stories helped shape Greeks. The beliefs the Greeks had with mythologies was they understood the meaning behind all the characters that are known today. However, to the Greeks, they were not just characters, these were their gods and goddesses who gave them meaning and understanding of the world around them. Worshiping the gods and goddesses helped them with their religious rituals and the temperament of the weather. A famous wine-jar that was made during this time period was “Achilles killing the Amazon Queen Penthesilea, 540-530 BCE, black-figured amphora”. (Khan Academy) The civilization that they lived in grew around their worship and achievements.

While there are many Native American stories regarding the creation of the world, there are three that are widely accepted. The most widely believed story is the tale of the Lone Man. The story begins with a Single Man in the emptiness with the Great Chief. To begin, the Great Chief created the form of the earth, and the Lone Man took sand and created all landforms on the Earth. The Lone Man was very lonely, so he created people. He then turned himself into corn so that he may live with the people on Earth (Neil.). The next most commonly accepted story revolves around two feathered serpents. These two serpents had the power to imagine anything into being, and were eager to create. One day, one serpent created the Earth and the other created all animals. Next, these serpents were eager to create again, but they lacked inspiration. Then, after hearing their frustration, the animals

The Norse Vikings created a story to explain the creation of the cosmos and man. Their tale started with the only thing existing was the empty abyss of Ginnungagap. It was located between Muspelheim, which is the land of fire, and Niflheim, which is the land of ice. Muspelheim and Niflheim expanded until they met in the middle of Ginnungagap. When the ice melted from the fire, the water drops became the first god (giant) named Ymir whom reproduced other giants asexually. Later the water drops formed Audhumbla, a cow. Audhumbla was formed to nourish Ymir and in turn Ymir made salt licks in the ice for her. After licking the ice Audhumbla uncovered Buri.

As with the other form of symbolic expression, myths are connected to something which is supernatural and sacred with the concrete and mundane. Myths, in fact, gives diverse of functions such as they may serve cultural histories, implying past events, for example; migration; early form of organization; and natural occurrence such as meteor showers, eclipses or floods. In other word, myths often “compose a conservative,socializing power whose role is to consecrate existing institutions and strengthen the values of sociality” (Hiatt, 1975, 5).

The Nordic religion refers to the religious traditions of the Norsemen prior to the Christianisation of Scandinavia, specifically during the Viking age. It is a subset of the Germanic paganism. They believe that the world first came about when a northern (Niflheim) and a southern land (Muspelheim) joined as one. As Niflheim was a land made of ice and Muspellheim was a land of fire the reaction of the two joining created the first two creatures; Ymer, the giant and Audhumla the female cow. From these creatures, there came the first gods; Odin, vile and Ve, which was then when Odin created the first humans from an elm and ash tree. As disagreements were made between Ymer and the god it caused Ymer to be killed. From his body came the formation of landforms and other living races. Yggrasil was situated in the middle of Asgard (the realm in which the Aesir gods/goddesses lived) and was considered to be the tree of life where it held the 9 realms. It was rooted from 3 enormous roots that connected to three different realms’ Asgard, Jotunheim and Niflheim.

A myth is a traditional story, concerning the early history of people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon; they typically involve supernatural being or events (Dictionary.com, 2016). Myths certainly had a simple aesthetic function of entertainment; they were presented through the means of visual and theatrical art (Cartwright. M, 2012). Myths provided advice on how to lead a good life. Some myths were purposely composed to be outrageous and wrong because it taught the people what not to do. Myths, however, were also thought to be a reflection of the Greek’s way of thinking; this was depicted through them portraying their deities as humans, giving them human traits (Vandiver. E, 2000). Myths explained the environment in which humankind lived in and the natural phenomena they witnessed (Vandiver. E, 2000). They were also intricately connected to religion in the Greek world and explained the origin of Gods and where humanity had come from and where humans would go after death (Mark. J, 2012).

