Name ▲▼ | Origin ▲▼ | Description ▲▼ |
---|---|---|
Goddess name "Khnum" | Egypt / Upper | Chthonic or earth god. Said to create human life on a potter's wheel but strictly at the behest of creator deities. He is usually seated before a potter's wheel on which stands a naked figure in the process of molding. The Khnum cult was principally directed from sanctuaries at Esna, north of the first Nile cataract, and at Elephantine where mummified rams covered with gold leaf and buried in stone sarcophagi have been discovered. Khnum supervises the annual Nile flood, which is physically generated by the god HAPY. His consort at Esna is the goddess Menhyt. Khnum is also described at other sites as the BA or soul of various deities including GEB and OSIRIS. Depicted anthropomorphically or with the head of a ram.... |
Goddess name "Khons(u) (wanderer)" | Egypt / Upper | moon god. Recognized from at least 2500 BC but best known during the New kingdom (mid-sixteenth century BC). A significant deity at Thebes, where he is described as an offspring of AMUN and MUT. His sacred animal is the baboon. There is a Khonsu precinct as part of the Temple of Amun in the Karnak complex. From the Greco-Roman period there exists a sanctuary of Kom-ombo where Khonsu is seen as the offspring of the crocodile god SOBEK and the mother goddess HATHOR. Depicted anthropomorphically or with a falcon's head, but in either case enveloped in a close-fitting robe. He wears a crown consisting of a crescent moon subtending a full moon orb.... |
God name "Ku'nkunxuliga" | Ma'malelegale Indian / British Columbia, Canada | Tribal god. The personification of the thunderbird, known to many Indian tribes, who lives in a palace in the upper world. The noise of the thunder is the beating of its wings.... |
God name "Laodameia" | Greek | A daughter of Acastus, and wife of Protesilaus. As the latter, shortly after his marriage, joined the Greeks in their expedition against Troy, and was the first that was killed there, Laodameia sued for the favour of the gods to be allowed to converse with him only for three hours. The request was granted: Hermes led Protesilaus back to the upper world, and when Protesilaus died a second time, Laodameia died with him. Greek |
Spirit name "Lemures" | Greek | Spectres or spirits of the dead, which were believed by the Romans to return to the upper world and injure the living. Some writers describe Lemures as the common name for all the spirits of the dead and divide all Lemures into two clåśśes; viz. the souls of those who have been good men are said to become Lares, while those of the wicked become Larvae. Greek |
God name "MITHRA (friend)" | Persian / Iran | God of the upper air. Originating in India, Mithra is a god of light who was translated into the attendant of the god AHURA MAZDA in the light religion of Persia; from this he was adopted as the Roman deity Mithras. He is not generally regarded as a sky god but a personification of the fertilizing power of warm, light air. According to the Avesta, he possesses 10,000 eyes and ears and rides in a chariot drawn by white horses. In dualistic Zoroastrianism, which effectively demoted him, Mithra is concerned with the endless battle between light and dark forces; he represents truth. He is responsible for the keeping of oaths and contracts. He was born from a rock and, according to legend, engaged in a primeval struggle with Ahura Mazda's first creation, a wild bull, which he subdued and confined to a cave. The bull escaped, but was recaptured by Mithra, who slit its throat. From the blood sprang plant life on earth. His chief adversary is AHRIMAN, the power of darkness. Mithra is not generally worshiped on his own, but as an integral part of the Mithraic worship of Ahura Mazda, where he acts as an intercessor between gods and men. In the Hellenic period he was transformed more closely to the role of a Sun god. See also AHURA MAZDA.... |
Spirit name "Mania" | Etruscan | An ancient and formidable Italian, probably Etruscan, divinity of the lower world, is called the mother of the Manes or Lares. As regards her being the mother of the Manes or Lares, the idea seems to have been, that the souls of the departed on their arrival in the lower world became her children, and either there dwelt with her or ascended into the upper world as beneficent spirits. |
God name "Men" | Turkey | God of the moon who ruled the upper and lower world Turkey |
God name "Men" | Phrygian / Turkey | moon god. Ruler of both upper and lower worlds. Probably also a god of healing, he was subsequently adopted by the Greeks and Romans. The cult was popular during the imperial period, but its inscriptions were written in Greek.... |
Spirit name "Mermaid" | Arabic | A sea-spirit, the upper part a woman and the lower half a fish. |
God name "Montu" | Egypt | Local god of war. Worshiped in and around the district of Thebes in Upper Egypt. He is known from circa 2000 BC and possibly earlier, but came to special prominence overseeing the aggressive posture of Theban kings from the XI to XVIII Dynasty (2133-1320 BC). Montu is depicted in human form but with a falcon's head surmounted by twin plumes, a Sun disc and the uraeus (cobra). At some stage, probably as Month (Greek), he became identified with a sacred bull, Buchis.... |
Goddess name "Mut" | Egypt | The patron goddess of Thebes. In Upper Egypt she is the counterpart of SAKHMET, the Lower Egyptian goddess from Memphis. After superseding the goddess AMAUNET, she became locally the consort of the Sun god AMUN, in which capacity she is the mother of the moon god KHONSU. She was also regarded as the Divine mother of the Theban kings. Mut is depicted in human form wearing a vulture headdress sur mounted by the twin crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt. She is typically dressed in a bright red or blue patterned gown. Less frequently she is drawn with a lion's head. She enjoyed a cult center at Thebes where her sanctuary was known as the Iseru.... |
Goddess name "Nekhbet" | Egypt / Upper | Local mother goddess. Known from Nekhab (el-Kab), she is generally depicted in the form of a vulture with one or both wings spread and holding the symbols of eternity in her talons. Nekhbet is known from at least 3000 BC and is mentioned in the Pyramid Texts as the great white cowa familiar epithet in respect of Egyptian mother or creator goddesses.... |
Goddess name "Nekhebet" | Egypt | Vulture goddess of Upper Egypt |
Goddess name "Nekhebt" | Egypt | The vulture goddess of Upper Egypt |
"Nzakomba" | Congo | The supreme being of the Lulanga. Upper Congo |
Goddess name "Onuris [Greek]" | Egypt | God of hunting and war. Onuris is first known from This, near Abydos in Upper Egypt. In later times his main cult center was at Samannud in the Nile delta. His consort is the lion goddess Mekhit. Onuris is generally depicted in human form as a bearded figure wearing a crown with four plumes and wielding a spear or occasionally holding a rope. He is sometimes accompanied by Mekhit in iconography. Seen as a hunter who caught and slew the enemies of RE, the Egyptian Sun god, some legends place him close to the battle between HORUS and SETH. In clåśśical times, Onuris became largely syncretized with the Greek war god ARES. Also Anhuret (Egyptian).... |
Goddess name "Pakhet" | Egypt | Bast and Sekhmet were similar feline war gods, one for Upper Egypt and the other for Lower Egypt. Where the two groups met, at Beni Hasan, the similarity of the goddesses lead to a new merged form known as Pakhet. |