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Items from the Neolithic "Beaker culture"; the idea of defining distinct "cultures" according to their material culture was at the core of culture-historical archaeology. Culture-historical archaeology is an archaeological theory that emphasises defining historical societies into distinct ethnic and cultural groupings according to their ...
Knowledge of Greek, Roman and Judeo-Christian influence on the development of Western civilization is well documented because it attached to literate cultures, however, Western history was also strongly influenced by less literate groups such as the Germanic, Scandinavian and Celtic peoples who lived in Western and Northern Europe beyond the ...
In ancient Greece, the phallus, often in the form of a herma, was an object of worship as a symbol of fertility. This finds expression in Greek sculpture and other artworks. One ancient Greek male idea of female sexuality was that women envied penises of males. Wives were considered a commodity and instruments for bearing legitimate children.
[2] [3] Alternative terms used in Christian texts were hellene, gentile, and heathen. [1] Ritual sacrifice was an integral part of ancient Greco-Roman religion [4] and was regarded as an indication of whether a person was pagan or Christian. [4] Paganism has broadly connoted the "religion of the peasantry". [1] [5]
The Classical Greek Olympic triad of Zeus (king of the gods), Athena (goddess of war and intellect) and Apollo (god of the sun, culture and music) [3] [4]; The Delian chief triad of Leto (mother), Artemis (daughter) and Apollo (son) [5] [6] and second Delian triad of Athena, Zeus and Hera [7]
The Triumph of Christianity over Paganism, a painting by Gustave Doré (1899). Paganism is commonly used to refer to various religions that existed during Antiquity and the Middle Ages, such as the Greco-Roman religions of the Roman Empire, including the Roman imperial cult, the various mystery religions, religious philosophies such as Neoplatonism and Gnosticism, and more localized ethnic ...
Some beliefs developed in different ways as cultures separated and evolved. For example, the word ' daeva ,' which appears in the Avesta, also bears a linguistic relationship to the Sanskrit word ' deva ,' referring to one of the principal classes of gods, as well as other related words throughout the Indo-European traditions.
Though drawing on ancient Mesopotamian religion, the religion of the Hittites and Luwians retains noticeable elements of reconstructed Proto-Indo-European mythology.For example, Tarhunt, the god of thunder and his conflict with the serpent Illuyanka resembles the conflict between Indra and the cosmic serpent Vritra in Vedic mythology, or Thor and the serpent Jörmungandr in Norse mythology.