Historical and mythological. Historical, religious and mythological schemes for the periodization of the history of the Earth and humanity - truth and fiction - Earth before the Flood: disappeared continents and civilizations. Introduction. what is myth and mythology

Different historical works and treatises provide different lists of the legendary rulers and emperors of China, which are considered the ancestors of the Chinese. The most common references are to the following rulers: Fuxi, Shennong and Huangdi.
Fusi, Paosi, Baosi in the earliest myths was the god of hunting and fishing. On grave bas-reliefs of the first centuries AD. in the provinces of Shandong, Jiangsu, SichuanFusi and his sister Nüwa are depicted as a pair of similar creatures with human torsos and intertwined snake (dragon) tails.. Confucian philosophers turned Fuxi into a sovereign who ruled from 2953 to 2852 BC
Shennong was the patron of agriculture and medicine. He was also called Yandi and Yaowan.He had the body of a snake, a human face and green skin, “like the color of grass.”Sometimes he was depicted with small horns on his head. Shennong was revered as a sovereign who ruled from 2852 to 2737 BC e.
Huangdi was considered the personification of the magical powers of the earth, harmony and order. It was believed thatHuangdi was enormously tall (about 3 m).According to some sources, he had the face of a dragon, according to others– looked like a completely normal person, only very tall. According to tradition, Huangdi ruled from 2697 to 2597 BC
The list of five legendary emperors of China depends on the source. According to the version of the Chinese historian Sima Qiang (145 or 135– 90 BC), this is the already familiar Huangdi, Zhuan-xu, Di Ku or simply Ku, Yao and Shun.
In the Confucian historiographical tradition, a characteristic is given Zhuan-xuya as the grandson or great-grandson of Huangdi, who ruled in 2513-2435 BC., using the magical power of water.In the earliest myths, Zhuan-xu was considered the god of time.In the appearance of Zhuan-xuya, archaic features can be traced, reflected in the indivisibility of body parts, limbs, etc. (fused legs, ribs, eyebrows). According to one legend, his father Han-liu had “the neck is long, the ears are small, the face of a man, but with a pig’s snout, the body of a unicorn is a qilin, both legs are fused together and resemble the hooves of a pig... In appearance, Zhuan-xu slightly resembled his father.”.
Di Ku was considered the great-grandson of Huangdi and the brother of Zhuang-xu and ruled, according to tradition, from 2435 to 2366 BC. He was depicted as a creature with the head of a bird and the body of a monkey. He had only one leg, and on his head- horns.
Yao, allegedly ruled from 2357 to 2255 BC. uh., combined divine and human features in his image. He also bore the names Di Yao, Fang-xun, Tang Yao. In some sources he was considered the second son of Di Ku. According to the Japanese scientist Mitarai Masaru, he was originallywas one of the solar deities and was thought of in the form of a bird, and only in later myths did he become an earthly emperor.
One of Yao’s main services to humanity was that, with the help of Huangdi’s great-grandson, the dragon Gun, he was able to stop and calm the global flood, which threatened to destroy all life on Earth.
Shun was considered one of the greatest emperors of China who lived before the global flood.According to tradition, he ruled With2254 to 2206 BC.
Some sources include Shao Hao (2596 - 2514 BC), Di Zhi (2365 - 2358 BC) and Yu (2205) among the legendary emperors of China.– 2197 BC.).
Yu became famous for pacifying the global flood (the second or third, in Chinese chronology).

Periodization of the history of the Earth and humanity among the ancient Koreans

According to the ancient records of the Samguk Yusa (Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms) of the Buddhist monk Irene (13th century), the son of the heavenly Emperor Hwanung (son of the Supreme Heavenly Ruler of Haneul), Tangun, who founded the kingdom of Ancient Joseon, began to rule in 2333 BC. uh. According to the description in “Dongguk Tongnam” (1485), this happened in the 50th year of the reign of the Chinese Emperor Yao. Other sources give different dates, but they are all unanimous that the beginning of Tangun's reign was during the reign of Yao ( 2357-2255 BC.). According to some sources, Tangun lived for 1908 years, according to others (“Eunje siju” Kwon Nama, 15th century)– 1048 years.

