Myths about the creation of man in ancient Greece. Ancient Greek creation myth

Drawing ideas from the treasury of Greek literature, one can create a very clear picture of the origin of our world. Historians, however, believe that all these legends were not even invented by the Greeks themselves, but only passed to them from the now completely forgotten Middle Eastern religions, and therefore Greek authors often, in their harmonious system of the origin of the world, encounter rather radical contradictions, which they, however, did not seem to pay any attention. But nonetheless…

According to one version, which has come down to our time only fragmentarily, the goddess of all things, Eurynome, copulated with the world serpent Ophion and gave birth to the world. According to another version, told by Homer, the world originated from the union of the Ocean and Tethys, personifying the primeval waters.

The main Greek version says that in the beginning there was only eternal, boundless and dark Chaos, from which both the world and the immortal gods arose. In particular, the goddess Earth is Gaia. Very far below it appeared gloomy Tartarus - a terrible abyss, darkness. Also out of Chaos was born reviving Love - Eros, and the world began to be created. Chaos gave birth to the eternal Darkness - Erebus and the dark Night - Nyukta, from which came the eternal Light - Ether and the joyful bright Day - Hemera.

Earth gave birth to the Sky - Uranus, Mountains and the Sea. She gave birth to them herself, without any participation of the father. Uranus (her son) took the Earth as his wife, and they had titan children: six sons and six daughters. The son of the Ocean, surrounding the earth, and the goddess Thetis gave birth to rivers and sea goddesses-oceanids. Titan Gipperion and Theia produced the Sun - Helios, the Moon - Selena and Dawn - pink-fingered Eos (Aurora). From Astrea and Eos came all the stars and all the winds: northern Boreas, eastern Eurus, southern Nothus and western Zephyr.

The earth also gave birth to three cyclops giants with one eye in their foreheads and three huge fifty-headed and hundred-armed hecatoncheir giants. Even Uranus was horrified by the strength of his children and imprisoned them in the bowels of the goddess Earth, forbidding them to come out into the light. She, unable to bear such a burden, urged the children to rebel against their father, but they were afraid. Only the younger, insidious Kronos (chronos - all-consuming time), by cunning overthrew Uranus. The Goddess Night gave birth to Krona as a punishment of terrible creatures: Tanata - death, Eridu - discord, Apata - deceit, Kera - destruction, Hypnos - a heavy nightmare and Nemesis - revenge. These beings brought strife, deceit, strife, and misfortune into the world, which was like paradise before.

Kron, who himself had once overthrown his father, was afraid of his children. He commanded his wife Rhea to bring the newborn offspring to him and mercilessly swallowed them. Such a fate befell five: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades and Poseidon. But Rhea, driven by maternal love, on the advice of her parents, Uranus and Gaia, retired to the island of Crete and there, in a cave, having given birth to Zeus, she hid him from her cruel father, allowing him to swallow a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes instead of his son.

Zeus grew up in Crete, and the nymphs Adrasteia and Idea fed him with the milk of the divine goat Amalthea, the bees brought him honey from the slopes of Mount Dikta, and the young Kuret demigods guarding the entrance to the cave struck their shields with swords every time the baby cried,

so that Kronus does not hear the baby and that the fate of brothers and sisters does not suffer.

Zeus grew up, rebelled against his father and forced him to return the children he had swallowed to the light. They began to fight with Kron and the titans for power over the world. After a long struggle, they managed to establish themselves on the high Olympus. Some of the titans took their side, and the first were the Ocean, his daughter Styx and children: Zeal, Power and Victory.

The Cyclopes also came to the aid of Zeus, forging thunder and lightning, which Zeus threw into the titans. After ten years of equal struggle, Zeus decided to free the hundred-armed hecatoncheir giants from the bowels of the earth, and they rushed at the titans, tearing off whole rocks from the mountains and throwing them at the enemy. The titans, dodging giant stones flying at them, could not even approach Olympus. The earth groaned, the air was filled with a roar, and even Tartarus shuddered. Zeus, one after another, threw lightning, the whole earth was engulfed in fire, and it was so hot that even the seas boiled.

