Maya gods and rituals – Central American religion

By |2017-09-10T13:09:15-07:00September 10th, 2017|Central America, Religion|

Maya pyramid at Tonina (ca. 700 AD) Maya people believed that the world was created by One Deer. One Deer created the mother and father of the gods (like Brahma and Gayatri or Gaia and Kronos). Then the mother and father created many other gods. They created the gods of the crops like the Corn God, the god [...]

Central and South American religion

By |2019-03-08T21:30:13-07:00September 10th, 2017|Central America, Religion, South America|

Maya Corn King on a plate Polytheism in the Americas The people who lived in South and Central America before 1500 were polytheistic - they believed in many different gods. Because they lived pretty near one another, and ate many of the same foods, some of their gods were pretty much the same. What is [...]

Mayan Corn God – Central American religion

By |2018-04-11T09:22:20-07:00September 10th, 2017|Central America, Religion|

Maya pyramid to the Corn God at Tonina (ca. 700 AD) Because corn (maize) was Mayan people's main food, their most important god was the Corn God. A popular Mayan story was the story of the Maize Mountain - click here to read the story. More about Mayan religion More about the Maya people Bibliography and [...]

Aztec gods and rituals – Central American religion

By |2019-02-07T06:27:10-07:00September 9th, 2017|Central America, Religion|

The Aztec god of seeds, Xipe Totec (ca 1500 AD) Who were the Aztec gods? Aztec people were polytheistic - they had many gods. That's the same as like the people of China, India, or Africa at this time. Who were the Aztec? Religion of the Maya All our Central America articles Aztec nature gods Many of the Aztec gods [...]

What is lead? A heavy kind of metal

By |2018-04-11T18:24:13-07:00September 6th, 2017|Religion, Romans, Science|

A Roman anchor from Palermo, Italy Lead is a kind of metal that is very heavy. (See if you can get some lead, like a fishing weight, to see how heavy it is). People have been mining lead and using it for weights in West Asia since about 4000 BC, about the same time people started to use copper, and before [...]

Heloise and Abelard – Middle Ages in Europe

By |2019-08-09T12:02:30-07:00September 5th, 2017|Medieval, Religion|

Heloise and Abelard Who was Heloise? The story of Heloise (HELL-oh-ees) and her husband Peter Abelard is one of the saddest stories of Western history. Heloise was born about 1100 AD. (This was just a few years after the Norman Conquest). When Heloise was a young woman, about twenty years old, she lived with [...]

Who was the Roman goddess Venus? Roman religion

By |2017-09-04T16:45:03-07:00September 4th, 2017|Religion, Romans|

Venus rising out of the ocean, from Tunisia in North Africa (300s AD) The goddess Venus was the goddess of growing things, gardens, love and fertility for the Romans. People sacrificed to her when they wanted to have babies, or to make somebody fall in love with them. People thought of Venus as watery and [...]

Roman sacrifice – animals and incense – Roman religion

By |2018-04-09T10:31:19-07:00September 4th, 2017|Religion, Romans|

Sacrificing a cow, a sheep, and a pig in the Late Republic Probably around the time people began farming their food and raising tame animals for their meat, which in Italy was about 5000 BC, people also began to sacrifice animals to their gods. This was the same thing people did in West Asia - including the Zoroastrians and the Jews - and in Greece at the [...]

Who was Minerva? The Roman goddess Minerva

By |2018-06-01T16:17:54-07:00September 4th, 2017|Religion, Romans|

The goddess Minerva: A Roman temple from the forum in Ostia, near Rome. It was probably dedicated to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. Is the goddess Minerva the same as Athena? Minerva was Jupiter's daughter for the Romans, the way Athena was Zeus's daughter for the Greeks. (More about the goddess Athena) But the goddess Minerva was not exactly [...]

Who was the god Mars? The Roman god of war

By |2017-09-04T16:05:22-07:00September 4th, 2017|Religion, Romans|

So-called "Mars of Todi", an Etruscan statue from about 500 BC Mars was the Roman god of war and fighting, the son of Juno (all by herself, with no dad). People in the Roman Empire thought of Mars as being similar to the Greek god of war, Ares, but Mars was a popular god, who fought to bring peace and [...]