The first chapters of the book you are holding in your hands give a general idea of what myth and mythology are, the classification of myths and the history of the study of mythology. Further chapters tell about the peculiarities of the mythological ideas of different peoples: the ancient Slavs, Scandinavians, Celts, Egyptians, Indians, Iranians, Chinese, Japanese, American Indians and Australian aborigines. The book pays special attention to ancient mythology (Greek and Roman). However, it should be noted that each of the described mythological systems has a unique identity and is therefore interesting in its own way.

INTRODUCTION WHAT IS MYTH AND MYTHOLOGY?

DEVELOPMENT OF MYTHOLOGICAL REPRESENTATIONS 1

WHAT ARE THERE MYTHS 3

STUDYING MYTHOLOGY 6

MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT EGYPT 8

MYTHOLOGY OF THE ANCIENT MEBORIVERS (SUMERIAN-AKKADIAN MYTHOLOGY) 15

MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT GREECE 24

ROMAN MYTHOLOGY 38

INDIAN MYTHOLOGY 45

IRANIAN MYTHOLOGY 56

SLAVIC MYTHOLOGY 62

CELTIC MYTHOLOGY 72

GERMAN-SCANDINAVIAN MYTHOLOGY 83

CHINESE MYTHOLOGY 89

JAPANESE MYTHOLOGY 95

CENTRAL AMERICA INDIAN MYTHOLOGY 101

MYTHOLOGY OF THE SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS 106

MYTHOLOGY OF AUSTRALIA 110

ILLUSTRATIONS 113

Elena Vladimirovna Dobrova
Popular history of mythology

INTRODUCTION WHAT IS MYTH AND MYTHOLOGY?

We are familiar with the myths and legends of ancient peoples from school. Every child rereads with pleasure these ancient fairy tales, which tell about the life of the gods, the wonderful adventures of heroes, the origin of heaven and earth, the sun and stars, animals and birds, forests and mountains, rivers and seas, and, finally, man himself. For people living today, myths really seem like fairy tales, and we don’t even think about the fact that many millennia ago their creators believed in the absolute truth and reality of these events. It is no coincidence that researcher M.I. Steblin-Kamensky defines myth as “a narrative that, where it arose and existed, was accepted as the truth, no matter how implausible it may be.”

The traditional definition of myth belongs to I.M. Dyakonov. In a broad sense, myths are, first of all, “ancient, biblical and other ancient tales about the creation of the world and man, as well as stories of gods and heroes - poetic, sometimes bizarre.” The reason for this interpretation is quite understandable: it was ancient myths that were included in the circle of knowledge of Europeans much earlier than others. And the word “myth” itself is of Greek origin and translated into Russian means “tradition” or “legend”.

Ancient myths are highly artistic literary monuments that have survived almost unchanged to the present day. The names of Greek and Roman gods and stories about them became especially widely known during the Renaissance (XV-XVI centuries). Around this time, the first information about Arabic and American Indian myths began to penetrate into Europe. In the educated community, it became fashionable to use the names of ancient gods and heroes in an allegorical sense: Venus meant love, Minerva meant wisdom, Mars was the personification of war, the muses meant various arts and sciences. Such word usage has survived to this day, in particular in the poetic language, which has absorbed many mythological images.

In the first half of the 19th century, myths of such Indo-European peoples as the ancient Indians, Iranians, Germans and Slavs were introduced into scientific circulation. A little later, the myths of the peoples of Africa, Oceania and Australia were discovered, which allowed scientists to conclude that mythology existed among almost all peoples of the world at a certain stage of their historical development. The study of the world's main religions - Christianity, Islam and Buddhism - has shown that they also have a mythological basis.

In the 19th century, literary adaptations of myths of all times and peoples were created, many scientific books were written on the mythology of different countries of the world, as well as the comparative historical study of myths. In the course of this work, not only narrative literary sources were used, which were the result of the later development of the original mythology, but also data from linguistics, ethnography and other sciences.

