Curated category
Solar gods
- VishnuVishnu sleeps on the coils of a serpent named Shesha, drifting across an ocean of milk called Kshira Sagara, dreaming the universe into existence.
- FreyrFreyr, whose name in Old Norse simply means "the Lord", once stood at the center of a golden temple in Uppsala, his statue carved with an enormous phallus…
- HorusHorus looked down from the sky with two eyes: the Sun on his right, the Moon on his left. When this falcon god flew across the heavens, ancient Egyptians…
- ApolloApollo carries more names than any other Olympian. He is the archer god, the healer, the prophet, the musician, the shepherd's patron, the founder of cities…
- PtahPtah is an ancient Egyptian deity whose name gave the world the word Egypt itself. The great temple dedicated to him in Memphis was called Hut-ka-Ptah…
- AtumAncient Egyptian priests spoke the word tm to describe a verb meaning to complete or to finish. This linguistic root shaped how they understood Atum, the…
- HeliosThe word helios comes from a Proto-Indo-European root that ancient scholars trace back to the dawn of language itself. Walter Burkert noted in his 1985 book…
- Sol InvictusSol Invictus, the Unconquered Sun, burned at the center of Roman religious life for over a century. On the 25th of December 274 AD, the emperor Aurelian…
- MithraismMithraism was a Roman mystery religion centered on a god who killed a bull in a cave, and for three centuries it spread quietly through the armies, merchant…
- RaRa was the ancient Egyptian deity of the Sun, and the Egyptians called themselves the "Cattle of Ra." The name fit a strange origin story.
- AmunHis name, written imn, meant something like "the hidden one" or "invisible." The Pyramid Texts call him "O You, the great god whose name is unknown." That…
- KhepriThe name Khepri appeared in the Pyramid texts, often accompanied by a scarab hieroglyph to clarify its meaning. This ancient Egyptian verb, written as ́hprj…