I remember looking to ancient drawings, glyphs and such and seeing beings of assorted, jumbled appearances.
For example, ancient Egypt is known for animal headed deities.
Ancient Greece tells tales of snakes for hair and human on top, four legged animal on the bottom.
I’ve heard the common depictions (expansion on that topic here) of angels being referred to as bird people, yet looked to ancient works and viewed humanoid with bug wings instead.
This video is excellent, a great find.
The book featured is a middle ages book that may be factual or a total fantasy.
Ancient Greece and the alterations made in ancient Rome inspired this art piece.
This is an oldworld style model of our sky, sometimes known as the heavens. The Earth is the centre and the sun, moon and planets are above. The planets contain planetary symbols, with creative alterations.
Posted on the winter solstice and the last day of sagittarius.
Mercury
Notice the element symbol in the middle? Looks a lot like the Egyptian ankh with horns on it? This is something that will be expanded on below as we cover venus. You will find mercury within alchemy, featuring this symbol within its range. The reflection friendly colour scheme that appears to have a shine to it is a nod to mercury’s closeness to the sun and technical alternative name, quicksilver. Mercury the deity is also known as Hermes, the messenger god and sidekick to Jupiter/Zeus aswell as closest to the earth in this old charter.
Venus
There’s plenty that springs to our minds when faced with the word/ planet/Roman god Venus:
Aphrodite is a consort of Hermes, whilst Venus is a consort of Mars, the planet venus is situated between both planetary bodies. Venus manages to have characteristics of both neighbours/consorts,
MarsJupiter SaturnUranus Neptune Pluto
In addition, I made a calendar.
♈Look carefully♓
This freehand, graffiti style piece, is made without a linebreak. The days of the week, months of the year and starsigns are detailed.
Starting from the bottom, the true first day of the week, sunday, followed by the days to come, end at Saturday.
Above we have the months of the year starting from march, simply because this is the month the astrological new year begins, we finish at February, where the last starsign of the year begins.
Above that is the astrological calendar, beginning with Aries, the first house/sign, ending with pisces.
I always get ideas, lots and lots of them, from brief, spontaneous swatting sessions, yet often more questions are raised.
Ancient Norse beliefs crossed my mind. I was interested to find that both Odin and Freiya both meet their demise. These deities welcome those who died in battle to their specific afterlife realm, yet parallel this with the biblical end times, where there would be no death and no Hades – Hades being both a realm and the name of an ancient Greek deity. In addition, the earth’s great beasts, the land being, the behemoth and the sea being, the leviathan, would be served as a meal (something I completely sampled for my own story).
These old stories acknowledge a present of chaos, an impending major escalation, then a fresh start of all the nasties like war, death, sadness and evil no longer existing. If reigning over or the likes of war, sickness, death etc, or being a big menacing monster is your role, yet this is a story that’s ending on a note of love peacefulness and nothing to fear, then writing such characters out of the tale looks a natural process?
Do these beings have personality? Free will? Understanding? Do they agree or disagree? Where do they go? Did man just personify these things along the way? What classifies as a being?
Ragnarok and Revelation have a deceptive deity (villain if you will) being the catalyst for this major shakeup, along with it’s scary offspring(s).
Why are there so many parallels between old world beliefs seeming so geographical apart? Then again, Africa, Asia and Europe are one land mass, boarders have people forgetting this.
Plenty will see this as a load of metaphors essentially in early teaching, others will see a load of myths (a word I generally don’t use), but I feel I’m no closer to answers and never will be, but that’s OK. I’m offered plenty of room for speculation and being a writer, creation! I’m really inspired to flesh out my fiction a little more, create a bigger picture and sense of beginning, middle and end.
#deepseahead 