Curated category
Planetary gods
- ZeusThe name Zeus appears in the earliest Greek records as di-we and di-wo, written in Linear B script on tablets from Mycenae.
- Jupiter (god)The Latin name Iuppiter originated as a vocative compound of the Old Latin vocative Iou and pater, meaning father. This form replaced the earlier Old Latin…
- Mercury (mythology)The name Mercury connects to the Latin word merx, meaning merchandise. It also links to the Proto-Indo-European root mergh for boundary or border.
- Set (deity)The earliest representations of what might be the Set animal come from a tomb dating to the Amratian culture, also known as Naqada I, which existed between…
- Mars (mythology)The Latin word Mars appears in Old Latin texts as Mamart-, a form likely borrowed from foreign tongues. Scholars once linked this name to the Vedic storm…
- HermesThe earliest written record of Hermes appears in Linear B inscriptions from Pylos, Thebes, and Knossos dating to the Bronze Age Mycenaean period.
- Neptune (mythology)The name Neptune remains a subject of intense scholarly debate. Ancient grammarian Varro derived the Latin term from nuptus, meaning covering or opertio.
- CronusThe sky father Uranus hid his youngest children, the hundred-handed Hecatoncheires and one-eyed Cyclopes, deep within Tartarus.
- Uranus (mythology)Most linguists trace the name Uranus to a Proto-Greek form called Worsanós. Originally reconstructed by Johann Baptist Hofmann, this root expands from Worsó-.
- AresThe name Ares appears in Mycenaean Linear B tablets as the syllabic form a-re. This earliest attested version dates to the Bronze Age, long before classical…