Stories in the starry sky

Scienctists turns to Greek mythology

Apollo drew his bow and fired arrow after arrow into the deadly pythondragon guarding the sacred ground of Ge, the goddess of the earth. With his victory, Apollo gained the right to call the slopes of Delphi his earthly sanctuary. It is a beautiful myth. Out of it grew the story of the Oracle of Delphi, a soothsayer who inhaled the breath of Apollo. The Pythia, the priestess who sat on a tripod inhaling fumes from the bowels of the earth, went into trances and muttered incomprehensible phrases, ...

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Zeus devotees worship in Athens

Worshippers who believe in the 12 gods of ancient Greece have held a ceremony at the Temple of Zeus in Athens. This is a landmark event to celebrate official recognition of their religion by a court last year. The Greek Orthodox Church has said they are miserable resuscitators of a degenerate dead religion. But the ceremony went ahead, with crowds watching priests and priestesses, who said the event was a symbol of their civic rights. In 2003, white-clad worshippers performedan illicit ceremony ...

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Legend of Perseus

© BBC.CO.UK Perseus was the son of Danae, the daughter of King Acrisius, and Zeus. King Acrisius had been told by a prophet that his grandson would kill him, so he locked his daughter in a brass tower so she could not have children. Despite this, she secretly married Zeus and became pregnant. When King Acrisius found out about the baby, he was frightened. Not wanting to kill them, he put Danae and Perseus into a chest and cast them into the sea. The chest washed up onto an i...

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Following in the steps of a Trojan hero

Archaeologists have discovered the place where Aeneas is believed to have first set foot in Italy. It is the closest point on the Italian peninsula to Albania and, until efforts by the coastguard some years ago, was the destination of choice for Albanians fleeing poverty for the glamour and prosperity of their wealthy neighbour. But suddenly, the little town of Castro in the province of Lecce has something much more exciting to shout about. Archaeologists at the University of Lecce have discover...

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Evidence of pre-Zeus deity found

Submitted by Da Verminator: Before Zeus hurled his first thunderbolt from Olympus, the pre-Greek people occupying the land presumably paid homage and offered sacrifices to their own gods and goddesses, whose nature and identities are unknown to scholars today. But archaeologists say they have now found the ashes, bones and other evidence of animal sacrifices to some pre-Zeus deity on the summit of Mount Lykaion, in the region of Greece known as Arcadia. The remains were uncovered last summer at ...

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Oriclae of Delphi

Interactive Ancient Mediterranean Copyright © 1998 Historical significance: Delphi owed its international prominence to the famous oracle of the god Apollo, who foretold the future through his priestess, known as the Pythia. She responded to the questions of visitors while in a trance; her inarticulate cries were interpreted and written down by an official interpreter, in earlier times in hexameter verse, then later in prose. These oracular responses were notoriously ambiguous, an...

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New evidence of the cult of Zeus is 3,200 years old

Copyright © Philadelphia InquirerIt's not hard to see why Zeus was such a popular god with the ancient Greeks. He not only wielded a thunderbolt, but he also got into all sorts of trouble, including liaisons with humans and goddesses - much to the annoyance of his wife, Hera.Greek gods were figures people could relate to, said archaeologist David Romano of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. And worshiping Zeus apparently involved some serious part...

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Legend of Hercules

© BBC.CO.UK Heracles, known to the Romans as Hercules, was a Greek hero whose most well known feature was his enormous strength inherited from his father, Zeus. Many of his exploits can be read as being historical representations of actual sociological development, for example the transition from a matriarchal society to a patriarchal one. These include descriptions of earlier ceremonies and rituals and their suppression. Heracles' Birth and Childhood: Alcmene - Herac...

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Amazons - The Mythical Race of Warrior Women

By Farid Alakbarli Legends about the Amazons - a warlike tribe of women warriors - have existed in various cultures throughout the world. Not many people realize, however, that Amazons are closely associated with Azerbaijan. Yes, ancient Greeks believed that Caucasian Albania was the native land of the Amazons. Perhaps, much of what has been written about Amazons is only a legend; however, it is true that many Albanian women really did serve in the armies of Caucasian Albania wh...

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The Oracle at Delphi

Legend has it that Zeus released 2 eagles from the opposite ends of the Earth and where they met became known at the center of the world. That place was Delphi, and though perhaps not really the center of the world, it was a place that played an important role in ancient Greek history.How the Oracle came to be is also well-documented in Greek myth. Originally, there was a shrine at Delphi to the Earth Mother, Gaia. That shrine was home to a giant serpent, named Python, who guarded th...

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