Greek Mythology

Myths

Myths were obviously more than just folk tales to the Ancient Greeks, they formed part of their faith/religion.

Greek Myths attempt to explain:

-Creation

- How and why things happened

-Teach lessons

The stories told in the Greek myths show us the way the human race thought and felt about the unknown ages ago. It illustrates the nature of the gods and taught what pleased or angered them, but did not set out religious rules or ideal like the Bible or the Koran.

Unlike the Egyptians, the Greeks, wanting a connection with the
 divine, thought of their gods as being rather like themselves. They (the Gods) got married and had children; made friends and enemies and even had a human feelings, like jealousy and bad-temper, which at times made them behave badly.

For the Greek religion was part of everyday life. They often said quick prayers before doing something, hoping it would bring them success. Each god was responsible for some aspect of life and people woprshipped the ones they found relevant.
Many temples were built to the gods. Some, still stand today.

Greek Myths and History

Greek history can be traced back over 40,000 years. no-one knows when the myths were first invented. Many come before the time of writing and were passed on by the word of mouth. A spoke tradition that helped them survive.
This myths changed as they were passed down from one generation to another. This changes pretty much stopped once they were written down.

6,000 B.C Hunter- gatherers (Prometheus and Zeus looking doen Mt. Olympus)
6,000 - 2,200 B.C. Farmers (first clues to religious believes where found such as marble statues in Sparta. (

The Creation

As we have seen through history different stories and even theories have emereged about the creation of the universe.

Genesis

 

Native American

 

Hindu´s

 



The Big Bang Theory

(wrong one)

 

(THE BIG BANG THEORY)

All these stories have something in common...they all begin from darkness.

In the begining there was Chaos. From Chaos emereged Gaia (the Earth), she held up Uranus (the Sky). Gaia had the mountains and the seas (Pontus).

Gaia and Uranus had children. It's easier if you see them as litters (three different batches).
-Cyclopes
-Hecatonchires (100 handers)
-Titans (Oceanus, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetus, Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, Tethys, and Cronus)

Uranus wasn´t a very nice dad. He sent his first to litters, the Cyclopes and the Hecatonchires to Tartarus. He also hated the Titans but Gaia was tiered of Uranus attitude. So, she created a sickle and gave it to one of her son´s, Cronus, the strongest and the best one of them all. Cronus took the sickle his mother had given him and cut his father´s testicles, these landed in the ocean, created a crystal like sea foam and out emereg Aphrodite.

 

The Golden Age

Everyone said bye-bye to Uranus and Cronus became king. He took his sister Rhea as a wife. Cronus and Rhea had the Olympians. Then, Cronus heard a prohechy that one of his son's would dethrone him. consequently every time Rhea had a baby Cronus gobbled him up. (well that only happened with the first five). Rhea was sick and tiered of this, and she decided to trick Cronus. She covered a rock with a blanket and Cronus gobbled it up thinking it was her baby Zeus.