A modern person will see in this description not so much a battle as a geological catastrophe: either a volcanic eruption, or the fall of a huge meteorite. And perhaps a war between two powerful civilizations. However, we will discuss this topic a little later. In the meantime, let's continue the story of ancient Greek legends.

The Titans have been defeated. The Olympians threw them into Tartarus, and at its gates they placed hekatoncheirs. Thus ended the power of the titans on earth.

But Gaia-Earth was offended that Zeus acted so cruelly with her children, and entered into marriage with Tartarus, giving birth to the monster Typhon, the owner of hundreds of dragon heads. He, having risen from the earth, howled, and in this terrible cry the barking of dogs, human crying, the roar of a lion and other equally terrible or unpleasant sounds were mixed. Flames blazed around him, and the ground beneath him trembled.

Well, another geographic disaster...

The gods were frightened, but Zeus began to throw lightning, and the battle began. The earth caught fire again, the seas boiled, and even the vault of heaven trembled. Zeus managed to burn all one hundred heads of Typhon with lightning, and he collapsed to the ground. Even from his exhausted body such heat emanated that everything around him burned. Zeus took the body of Typhon and threw it into Tartarus. But even from there, Typhon caused trouble to the gods and all living things. He caused storms, earthquakes and eruptions, and together with Echidna, a half-woman half-snake, gave birth to the two-headed dog Orff, the hellish dog Cerberus, the Lernean Hydra and the Chimera. But nothing threatened the power of the gods: Zeus took the sky, Poseidon the sea, and Hades the underworld of the dead. The gods left the earth in common possession. Zeus became among the gods the first among equals.

The entrance to Olympus was guarded by three beautiful ora, raising and lowering (when the gods descend to earth or return to their abode) a thick cloud covering the gates of the abode of the gods.

In the abode of the gods there is neither rain nor snow, and eternal summer reigns. From here, Zeus rules the world, and good and evil are in his hands. To keep order and ensure that the laws are observed, the goddess Themis helps him. The daughter of Zeus, the goddess Dike, also oversees justice.

But the fate of people is determined by the goddesses of fate - Moira, guided by the orders of Doom, which only they know. Moira Klotho determines the lifespan of a person by spinning the thread of his fate. Moira Lachesis determines, without looking, the lot that falls to a person in life. And the third moira, Atropos, enters into a long scroll all that is assigned to a person.

Hades, the brother of Zeus, rules underground. There flows the sacred river Styx, by whose waters even the gods swear. Here are the souls of the dead, who endlessly complain to each other about their bleak life without the sun and without desires.

Hades, who rules the realm of the dead with his wife Persephone, is served by the goddess of vengeance Erinyes. With whips and snakes, they pursue the criminal, not leaving him alone for a minute, and torment him with remorse. At the throne of Hades are the judges of the kingdom of the dead - Minos and Rhadamanth, as well as the god of death Tanat with a sword in his hands. In a black cloak, with huge black wings, he flies to the bed of a dying person and cuts off a strand of hair from his head with his sword, and rips out his soul. Along with him are the Keres, who on the battlefield fall with their lips to the wounds of warriors, greedily drink hot blood and tear out souls from the bodies. Also sitting at the throne of Hades is the beautiful young god of sleep, Hypnos.

The Greek gods, like many other early gods of mankind, which I will talk about later, did not separate themselves from people with an impregnable wall, but on an equal footing with them, as far as, naturally, such equality is possible, they took part in earthly affairs.

God or gods became something unattainable, an exalted object of prayer, much later, with the beginning of the era of Christianity or Islam. Even in the biblical Old Testament, God often descends from heaven to give orders to the elect. Such dramatic changes in divine behavior, or rather, the change in the role of gods in myths, can be explained by many factors, but some researchers come to the conclusion that our ancestors considered gods to be some more advanced civilization that colonized the Earth for some purpose. A little later in the book, we will discuss this version in more detail, for now let's return to ancient Greek mythology.

