Myths and Legends of the World

There are many myths about the descent of a goddess. This is when the Goddesses ruled the Heavens, the Earth and the Underworld. This is the story of Inanna, the ancient myth that predates the male gods, such as Zeus. The oldest known myth is Sumerian and was written on clay tablets in the third millennium B.C. It is usually known as “The Descent of Inanna” the Sumerian Queen of Heaven and Earth. In their original inception they were pre-patriarchal myths.  But by the time they were written down, the myths showed the incursions of the patriarchy, Inanna’s gradual dispossession, and eventual loss of status.  Dummzi: God of the Harvest Inanna marries a young, handsome shepherd called Dumuzi who becomes a god-king. They have a blissful union but after the honeymoon, Inanna decides to visit her sister in the Underworld whose husband has just died (long story). However, she isn’t on good terms with her, so, as a precaution, she instructs Ninshubur, her trusted female se...

For more than two thousand years, Jezebel has been saddled with a reputation as the bad girl of the Bible, the wickedest of women. This ancient queen has been denounced as a murderer, prostitute and enemy of God, and her name has been adopted for lingerie lines and World War II missiles alike. But what if this version of her story, handed down to us through the ages, is merely the one her enemies wanted us to believe? It happens more often than you think. What if Jezebel, far from being a conniving harlot, was, in fact, framed? Jezebel was a powerful Phoenician princess around 900 BCE.  She is the daughter to Ethbaal, King of Tyre in Phoenicia, and wife to Ahab, King of northern Israel. It is said by many archaeologists and scholars that Jezebel was power behind the throne, not her husband and king. She still honored her religion and did not covert to Judaism. She convinced her husband to worship her Phoenician God Baal, God of fertility, rain and the seasons. They had temple...

March is Women's history month and I am going to feature article about women but limit the show the female form to minimal.  If you were a woman in the ancient world, the best to live is in Egypt.  Women in Ancient Egypt enjoyed many of the same rights that women in our current society enjoy today. A woman could own and sell private property, resolve legal settlements, write a contract, initiate a divorce, file lawsuits, have a profession and inherit property (of course these rights also depended on the woman’s social class). I wouldn't say that Ancient Egyptian women had complete parity to men before the law. Yet they did have many rights that were out of reach for women in neighboring Greece. Women in ancient Etruria and then Rome came close second. This article will examine what it was like to be a woman in Ancient Egyptian society and the different rights and responsibilities that they had. Most women performed domestic tasks in the home. However, there were fema...