Curated playlist
Solar gods
- VishnuOnly five of the Rigveda's 1028 hymns honor Vishnu, yet he became a supreme god. Early texts show a minor sun figure.
- FreyrThe Norse god Freyr gave away the one sword that could have saved him. He traded it to win a giantess as his wife.
- HorusHorus won the throne of Egypt with a boat made of painted wood. His rival Set sailed one of real stone, and it sank.
- ApolloApollo killed the serpent Python with a single arrow at Delphi. Then he had to be purified for the blood crime.
- PtahThe word Egypt comes from the name of a temple to the god Ptah. Hut-ka-Ptah in Memphis became Aiguptos in Greek.
- AtumAtum, the creator god of ancient Egypt, once told Osiris how the universe would end. According to the Coffin Texts, he said that after millions of years only the two of them would remain, both in the form of serpents. That is a startling…
- HeliosHeracles once aimed his bow at Helios, the Greek sun god, for scorching him. Helios then lent him a golden cup.
- Sol InvictusIn 274 AD, Emperor Aurelian made the sun god Sol Invictus chief god of the Roman Empire.
- MithraismMithraism left no written theology, only stone. Its Roman followers met in small underground temples.
- RaEvery night, the serpent Apophis attacked the boat of the Egyptian sun god Ra. Hymns and spells helped him win.
- AmunAmun's name meant "the hidden one," yet his temples became Egypt's largest.
- KhepriKhepri is an ancient Egyptian god with the face of a scarab beetle, and his task was to be the sun at the moment of dawn. Each morning the sun returned to the sky, and Khepri was the deity who embodied that return. Through it, he also…