The gods took part in human affairs, not only "leading from Olympus." For example, in Delphi there was a sanctuary of Apollo, where the Pythian priestess gave predictions. Predictions that, according to contemporaries, very often came true. It is not known how much it is possible to talk about paranormal abilities here, but perhaps it is worth saying about the wisdom of the priestess: the prediction given to King Lydia Croesus during his war with Persia sounded like: “If you cross the river Halys, you will destroy the great kingdom.” Croesus, rejoicing, went to destroy the kingdom. But the kingdom that perished as a result of the war turned out to be by no means Persian (Croesus was defeated, and his country was ruined). Nevertheless, the prediction came true.

But, in addition to the advice given through the priests, there were more specific interventions: suffice it to recall Prometheus, who stole fire for people. The image of a higher being who favored people is in the myths of very many peoples. A certain god not only steals fire for people, but warns the human race, doomed to death, about the global flood conceived by the rest of the gods.

But let's get back to Apollo. Initially, he was considered a god guarding the herds. Soon he became the god of light, and later the patron saint of immigrants, Greek colonies, and also the patron of art. According to legend, he was born on the island of Delos. His mother Latona, pursued by the dragon Python sent by Hera and pregnant by Zeus, wandered the world until she came to Delos.

The son of Apollo, Asclepius, the god of doctors and medical art, became famous for bringing even the dead back to life. Here is another divine intervention in human affairs. Or just miracles of highly developed medicine unknown to the ancient Greeks?

It is worth saying that the gods interested the ancient Greeks much more than people and nature, and therefore many stories from their lives have come down to us. It is possible, perhaps, endlessly to draw various, sometimes very curious parallels, but let's stop. We will tell only a couple of things that, in our opinion, are directly related to the topic of our book. One of them is the legend of Phaeton.

The son of the Sun-Helios from Klymene, the daughter of the sea goddess Thetis, Phaethon once talked with the son of the Thunderer Zeus Epaphus. He laughed at him and remarked:

You are the son of a mere mortal. Your mother is deceiving you! I do not believe that you are the son of God!

Phaeton first went to his mother, and then to his father, Helios, and asked him to dispel doubts. Helios embraced Phaethon and, swearing by the waters of Styx, confirmed his origin and promised, seeing that he was upset, to fulfill his every wish. Phaethon asked to be allowed to ride across the sky instead of Helios himself in his golden chariot. No matter how he tried to dissuade the unreasonable young man, explaining that even Zeus himself could not cope with the horses harnessed to this chariot, but in the end, not daring to break the oath, he retreated.

“Do not rise too high,” Helios said to his son, “so as not to burn the sky, but do not go low either, otherwise you will burn the earth.”

And again he asked him to change the desire, which could bring him death. But Phaeton had already jumped on the chariot, grabbed the reins and set off. Soon he got lost, the horses carried on, and when he looked at the ground, he was frightened, and his eyes darkened. The flames from the approaching chariot engulfed the earth, and large, rich cities began to perish one after another. The rivers boiled and the seas dried up.

Gaia turned to Zeus, urging him not to let her die, and he broke the chariot with lightning. The horses fled in different directions, and Phaeton, with curls burning on his head, fell into the waves of the Eridanus River. Where it is, today, unfortunately, is difficult to establish. Rivers in Attica and in the north had similar names, perhaps the Western Dvina and the Po River. Helios was so upset by the death of his son that he did not appear in the sky, and the earth was illuminated only by the light of fires.

A modern person immediately understands that the legend speaks of the fall of a large celestial body, which caused such strong fires that, apparently, the smoke and dust that rose created such a veil that sunlight could not penetrate to the earth for some time.

To complete this beautiful story, it is worth saying that Phaethon's mother, Clymene, found on the banks of Eridan not the body of her son, but his tomb. Supporters of the theory of a highly developed civilization will immediately say that it was not a tomb, but a spaceship, which the young man could not control. But still, it is necessary to leave room for legends, especially since they are very beautiful: together with their mother, they mourned the dead young man and her daughters, the heliads. Their sorrow was so boundless that the gods turned them into poplars. And their tears-resin, falling into the water, immediately turned into amber.

