Mother Goddess: Did you mean...?

The Hymn to Ninkasi is at once a song of praise to Ninkasi, the Sumerian goddess of beer, and an ancient recipe for brewing (though this claim has been challenged). Written down circa 1800 BCE, the hymn is no doubt much older, as evidenced...

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...

Inanna is the ancient Sumerian goddess of love, sensuality, fertility, procreation, and also of war. She later became identified by the Akkadians and Assyrians as the goddess Ishtar, and further with the Hittite Sauska, the Phoenician Astarte...

Hathor is an ancient Egyptian goddess associated, later, with Isis and, earlier, with Sekhmet but eventually was considered the primeval goddess from whom all others were derived. She is usually depicted as a woman with the head of a cow...

Modern medicine has its origin in the ancient world. The oldest civilizations used magic and herbs to cure their sick people, but they also used religion to free them from harm and to protect their health. The medical care of today has its...

The gods of the Aztecs (1345-1521 CE) were many and varied and, as with many other ancient cultures, deities were closely associated with things and events important to the culture and the general welfare of the community. These include gods...

Neith (aka Net, Neit or Nit) and is one of the oldest deities of ancient Egypt who was worshipped early in the Pre-Dynastic Period (c. 6000 - 3150 BCE) and whose veneration continued through the Ptolemaic Dynasty (323 - 30 BCE), the last...

Tara is a female deity in both Hinduism and Buddhism who personifies compassion and offers salvation from the suffering of rebirth and death. She is thought to have been born of empathy for the suffering world and is regularly invoked for...

Achilles The hero of the Trojan War, leader of the Myrmidons, slayer of Hector and Greece's greatest warrior, who sadly came unstuck when Paris sent a flying arrow guided by Apollo, which caught him in his only weak spot, his heel. Adonis...

Aphrodite was the ancient Greek goddess of love, beauty, desire, and all aspects of sexuality. She could entice both gods and men into illicit affairs with her beauty and whispered sweet nothings. Aphrodite was born near Cyprus from the severed...