Not only folklorists and literary scholars were interested in the study of mythology. Myths have long attracted the attention of religious scholars, philosophers, linguists, cultural historians and other scientists. This is explained by the fact that myths are not just naive tales of the ancients, they contain the historical memory of peoples, they are imbued with a deep philosophical meaning. In addition, myths are a source of knowledge. It is not for nothing that the plots of many of them are called eternal, because they are in tune with any era and are interesting to people of all ages. Myths can satisfy not only children's curiosity, but also the desire of an adult to join the universal wisdom.

What is mythology? On the one hand, this is a set of myths telling about the deeds of gods, heroes, demons, spirits, etc., which reflect people’s fantastic ideas about the world, nature and man. On the other hand, it is a science that studies the emergence, content, spread of myths, their relationship with other genres of folk art, religious ideas and rituals, history, fine arts and many other aspects relating to the nature and essence of myths.

DEVELOPMENT OF MYTHOLOGICAL REPRESENTATIONS

Myth-making is the most important phenomenon in the cultural history of mankind. In primitive society, mythology was the main way of understanding the world. At the earliest stages of development, during the period of the tribal community, when, in fact, myths appeared, people sought to comprehend the reality around them, but they could not yet give a real explanation for many natural phenomena, therefore they composed myths, which are considered the earliest form of worldview and primitive man's understanding of the world and himself.

Since mythology is a unique system of man’s fantastic ideas about the natural and social reality around him, the reason for the emergence of myths, and in other words, the answer to the question why the worldview of primitive people was expressed in the form of myth-making, should be sought in the peculiarities of thinking characteristic of the level that had developed at that time cultural and historical development.

The perception of the world by primitive man was of a direct, sensual nature. When using a word to designate one or another phenomenon of the surrounding world, for example, fire as an element, a person did not differentiate it into a fire in the hearth, a forest fire, a forge flame, etc. Thus, the emerging mythological thinking strived for a certain kind of generalization and was based on a holistic , or syncretic, perception of the world.

Mythological ideas were formed because primitive man perceived himself as an integral part of the surrounding nature, and his thinking was closely connected with the emotional and affective-motor sphere. The consequence of this was a naive humanization of the natural environment, i.e. universal personification And "metaphorical" comparison of natural and social objects .

People endowed natural phenomena with human qualities. The forces, properties and fragments of the cosmos in myths are presented as concrete, sensory, animated images. The cosmos itself often appears in the form of a living giant, from whose parts the world was created. Totemic ancestors usually had a dual nature - zoomorphic and anthropomorphic. Diseases were represented as monsters that devoured human souls, strength was expressed by having many arms, and good vision was expressed by the presence of a large number of eyes. All gods, spirits and heroes, like people, were included in certain family and clan relationships.

The process of understanding each natural phenomenon was directly influenced by specific natural, economic and historical conditions, as well as the level of social development. In addition, some mythological stories were borrowed from the mythologies of other peoples. This happened if the borrowed myth corresponded to ideological ideas, specific living conditions and the level of social development of the receiving people.

The most important distinguishing feature of a myth is its symbolism, which consists in a fuzzy separation of subject and object, object and sign, thing and word, being and its name, thing and its attributes, singular and plural, spatial and temporal relations, origin and essence. In addition, myths are characterized geneticism. In mythology, to explain the structure of a thing means to tell how it was created; to describe the world around us means to talk about its origin. The state of the modern world (the topography of the earth's surface, the celestial bodies, existing breeds of animals and plant species, the way of life of people, established social relations, religions) in myths is considered as a consequence of the events of bygone days, the time when mythical heroes, ancestors or gods lived. creators.

“The heroic epic, even at the archaic stage, narrates about the historical past of the people, presenting this past in a generalized way... Historical memories in the archaic epic, to the extent that they are generalized... use the language not of political history, but of fairy tales and myths. Mythological images here they are a means of generalization... Fairytale-mythological concepts... permeate the very essence of ideas about the people's past, and they cannot be separated" 8.

Thus, a very curious process occurs when historical events and historical characters become mythologized; This process goes back thousands of years and, most interestingly, continues to this day.

Historicization of myth

Next came the reverse process: the process of historicizing the myth. While the importance of history in the life of mankind grew, the attitude towards myth changed, not in the direction of recognition or denial, but in attempts to subordinate it to various sciences, which, in principle, grew out of mythological thinking. Including stories. Again, these attempts continue to this day.