As in other religions of the world, the ancient Greeks believed that humanity began to exist in paradise. Rather, here it was called the golden age. But gradually life on earth deteriorated, and, for example, Hesiod believed that he was living in the worst period of history.

The human race was created by Kronus, according to Greek myths, happy.

People knew neither worries, nor sadness, nor the need to work. People had neither disease nor old age. And even death itself did not contain anything terrible, but looked like just a deep sleep. Gardens and fields provided them with food in abundance, and huge herds grazed in the meadows. Even the gods came to people for advice. But the golden age, like all good things, ended, and all people of the first generation died, turning into spirits, patrons and protectors of people of new generations (angels?). Such a reward was given to them by Zeus: shrouded in mist, they fly all over the earth, protecting the truth and punishing evil.

The second human race, who lived in the Silver Age, was no longer so happy: neither in strength nor intellect could these people compare with the previous generation. For a whole hundred years they grew up foolish in the homes of their mothers and, only having matured, they left them, managing to live quite a bit in adulthood. Since most of their lives they were unintelligent, they saw a lot of grief and misfortune. They did not listen to the gods and refused to make sacrifices to them, and Zeus destroyed their family, settling them in the underworld, where there is neither joy nor sadness.

After that, Zeus created the third kind, and the third century came - copper. The people of this age, created from the shaft of a spear, were terrible and powerful. In addition to their enormous growth, they possessed indestructible strength and a fearless heart. Most of all they loved war and battles. They did not sow anything, did not eat the fruits that gardens brought in abundance, but only fought. Both their weapons and their houses were forged from copper, they also worked with copper tools.

How can one not recall official science and its copper age? Greek narrators also note that iron was only recognized by later generations. Soon the people of the copper age exterminated each other, and Zeus created the fourth age and a new human race. These people were noble, fair and almost equal to the gods. But they all died in various wars and battles: some at the seven-gate Thebes, some under Troy, where they came for Helen, etc.

After death, Zeus settled these people on the edge of the earth, on islands in the ocean, away from the living, so that they could enjoy a happy and carefree life. The land there bears fruit three times a year, and its fruits are sweet as honey.

After that, the Thunderer created the last, fifth century - the Iron Age, and the human race, which lives to this day. The people of this generation are haunted by sorrow and toil. The gods send them heavy cares, not forgetting, however, to give good, but still evil and bad weather fall on their lot more. Children do not respect their parents, friends betray each other, there is no love between brothers, and hospitality has become rare. Oaths are broken, and good is repaid with evil. Violence is all around, and the goddesses of Conscience and Justice have left people, having flown up to Olympus, and people have no protection from evil.

One of the popular theories of the origin of mankind claims that before the emergence of our civilization on Earth, there were several more, and, according to some assumptions, more highly developed ones. Ancient Greek myths, as we see, confirm this.

We all know at least in general terms the legend of the Flood. It turns out that this legend existed already in ancient Babylon. Well, we know better the story from the Bible about Noah building the ark. The Greeks put it this way...

The people of the Copper Age not only disobeyed the Olympian gods, but became famous for their wickedness. Once Zeus decided to visit in human form the king of the city of Likosur in Arcadia. Entering the palace, Zeus gave a sign, and everyone understood who it was, and fell on their faces. But King Lycaon did not want to honor Zeus and began to mock those who greeted him. And he even decided to test whether Zeus is a god. He killed the hostage, and boiled part of his body, roasted part and offered it to the Thunderer. He, terribly angry, destroyed Lycaon's palace with a lightning strike, and turned him into a wolf.

But even after that, people did not become more pious, and Zeus decided to destroy the entire human race. He decided to arrange a Flood, and for this he sent a heavy downpour to the earth, forbade all winds to blow, and only the humid south wind Noth drove dark rain clouds across the sky. At first, the rivers simply overflowed their banks, but soon the stormy waters covered the houses, then the fortress walls, and only the two-headed peak of Parnassus remained above the water.

