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The old gods and their long shadow

133 events 0 sources c. 2501 BCE to 2014 published 23 Jul 2026, 01:01

The ancient pantheons and how they still shape the modern world: the Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Norse, and Mesopotamian gods; the syncretism between them...

The ancient pantheons and how they still shape the modern world: the Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Norse, and Mesopotamian gods; the syncretism between them; and the threads that survive - the planets and days of the week named for gods, the festivals folded into Christian holidays, and the symbols that outlived their temples.

Figures Alexander the GreatAugustusGerald GardnerHermes TrismegistusJeff BezosJulius CaesarPhil Knight

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this part of Religion and ideology

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parallel this Babylon and its long shadow parallel this Astrology: from the Babylonian sky to the horoscope part of this The Norse and Germanic gods parallel this Hermes Trismegistus and the Hermetic tradition parallel this Easter, Lent, and the roots of the spring festival parallel this The Renaissance: the rebirth of antiquity part of this The old gods hidden in everyday English part of this Paganism: the old religions, their fall, and their return parallel this Zoroastrianism: heaven, hell, and the first cosmic battle

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    Ra, the sun god, sails across the Egyptian sky

    Ra was the Egyptian sun god who traveled the heavens by day and the underworld by night. From the Old Kingdom on, pharaohs styled themselves sons of Ra, and the god merged with Amun as Amun-Ra.

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    Inanna's descent maps the journey to the underworld

    The Sumerian poem of Inanna's descent tells how the goddess passes through seven gates into the land of the dead and is stripped of her powers, then returns. It is one of the oldest recorded underworld journeys.

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    Zoroaster preaches Ahura Mazda in ancient Iran

    The prophet Zoroaster taught worship of the wise lord Ahura Mazda and a cosmic struggle between truth and falsehood. Zoroastrian ideas about judgment, heaven, and a final renewal influenced later religions.

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    Homer's epics fix the characters of the Greek gods

    The Iliad and Odyssey, attributed to Homer, portray the Olympian gods intervening in human affairs with distinct personalities. These epics became foundational to Greek education and shared identity.

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    June is named for Juno, queen of the gods

    June honors Juno, wife of Jupiter and protector of marriage and women, which is often tied to the month's link with weddings. May likewise honors the goddess Maia.

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    March is named for Mars, the god of war

    March took its name from Mars, the war god, and once opened the Roman year and the season for military campaigns. Its old first place explains why September through December carry number-names for seventh to tenth.

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    The word ocean descends from the god Oceanus legendary

    The Greeks pictured Oceanus as a Titan and a great river encircling the world, and his name gives us the word ocean. The Atlantic likewise recalls the Titan Atlas and the Aegean the legendary king Aegeus.

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    Athens is named for the goddess Athena

    The city of Athens took its name from Athena, its patron goddess of wisdom and craft, who in myth won the city by giving the olive tree. Her great temple, the Parthenon, still crowns the Acropolis.

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    Alexander is hailed as son of Zeus-Ammon

    At the oasis of Siwa, Alexander the Great was greeted as the son of Ammon, whom the Greeks equated with Zeus. The blended god Zeus-Ammon shows how conquest spread the mixing of pantheons.

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    Hellenistic culture blends the gods of many peoples

    After Alexander, Greek, Egyptian, and Near Eastern religions mixed freely, producing blended gods and shared mystery cults. This wide syncretism prepared the ground for religions that crossed old borders.

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    Rome adopts and identifies with the Greek pantheon

    As Rome absorbed Greek culture, it matched its own gods to the Olympians, so Jupiter answered to Zeus and Venus to Aphrodite. Greek myths were retold with Roman names and became the standard classical mythology.

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    Rome imports the goddess Cybele as Magna Mater

    During the war with Hannibal, Rome brought the Anatolian mother goddess Cybele to the city as the Great Mother on the advice of an oracle. Her ecstatic cult and priests became a striking foreign presence in Roman religion.

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    The planets are named for the Roman gods

    The five planets visible to the naked eye carry the Latin names of Roman gods, a practice inherited from Greek and Babylonian astronomy. These names remain the standard ones used in science today.

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    The Celts honor Lugh, the Dagda, and Brigid

    Celtic peoples worshiped gods such as the skilled Lugh, the fatherly Dagda, and the goddess Brigid, known mostly from Irish texts and Roman accounts. Many local deities were tied to springs, rivers, and tribes.

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    Tacitus records the gods of the Germanic tribes

    In his Germania, the Roman historian Tacitus described Germanic worship and matched their gods to Roman ones such as Mercury and Mars. These early gods are ancestors of the later Norse deities.

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    The cult of Mithras spreads through the Roman army

    Mithraism, a mystery religion centered on the god Mithras slaying a bull, drew many Roman soldiers and met in underground temples. Its origins drew on the Persian deity Mithra reshaped in a Roman setting.

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    Saturnalia's midwinter customs feed into Christmas

    The Roman festival of Saturnalia brought feasting, gift-giving, and a loosening of rules in late December, and some of its spirit carried into Christmas. The church set the Nativity in the same season of older winter festivals.

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    The Germanic feast of Yule blends into Christmas

    The midwinter feast of Yule was folded into Christmas as northern peoples became Christian, and the word Yule still means Christmas. Customs such as evergreens and the Yule log carried over.

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    Goodyear's winged foot comes from the god Mercury

    The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, founded in Ohio in 1898, adopted a winged-foot logo around 1900. It is based on the winged sandals of Mercury, the Roman messenger god also known to the Greeks as Hermes.

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    FTD's emblem is the messenger god Mercury

    The florist network, founded in 1910, took a running Mercury as its emblem in 1914. The winged messenger god fit a business that carried flowers across distances.

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    Olympus cameras are named for Mount Olympus

    The Japanese optical company, founded in 1919, took the name Olympus after Mount Olympus, home of the Greek gods. It mirrored the firm's first brand Takachiho, a sacred peak of Japanese myth.

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    Gerald Gardner launches modern Wicca

    Gerald Gardner presented Wicca as a modern nature religion drawing on old pagan imagery, a goddess and a horned god, and the wheel of seasonal festivals. It grew into the largest strand of modern paganism.

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    NASA names its programs after the ancient gods

    also in NASA and the space age

    NASA drew its program names from Greco-Roman mythology: Mercury the messenger, Gemini the twins, Apollo the god of the sun and prophecy, and later Artemis (Apollo's twin) for the return to the Moon, plus Orion, Juno, and the Saturn and Atlas and Titan rockets. The oldest gods still name the newest machines.

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    Nike is named for the Greek goddess of victory

    In 1971 Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman renamed their shoe company Blue Ribbon Sports to Nike, after Nike, the winged Greek goddess of victory. The swoosh logo is meant to suggest her wing.

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    Versace uses the head of Medusa as its emblem

    Gianni Versace founded his Italian fashion house in 1978 and chose the head of Medusa, the snake-haired Gorgon of Greek myth, as its symbol. He said she stood for a beauty with no way back.

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    Maruti is named for the Hindu deity Hanuman

    Maruti, India's carmaker whose modern entity was established in 1981, is named after Maruti, a traditional name for the Hindu deity Hanuman, the swift and mighty son of the wind god.

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    Nvidia's name echoes invidia, envy in Roman myth

    The graphics-chip company, founded in California in 1993, built its name around the NV acronym for next version. The founders liked that the result resembled invidia, the Latin word for envy personified in Roman myth as the goddess Invidia.

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