The fate of the myth about the Trojan War is interesting. They tried to provide a historical basis for it back in the 4th century. BC e. Thucydides, for example, devotes to him part of his work on the Peloponnesian War, and the Trojan War in his perception is not a myth, but a fact of historical reality. A similar thing happened with such a mythical hero as Hercules. They tried to cleanse his actions from the mythological husk. Herodotus, for example, and even earlier - Hecataeus from Miletus. Also, myths came under the jurisdiction of philosophy. From them, first of all, certain symbolism was isolated. However, history and philosophy are not so far from each other if we perceive them as sciences about the evolution of human consciousness.

In general, the dependence of the relationship between myth and history on human consciousness is very great. Myth, perceived as a certain moral scheme, has a huge impact on the realities of history, sometimes assimilating them.

“Mythology is preserved not because of its own stability, but because it is applied to everyday circumstances and becomes an image of constantly renewed meaning” 9 - says academician A.A. Potebnya.

Really existing historical heroes, under the influence of mythological thinking, acquired the features of mythological heroes. Moreover, this happened both by the will of the real person himself and by the will of those who created legends about him. “The function of legend is to mythologically correct history, transform a chain of events that is meaningless from a mythopoetic point of view into a set of meaningful, i.e., canonical plots, to attribute to historical characters such properties that allow them to be significant characters from a folk-mythological point of view " 10 .

In "The Song of the Nibelungs" there is, along with mythological characters, a historical character - Atzel, that is, Attila, the leader of the Huns. It also happens that a mythological character finds himself in a real historical setting - remember Beowulf. Finally, even chroniclers, that is, people who must, in principle, objectively record the facts of history, are not free from mythological thinking. Contemporaries of Ivan the Terrible claimed, for example, that in 1570, in the Novgorod pogrom, from 20 to 60 thousand people were executed. In the 19th century, historians called the figure 40 thousand. This is implausible, since the population of Novgorod did not exceed 30 thousand even in its heyday. It is now known that from two to three thousand people died in Novgorod (information from the report of Malyuta and the Synodik of Grozny himself. They did not exaggerate).

However, first of all, the layering of mythology on real history depended on when the works describing historical events were created.

“Heroic-historical works were created not only by participants in the events that are reflected in these works. They were also created later by persons who were not even contemporaries of these events. Another significant part of this section of folk literature is the epic treatment of traditional, long-established works... then there are historical names and events attached to existing plots. This is precisely one of the specific features of folk art" 11.

Thus, we can trace the chain of relationships between myth and history. The predominance of one or the other created extremely interesting models of reality - and literature. However, it cannot be said that the mutual influence of myth and history ended with someone’s victory: this process continues. We can still observe such phenomena as the mythologization of history or the historicization of myth. As a rule, the latter is the privilege of literature, but the former is successfully applied in everyday life.

The most ancient elements.

Greek mythology, like Greek culture as a whole, is a fusion of various elements. These elements were introduced gradually over a period of more than a thousand years. Around 19th century BC. The first speakers of the Greek language known to us invaded Greece and the islands of the Aegean Sea from the north, mixing with the tribes already living here.

We know virtually nothing about the archaic Greeks other than their language, and little in classical mythology goes directly back to this early era. However, it can be said with a high degree of certainty that the Greeks brought with them the veneration of Zeus, the god of the sky, who became the supreme deity in the classical era. It is possible that the veneration of Zeus arose even earlier than the Greeks became a separate people, since the distant relatives of the Greeks - the Latins of Italy and the Aryans who invaded northern India - worshiped a sky god with almost the same name. The Greek Zeus pater (Zeus the father) was originally the same deity as the Latin Jupiter and the Aryan Dyaus-pitar. However, the origin of other gods most often cannot be traced back to the era of the invasion of Greece.

Cretan element.

The archaic Greeks were barbarians who invaded the area of a highly developed culture - the Minoan civilization of the island of Crete and the southern Aegean Sea. A few centuries later, the Greeks themselves were heavily influenced by the Minoans, but ca. 1450 BC they captured Crete and gained a dominant position in the Aegean region.