Of the entire human race, only two were saved: Deucalion, the son of Prometheus, and his wife Pyrrha. Deucalion, on the advice of his father, built a huge box, put enough food in it, and for nine days and nights the box was carried on the waters until it washed up on Parnassus. The downpour stopped, Deucalion and Pyrrha came out of the box and made a sacrifice of thanksgiving to Zeus. The water began to recede, and the land was exposed, completely devastated. Water washed away from it not only all buildings, but also gardens and fields. Zeus sent Hermes to Deucalion and promised to fulfill his every wish.

The same one asked that the land be repopulated with people. Zeus told Deucalion and Pyrrha to pick up stones and throw them over their heads without turning around. Those of the stones that Deucalion threw turned into men, and those that Pyrrha threw turned into women. A new kind of people came from stone (although the next century, as you remember, was called iron).

But by no means all Greeks traced their lineage from stones. Some tribes considered themselves autochthonous, that is, they arose from the earth. The Thebans, for example, thought that they came from the teeth of a dragon killed by the Phoenician Cadmus, which he sowed into the ground.

The most interesting and instructive stories, fascinating stories and adventures gave the world Greek mythology. The story immerses us in a fairy-tale world where you can meet heroes and gods, scary monsters and unusual animals. The myths of Ancient Greece, written many centuries ago, are currently the greatest cultural heritage of all mankind.

What are myths

Mythology is an amazing separate world in which people opposed the deities of Olympus, fought for honor and resisted evil and destruction.

However, it is worth remembering that myths are works created exclusively by people using fantasy and fiction. These are stories about gods, heroes and exploits, unusual natural phenomena and mysterious creatures.

The origin of legends is no different from the origin of folk tales and legends. The Greeks invented and retold unusual stories that mixed truth and fiction.

It is possible that there was some truth in the stories - a life case or an example could be taken as a basis.

Source of the myths of ancient Greece

How do modern people know the myths and their plots for certain? It turns out that Greek mythology was preserved on the tablets of the Aegean culture. They were written in Linear B, which was deciphered only in the 20th century.

The Crete-Mycenaean period, to which this type of writing belongs, knew most of the gods: Zeus, Athena, Dionysus, and so on. However, due to the decline of civilization and the emergence of ancient Greek mythology, mythology could have its gaps: we know it only from the latest sources.

Various plots of the myths of Ancient Greece were often used by writers of that time. And before the onset of the Hellenistic era, it became popular to create their own legends based on them.

The largest and most famous sources are:

1. Homer, Iliad, Odyssey
2. Hesiod "Theogony"
3. Pseudo-Apollodorus, "Library"
4. Gigin, "Myths"
5. Ovid, "Metamorphoses"
6. Nonnus, "Acts of Dionysus"

Karl Marx believed that the mythology of Greece was a vast repository of art, and also created the ground for it, thus fulfilling a dual function.

ancient greek mythology

Myths did not appear overnight: they took shape over several centuries, passed from mouth to mouth. Thanks to the poetry of Hesiod and Homer, the works of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, we can get acquainted with the stories at the present time.

Each story has value, keeping in itself the atmosphere of antiquity. Specially trained people - mythographers - began to appear in Greece in the 4th century BC.

These include the sophist Hippias, Herodotus of Heracles, Heraclitus of Pontus and others. Dionysius of Samoia, in particular, was engaged in compiling genealogical tables and studied tragic myths.

There are many myths, but the most popular are stories related to Olympus and its inhabitants.

However, the complex hierarchy and history of the origin of the gods can confuse any reader, and therefore we propose to understand this in detail!

With the help of myths, it becomes possible to recreate the picture of the world in the view of the inhabitants of Ancient Greece: the world is inhabited by monsters and giants, among which are giants - one-eyed creatures and Titans.

Origin of the gods

Eternal, boundless Chaos enveloped the Earth. It contained the world source of life.

