Divine Kingship: Did you mean...?

A Praise Poem of Lipit-Estar is a Sumerian praise song honoring Lipit-Estar (also known as Lipit-Ishtar, reign circa 1935 to circa 1924 BCE), the fifth king of the First Dynasty of Isin, best known for his legal code written between the time...

The question "Why do bad things happen to good people?" has been asked for millennia, probably since before writing was invented, but at least since circa 1700 BCE when the Sumerian (and later Babylonian) poem, Ludlul-Bel-Nemeqi (also known...

The gods and goddesses of Ancient Egypt were an integral part of the people's everyday lives for over 3,000 years. There were over 2,000 deities in the Egyptian pantheon, many whose names are well known - Isis, Osiris, Horus, Amun, Ra, Hathor...

The Enuma Elish (also known as The Seven Tablets of Creation) is the Babylonian creation myth whose title is derived from the opening lines of the piece, "When on High". The myth tells the story of the great god Marduk's victory over the...

Hildegard of Bingen (also known as Hildegarde von Bingen, l. 1098-1179) was a Christian mystic, Benedictine abbess, and polymath proficient in philosophy, musical composition, herbology, medieval literature, cosmology, medicine, biology...

Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) was an Italian poet and politician most famous for his Divine Comedy (c. 1319) where he descends through Hell, climbs Purgatory, and arrives at the illumination of Paradise. Dante meets many historical characters...

The Eridu Genesis (also known as the Sumerian Flood Story, The Flood Story, Sumerian creation myth, Sumerian deluge myth) is the oldest Mesopotamian text relating the tale of the Great Flood that would appear in later works such as the Atrahasis...

Astarte is the Canaanite/Phoenician goddess of love, sex, war, and hunting who developed from the Mesopotamian deity Inanna/Ishtar. She is usually associated with the storm god Baal but seems to have been much more popular. She traveled to...

Once upon a time, in the land known as Sumer, the people built a temple to their god, who had conquered the forces of chaos and brought order to the world. They built this temple at a place called Eridu, which, as scholar Gwendolyn Leick...

The Roman imperial cult was the practice of venerating Roman emperors and their families as having divine attributes, honoring their contributions to the spread of Roman religion and culture. It was instituted by the first Roman emperor Augustus...