Kingship: Did you mean...?

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 government of ancient Persia was based on an efficient bureaucracy which combined the centralization of power with the decentralization of administration. The Achaemenid Empire (c. 550-330 BCE) founded by Cyrus the Great (r. c. 550-530...

The Mauryan Empire (322 BCE - 185 BCE) supplanted the earlier Magadha Kingdom to assume power over large tracts of eastern and northern India. At its height, the empire stretched over parts of modern Iran and almost the entire Indian subcontinent...

The Kingdom of Benin, located in the southern forests of West Africa (modern Nigeria) and formed by the Edo people, flourished from the 13th to 19th century CE. The capital, also called Benin, was the hub of a trade network exclusively controlled...

The New Kingdom (c. 1570- c.1069 BCE) is the era in Egyptian history following the disunity of the Second Intermediate Period (c. 1782-1570 BCE) and preceding the dissolution of the central government at the start of the Third Intermediate...

The Greek Dark Age (c. 1200 to c. 800 BCE, overlapping with the Iron Age, c. 1200-550 BCE) is the modern-day term for the period in Greek history following the Bronze Age Collapse when the Mycenaean Civilization fell and the Linear B writing...

Horus is the name of a sky god in ancient Egyptian mythology which designates primarily two deities: Horus the Elder (or Horus the Great), the last born of the first five original gods, and Horus the Younger, the son of Osiris and Isis...

The Hittites occupied the ancient region of Anatolia (also known as Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey) prior to 1700 BCE, developed a culture apparently from the indigenous Hatti (and possibly the Hurrian) people, and expanded their territories...

Orisha (also given as Orisa and Orishas) are supernatural entities usually referred to as deities in the Yoruba religion of West Africa, though they are actually emanations or avatars of the supreme being Olodumare. Their number is usually...

Set, also known as Seth and Suetekh, was the Egyptian god of war, chaos, and storms, brother of Osiris, Isis, and Horus the Elder, uncle to Horus the Younger, and brother-husband to Nephthys. His other consort was the goddess Tawaret, a hippo-headed...