While creation myths around the world might be distinct, being representative of a diverse set of given culture and its beliefs of the role of humans in time and space, many creation myths share common themes and motifs. Creation myths are always built on one of these five universal foundations: creation from nothing, creation from chaos, creation from world parents, earth-diver creation, and emergence creation through a hole in the earth. In the Norse creation myth, Odin and his two other brothers killed Ymir after being persuaded by the threat of a growing Jotun population. Odin, Vili, and Ve took Ymir’s corpse to Gunnungagap and turned different parts of his body into different aspects of the cosmos and the earth. This dismemberment of

There are many similarities between the beliefs of Ancient Egyptians and Ancient Greeks. Both Ancient Greeks and Ancient Egyptians had a myth system, where they would make myths about the creation on the universe. For example, in Egyptian Myths priests worshiped the sun god known as Ra, and believed Atum, a manifestation of Ra, created the universe. An example of a Greek myth is the Titans.

Norse creation myths centre around the concept of fire and ice . Before the worlds were created there was Muspell , the realm of fire , and Niflheim , the realm of ice, between them there was nothing except an enormous emptiness referred to as Ginnungagap.

Many forms of religion have developed over the years; some worship one god, others, many gods and goddesses and even idols. They worship, pray to, and rely on the gods, goddesses, and idols to answer prayers or requests. The ancient Greeks worshiped many gods and goddesses, which they saw as ruling over many functions of their daily lives: such as love, crops, water, wisdom, and warfare. “The ancient Greeks lived by myths, fables, and teachings, which developed as oral stories during the Bronze Age. The most popular first known written poet is Homer who wrote ‘Iliad and the Odyssey’ in the 8th century.” There are so many Greek myths, gods, goddesses, and mythical creatures that have developed over this time period. One of the most

Overtime, each culture group had developed popular traditional tales that are worldly studied and discussed. Despite their different areas of origins and the distinct story plots, they all share a similar purpose and that is to guide humans to behave properly. Since these stories share an identical purpose and are plotted in a way resembling our real lives, their characters have a similar pattern of behavior, which reveals a great deal about human nature. With this in mind, there are similarities between the two most widely known pieces of literature, Greek mythology and the biblical stories, namely, the Greek myth of Hera and Io compared with the biblical story Cain and Abel, the myth of Deucalion and Pyrrha compared with the story of Noah’s ark, and the myth of Pandora compared with Adam and Eve. These stories vividly reveal aspects of human nature.

A myth is a traditional story, concerning the early history of people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon; they typically involve supernatural being or events (Dictionary.com, 2016). Myths certainly had a simple aesthetic function of entertainment; they were presented through the means of visual and theatrical art (Cartwright. M, 2012). Myths provided advice on how to lead a good life. Some myths were purposely composed to be outrageous and wrong because it taught the people what not to do. Myths, however, were also thought to be a reflection of the Greek’s way of thinking; this was depicted through them portraying their deities as humans, giving them human traits (Vandiver. E, 2000). Myths explained the environment in which humankind lived in and the natural phenomena they witnessed (Vandiver. E, 2000). They were also intricately connected to religion in the Greek world and explained the origin of Gods and where humanity had come from and where humans would go after death (Mark. J, 2012).

The first parents were Heaven and Earth, the children were known as the Titans and their grandchildren the gods.

For Greek gods we pretended that we were gods for it I was Minerva the daughter of Zeus. I'm going to tell you about Minerva as I told you she is the daughter of Zeus but she in the romin daughter of Zeus the God is Athena. They are the god of war the symbol that represent thum is a olw her weapon is a spear and a shield. We osow made a video about the gods. Know you know how I plan as and about her.

A major cultural belief in Norse myth is that creation cannot happen without any outside influences. It can be noted that life depends on what has already died, and “new life feeds on death” (McCoy, Daniel). It is one of the fundamental principles in life where you have to give in order to get something in return, and this cultural principle of life is noteworthy in the Norse creation myth. The people believe that the creation of the universe was not out of