It was believed that it was Chaos that gave birth to everything around: the world, the immortal gods, the goddess of the Earth, Gaia, who gave life to everything growing and living, and the mighty force that animates everything - Love.

However, a birth also took place under the Earth: the gloomy Tartarus was born - an abyss of horror filled with eternal darkness.

In the process of creating the world, Chaos gave birth to the Eternal Darkness, called Erebus, and the dark Night, named Nikta. As a result of the union of Nikta and Erebus, Ether was born - the eternal Light and Hemera - the bright Day. Thanks to their appearance, the light filled the whole world, and day and night began to replace each other.

Gaia, a powerful and gracious goddess, created the immense blue Sky - Uranus. Spread over the Earth, he reigned throughout the world. High Mountains proudly stretched towards him, and the noisy Sea spread over the whole Earth.

Goddess Gaia and her Titan children

After Mother Earth created the Sky, Mountains and Sea, Uranus decided to take Gaia as his wife. From the divine union came 6 sons and 6 daughters.

Titan Ocean and the goddess Thetis created all the rivers that rolled their waters to the sea, and the goddesses of the seas, called oceanides. Titan Gipperion and Theia gave the world Helios - the Sun, Selena - the Moon and Eos - the Dawn. Astrea and Eos gave birth to all the stars and all the winds: Boreas - the north, Eurus - the east, Notus - the south, Zephyr - the west.

The overthrow of Uranus - the beginning of a new era

The goddess Gaia - the mighty Earth - gave birth to 6 more sons: 3 cyclops - giants with one eye in the forehead, and 3 fifty-headed hundred-armed monsters called Hekantocheirs. They possessed boundless power that knew no limits.

Struck by the ugliness of his giant children, Uranus renounced them and ordered them to be imprisoned in the bowels of the Earth. Gaia, being a Mother, suffered, weighed down by a terrible burden: after all, her own children were imprisoned in her bowels. Unable to stand it, Gaia called her children-titans, persuading them to rebel against their father - Uranus.

Battle of the gods with the titans

Being great and powerful, the titans were still afraid of their father. And only Kronos, the youngest and most treacherous, accepted his mother's offer. Having outwitted Uranus, he overthrew him, seizing power.

As a punishment for the deed of Kronos, the goddess Night gave birth to death (Tanat), discord (Eris), deceit (Apata),

Kronos devouring his child

destruction (Ker), nightmare (Hypnos) and vengeance (Nemesis) and other terrible gods. All of them brought horror, discord, deceit, struggle and misfortune to the world of Kronos.

Despite his cunning, Kronos was afraid. His fear was built on personal experience: after all, the children could overthrow him, as he once overthrew Uranus - his father.

Fearing for his life, Kronos ordered his wife Rhea to bring him born children. To Rhea's horror, 5 of them were eaten: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, and Poseidon.

Zeus and his reign

Heeding the advice of her father Uranus and her mother Gaia, Rhea fled to the island of Crete. There, in a deep cave, she gave birth to her youngest son, Zeus.

Hiding the newborn in it, Rhea tricked the hard Kronos into swallowing a long stone wrapped in swaddling clothes instead of her son.

As time went. Kronos did not figure out his wife's deceit. Zeus grew up while in Crete. His nannies were nymphs - Adrastea and Idea, instead of mother's milk, he was fed with the milk of the divine goat Amalthea, and industrious bees carried honey to baby Zeus from Mount Dikta.

If Zeus began to cry, the young Kuretes, who stood at the entrance to the cave, struck their shields with swords. Loud sounds drowned out the crying so that Kronos would not hear it.

The myth of the birth of Zeus: feeding the milk of the divine goat Amalthea

Zeus grew up. Having defeated Kronos in battle with the help of the Titans and the Cyclopes, he became the supreme deity of the Olympian Pantheon. The lord of heavenly forces commanded thunders, lightnings, clouds and showers. He dominated the universe, giving people laws and protecting order.

