Epic: Did you mean...?

Homer (c. 750 BCE) is perhaps the greatest of all epic poets and his legendary status was well established by the time of Classical Athens. He composed (not wrote, since the poems were created and transmitted orally, they were not written...

He who saw everything in the broad-boned earth, and knew what was to be known, Who had experienced what there was, and had become familiar with all things. The Epic of Gilgamesh. The...

Myths are a part of every culture in the world and are used to explain natural phenomena, where a people came from and how their civilization developed, and why things happen as they do. At their most basic level, myths comfort by...

Ishtar (Inanna in Sumerian sources) is a primary Mesopotamian goddess closely associated with love and war. This powerful Mesopotamian goddess is the first known deity for which we have written evidence. While largely unknown in the modern...

The Ramayana is an ancient Indian epic, composed some time in the 5th century BCE, about the exile and then return of Rama, prince of Ayodhya. It was composed in Sanskrit by the sage Valmiki, who taught it to Rama's sons, the twins...

The Bhagavad Gita (“Song of God” or “Song of the Lord”) is among the most important religious texts of Hinduism and easily the best known. It has been quoted by writers, poets, scientists, theologians, and philosophers – among others...

Hanuman is one of several zoomorphic characters in Indian mythology, but is the only wholly animal figure who is revered as a god today. The mythic texts speak of him as a monkey child of the Wind God, as possessing enormous strength...

Gilgamesh and Huwawa is a Sumerian poem relating the expedition of Gilgamesh and Enkidu to the Cedar Forest and the slaying of the monster-demon Huwawa. The work predates and informs The Epic of Gilgamesh in which the death...

The Sumerians were the people of southern Mesopotamia (modern-day southern Iraq) whose civilization flourished between circa 4000 and 1750 BCE. Their name comes from the region, which is frequently – and incorrectly...

Cuneiform is a system of writing first developed by the ancient Sumerians of Mesopotamia circa 3600/3500 BCE. It is considered the most significant among the many cultural contributions of the Sumerians...