Zu (mythology) In Sumerian and Akkadian mythology, Anzû is a divine storm-bird and the personification of the southern wind and the thunder clouds. This demon—half man and half bird—stole the "Tablets of Destiny" from Enlil and hid them on a mountaintop. Anu ordered the other gods to retrieve the tablets, even though they all feared the demon. According to one text, Marduk killed the bird; in another, it died through the arrows of the god Ninurta. The bird is also referred to as Imdugud. In Babylonian myth, Anzû is a deity associated with cosmogeny. Jump up ^ Greek Myths and Mesopotamia: Parallels and Influence in the Homeric Hymns and Hesiod Fengshen Yanyi Fengshen Yanyi, also known as Fengshen Bang, or translated as The Investiture of the Gods, is a 16th-century Chinese novel and one of the major vernacular Chinese works in the shenmo genre written during the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644).[1] Consisting of 100 chapters, it was first published in book form around the 1550s.[1] Plot[edit] The novel is a romanticised retelling of the overthrow of King Zhou, the last ruler of the Shang Dynasty, by King Wu, who would establish the Zhou Dynasty in place of Shang. Bewitched by his concubine Daji, who is actually a vixen spirit in disguise as a beautiful woman, King Zhou of Shang oppresses his people and persecutes those who oppose him, including his own subjects who dare to speak up to him. Some well-known anecdotes[edit] In the novel, there are many stories (altogether 100 stories) in which many supernatural beings came to Earth and changed the fate of everything with their magical powers. Nüwa and King Zhou[edit] Daji and Boyi Kao[edit] See also[edit]
Monomyth Joseph Campbell's monomyth, or the hero's journey, is a basic pattern that its proponents argue is found in many narratives from around the world. This widely distributed pattern was described by Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949).[1] Campbell, an enthusiast of novelist James Joyce, borrowed the term monomyth from Joyce's Finnegans Wake.[2] Campbell held that numerous myths from disparate times and regions share fundamental structures and stages, which he summarized in The Hero with a Thousand Faces: A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.[3] A chart outlining the Hero's Journey. Summary[edit] In a monomyth, the hero begins in the ordinary world, and receives a call to enter an unknown world of strange powers and events. The 17 Stages of the Monomyth[edit]
Babylonian religion Babylonian religion is the religious practice of Babylonia. Babylonian mythology was greatly influenced by their Sumerian counterparts, and was written on clay tablets inscribed with the cuneiform script derived from Sumerian cuneiform. The myths were usually either written in Sumerian or Akkadian. Some Babylonian texts were translations into Akkadian from the Sumerian language of earlier texts, although the names of some deities were changed in Babylonian texts. Many of the stories of the Tanakh are believed to have been based on, influenced by, or inspired by the legendary mythological past of the Near East.[1] Mythology and cosmology[edit] Babylonian mythology is a set of stories depicting the activities of Babylonian deities, heroes, and mythological creatures. Babylonian mythology was greatly influenced by their Sumerian counterparts, and was written on clay tablets inscribed with the cuneiform script derived from sumerian cuneiform. Religious festivals[edit] Importance of idols[edit]
Marduk Marduk (Sumerian spelling in Akkadian: AMAR.UTU 𒀫𒌓 "solar calf"; perhaps from MERI.DUG; Biblical Hebrew מְרֹדַךְ Merodach; Greek Μαρδοχαῖος,[1] Mardochaios) was the Babylonian name of a late-generation god from ancient Mesopotamia and patron deity of the city of Babylon, who, when Babylon became the political center of the Euphrates valley in the time of Hammurabi (18th century BCE), started to slowly rise to the position of the head of the Babylonian pantheon, a position he fully acquired by the second half of the second millennium BCE. In the city of Babylon, he resided in the temple Esagila.[2] According to The Encyclopedia of Religion, the name Marduk was probably pronounced Marutuk. In the perfected system of astrology, the planet Jupiter was associated with Marduk by the Hammurabi period.[4] Mythology[edit] Marduk and his dragon Mušḫuššu, from a Babylonian cylinder seal Babylonian[edit] In the case of Ea, the transfer proceeded pacifically and without effacing the older god.
Byronic Hero: Definition, Characteristics & Examples The literary archetype of the Byronic Hero, first developed by the 19th century English poet Lord Byron, is one of the most potent and relevant character archetypes in Western literature, art and entertainment. Definition The archetype, or character type, of the Byronic Hero was first developed by the famous 19th century English Romantic poet Lord Byron. A Byronic hero can be conceptualized as an extreme variation of the Romantic Hero archetype. According to many literary critics and biographers, Lord Byron developed the archetype of the Byron Hero in response to his boredom with traditional heroic and Romantic heroic literary characters. The archetype of the Byronic hero is similar in many respects to the figure of the traditional Romantic Hero. Byronic Heroes also tend to appear as being larger than life and dress and style themselves in elaborate costumes for the purpose of marking themselves as being different from others. Characteristics Examples Why is this Important?
Cedar Forest A Cedar Forest in Lebanon The Cedar Forest is the glorious realm of the gods of Mesopotamian mythology. It is guarded by the demigod Humbaba and was once entered by the hero Gilgamesh who dared cut down trees from its virgin stands during his quest for immortality. The Cedar Forest is described in Tablets 4-6 of the great Epic of Gilgamesh. Early translators of the Epic have assumed that the "Ceder Forest" refers to the Lebanon Ceders. Recent research has suggested Ceders grew along the Arabian littoral before the 5.9 kiloyear event and expansion of the Persian Gulf. Tablet 4[edit] Tablet four tells the story of the journey to the cedar forest. The skies roared with thunder and the earth heaved, Then came darkness and a stillness like death. Lightning smashed the ground and fires blazed out; Death flooded from the skies. When the heat died and the fires went out, The plains had turned to ash. Tablet 5[edit] Tablet 6[edit] Father, let me have the Bull of Heaven To kill Gilgamesh and his city.
Mesopotamian religion The god Marduk and his dragon Mušḫuššu Mesopotamian religion refers to the religious beliefs and practices followed by the Sumerian and East Semitic Akkadian, Assyrian, Babylonian and later migrant Arameans and Chaldeans, living in Mesopotamia (a region encompassing modern Iraq, Kuwait, southeast Turkey and northeast Syria) that dominated the region for a period of 4200 years from the fourth millennium BCE throughout Mesopotamia to approximately the 10th century CE in Assyria.[1] Mesopotamian polytheism was the only religion in ancient Mesopotamia for thousands of years before entering a period of gradual decline beginning between the 1st and 3rd centuries CE. Reconstruction[edit] As with most dead religions, many aspects of the common practices and intricacies of the doctrine have been lost and forgotten over time. History[edit] Overview map of ancient Mesopotamia. Akkadian names first appear in king lists of these states circa 2800 BCE. Religion in the Neo-Assyrian Empire[edit] "Enlil!
One story to entertain them all | TEDxVienna What does the Iliad have in common with World of Warcraft? Where lies the connection between Oliver Twist and Bruce Wayne? And how does Emerald City relate to the Death Star? One word to qualify them all: They are epic (in the original meaning of the word) – and they have more in common with each other and with our lives than we may think. Stories have probably been around as long as humans have, passed on orally over generations. We are surrounded by stories, and we make more and more of them daily. As with any idea, a story requires a medium to materialize, but it is by no means bound to spoken or written language. The appearance of stories is diverse, yet structurally many stories are amazingly similar. While not every stage or character has to occur in each instance, Campbell suggests that any story ever told is basically a variation of that one monomyth. However, one question remains: Why are we not yet bored by having that one story told over and over again? photo 1, 2, 3, 4