Several classical myths are associated with Crete. Apparently, only a few of them are actually Minoan legends, since for the most part they rather reflect the impression that contacts with the Cretan civilization made on the Greeks. In one of the myths, Zeus, in the form of a bull, abducts Europa (the daughter of the king of the Phoenician city of Tire), and from their union Minos, the founder of the dynasty of Cretan kings, is born. Minos rules in the city of Knossos; he owns a huge labyrinth and a palace where his daughter Ariadne dances. Both the labyrinth and the palace were built by the skilled craftsman Daedalus (whose name means “cunning artist”). Locked in the labyrinth of Minos is the Minotaur, a monstrous half-bull, half-man who devours the young men and women sacrificed to him. But one day, the Athenian Theseus (also destined for sacrifice) kills the monster with the help of Ariadne, finds a way out of the labyrinth along the thread and saves his comrades. The content of all these stories was clearly influenced by the glory of the magnificent palace at Knossos with its most complex layout, the connections of the Cretans with Phenicia and surrounding areas, the amazing skill of their artisans, and the local cult of the bull.

Individual ideas and stories could well be a reflection of Minoan ideas. There is a legend that Zeus was born and buried in Crete. Apparently, this reflected acquaintance with the Cretan cult of the “dying god” (one of the “dying and reborn” gods), which the Greeks gradually identified with the god of heaven Zeus. In addition, Minos became one of the judges of the dead in the underworld, which does not fit well with the usual vagueness of Greek ideas about the afterlife and the vagueness of the image of most Greek heroes. The Minoans seem to have attached particular importance to female deities, and some famous heroines of later Greek myth - such as Ariadne or Helen of Troy - appear to have borrowed their features from Minoan prototypes.

Mycenaean influence.

The three and a half centuries (c. 1450–1100 BC) following the Greek displacement of Cretan civilization saw the rise of Bronze Age Greek civilization. During this period, all of Greece came under the rule of numerous local kings, whose areas roughly corresponded to the future territories of the city-states. They probably had a fairly free relationship of allegiance to the richest and most powerful of all kings - the king of Mycenae, which is why the civilization of that era is usually called Mycenaean. The Mycenaeans were an active people who undertook many long, often aggressive campaigns beyond the borders of their country; they traded and raided throughout the Mediterranean. The adventures and exploits of the kings and their companions were glorified in epic poems composed by the Aeds, who sang or recited them at court feasts and festivals.

The Mycenaean period became the era of the formation of Greek mythology. Many of the Greek gods were first mentioned during this period: archaeologists have discovered their names inscribed on clay tablets that were used to keep palace records. The heroes of later Greek mythology were mostly perceived as historical figures who lived during the Mycenaean period; in addition, many cities with which legends connect the lives of these heroes acquired political and economic significance precisely in this era.

Homeric epic.

With the passage of time, memories of this period and its events were bound to fade, just as memories of all previous eras of Greek history faded away. However, at the turn of the 12th and 11th centuries. BC. Mycenaean civilization fell under the onslaught of the Dorians, the last wave of Greek-speaking tribes to invade Greece. In subsequent centuries of poverty and isolation, living memory of the glorious Mycenaean past was preserved in the continuing Mycenaean tradition of oral epic poetry. Ancient tales were retold and developed in detail, and in the 8th century. BC. Two of the most famous tales were recorded, which laid the foundation for the entire narrative tradition of European literature, the authorship of which was attributed to Homer. These are the Iliad and the Odyssey, epic accounts of the war against the city of Troy in Asia Minor.

These poems not only conveyed the Mycenaean cultural heritage to later Greeks, but also set the tone for all Greek mythology with its emphasis on humanity and characters that readers and listeners perceived as real men and women who lived in historical places. Over the centuries, mythology also developed the idea of a caste of gods, endowed with recognizable characters and certain spheres of influence.

The influence of folklore and religious cult.

The archaic period of the development of Greek culture (7th–6th centuries BC) was marked by the growth and expansion of the influence of Homeric poems. At the same time, many folk legends that do not go back to the Mycenaean era served as material for various poems that filled the gaps left by the Homeric epic. The "Homeric hymns" of this era, which served as introductions to the recitation of epic poems at religious festivals, often contained an exposition of myths about the gods revered in the great sanctuaries. The flourishing of lyric poetry also contributed to the increasingly widespread dissemination of local legends. In addition, the mythological tradition was enriched by the inclusion of legends of a different type - fairy and folk tales based on motifs common to many cultures, stories about the wanderings and exploits of heroes, replete with monsters and magical spells, as well as legends designed to explain or resolve certain conflicts and upheavals inherent in human society.

Eastern elements. By analogy with heroes belonging to a certain clan and generation, the gods also receive their own genealogies and histories. The most famous and most authoritative of the so-called. The theogony was compiled at the turn of the 8th and 7th centuries. the poet Hesiod. Hesiod's Theogony reveals such close parallels to the mythology of the Near East of ancient times that we can confidently speak about the extensive borrowing of Near Eastern motifs by the Greeks.

Golden age. In the golden age of Greek culture - 5th century. BC. – drama (especially tragedy) becomes the main means of disseminating mythological ideas. In this era, ancient legends are deeply and seriously processed, with special emphasis on episodes that depict violent conflicts in relations between members of the same family. The development of mythological plots in tragedies often surpasses in its moral depth everything that has been created in literature on these topics. However, under the influence of Greek philosophy, educated circles of society became increasingly skeptical about traditional ideas about the gods. Myth ceases to be a natural means of expressing the most important ideas and ideas.

Hellenistic mythology. The entire Greek world (and with it the Greek religion) was changed by the conquests of Alexander the Great (d. 323 BC). A new culture, called Hellenistic, arose here, preserving the traditions of separate city-states, but no longer confined to one polis. The collapse of the polis system entailed the destruction of political barriers to the spread of the myth. Moreover, as a result of the spread of education and scholarship, all the diversity of myths that had developed in different regions of Greece was for the first time collected together and systematized. Greek historians made extensive use of myths, as can be seen in the example of Pausanias, who described the sights of Greece in the 2nd century. AD

Writers were now drawn to the exotic, to adventure, or—since they were often scholars themselves—to dark local myths that allowed them to apply their learning. Callimachus, librarian of the great Library of Alexandria in the 3rd century. BC, was one of these writers. In the epic poem Cause (Aetia) he told of the origin of strange customs; in addition, he composed mythological hymns dedicated to various gods. Callimachus's main rival, Apollonius of Rhodes, presented the most complete version of the Jason myth in his poem Argonautica.

Mythology in the Roman world. In the 2nd century. BC. Rome conquered Greece and adopted Greek culture, and by the 1st century. BC. A common Greco-Roman culture prevailed throughout the Mediterranean. Both Roman and Greek authors continued to create mythological works in the Hellenistic spirit - both scientific and purely artistic. Although this literature, like Hellenistic poetry, was already far from the powerful realism of classical mythology of the era of its origin, some of its examples became outstanding phenomena of world literature. Virgil and Ovid belonged to this tradition.

Elena Vladimirovna Dobrova

Popular history of mythology

INTRODUCTION WHAT IS MYTH AND MYTHOLOGY?

DEVELOPMENT OF MYTHOLOGICAL REPRESENTATIONS

Mythological ideas were formed because primitive man perceived himself as an integral part of the surrounding nature, and his thinking was closely connected with the emotional and affective-motor sphere. The consequence of this was a naive humanization of the natural environment, i.e. universal personification And “metaphorical” comparison of natural and social objects.

All mythological events are separated from us by a large time interval: actions in most myths take place in ancient, early times.

Mythical time- this is a time when the world was structured differently than it is now. This is an early, initial time, a right time that preceded empirical, i.e. historical, time. This is the era of first creation, first objects and first actions, when the first spear, fire appear, the first actions are performed, etc. All phenomena and events related to the mythical time acquired the meaning of a paradigm (translated from Greek - “example”, “image”) , therefore, were perceived as a model for reproduction. Myth usually combines two aspects - diachronic, that is, a story about the past, and synchronic, or a means of explaining the present, and in some cases, the future.