Views of the Ancient Greeks

The Greeks believed that the gods of Olympus are like people, and the relationship between them is comparable to human. Their lives were also filled with quarrels and reconciliations, envy and interference, resentment and forgiveness, joy, fun and love.

In the views of the ancient Greeks, each deity had its own occupation and sphere of influence:

• Zeus - lord of the sky, father of gods and people
• Hera - the wife of Zeus, the patroness of the family
• Poseidon - the sea
• Hestia - family hearth
• Demeter - agriculture
• Apollo - light and music
• Athena - wisdom
• Hermes - trade and messenger of the gods
• Hephaestus - fire
• Aphrodite - beauty
• Ares - war
• Artemis - hunting

From the earth, people each turned to their god, according to their destiny. Temples were built everywhere to propitiate them, and gifts were offered instead of sacrifices.

In Greek mythology, not only Chaos, the Titans and the Olympian Pantheon mattered, there were other gods.

• Nymphs Naiads who lived in streams and rivers
• Nereids - nymphs of the seas
• Dryads and Satyrs - nymphs of the forests
• Echo - nymph of mountains
• Goddesses of fate: Lachesis, Clotho and Atropos.

The rich world of myths was given to us by ancient Greece. It is filled with deep meaning and instructive stories. Thanks to them, people can learn ancient wisdom and knowledge.

How many different legends exist at the moment, do not count. But believe me, every person should get acquainted with them after spending time with Apollo, Hephaestus, Hercules, Narcissus, Poseidon and others. Welcome to the ancient world of the ancient Greeks!

In ancient times, mankind developed civilizations. These were isolated peoples, which were formed under the influence of certain factors and had their own culture, technique and were distinguished by a certain individuality. Due to the fact that they were not technically advanced like modern humanity, ancient people were largely dependent on the vagaries of nature. Then lightning, rain, earthquakes and other natural phenomena seemed to be manifestations of divine powers. These forces, as it seemed then, could determine the fate and personal qualities of a person. And so the very first mythology was born.

What is a myth?

According to the modern cultural definition, this is a narrative that reproduces the beliefs of ancient people about the structure of the world, about higher powers, about man, the biographies of great heroes and gods in verbal form. In some way, they reflected the then level of human knowledge. These legends were recorded and passed down from generation to generation, thanks to which we can now find out how our ancestors thought. That is, then mythology was a certain form and also one of the ways of understanding natural and social reality, which reflected the views of a person at a certain stage of development.

Among the many questions that worried mankind in those distant times, the problem of the appearance of the world and man in it was especially relevant. Due to their curiosity, people tried to explain and understand how they appeared, who created them. It was then that a separate myth about the origin of people appears.

Due to the fact that humanity, as already mentioned, developed in large isolated groups, the legends of each nationality were in some way unique, as they reflected not only the worldview of the people at that time, but were also an imprint of cultural, social development, and also carried information about the land where the people lived. In this sense, myths have some historical value, since they allow us to build some logical judgments about a particular people. In addition, they were a bridge between the past and the future, a link between generations, passing on the knowledge that was accumulated in the stories from the old family to the new, thus teaching it.

Anthropogonic myths

Regardless of civilization, all ancient people had their own ideas about how a person appeared in this world. They have some common features, but they also have significant differences, which are due to the peculiarities of the life and development of a particular civilization. All myths about the origin of man are called anthropogonic. This word comes from the Greek "anthropos", which means - man. Such a concept as the myth of the origin of people exists in absolutely all ancient peoples. The difference is only in their perception of the world.

For comparison, we can consider separately taken myths about the origin of man and the world of two great nationalities, which significantly influenced the development of mankind in their time. These are the civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient China.

Chinese view of the creation of the world

The Chinese represented our Universe in the form of a huge egg, which was filled with a certain matter - Chaos. From this Chaos was born the first ancestor of all mankind - Pangu. He used his ax to break the egg in which he was born. When he broke the egg, Chaos burst out and began to change. The sky (Yin) was formed - which is associated with a light beginning, and the Earth (Yang) - a dark beginning. Thus, in the beliefs of the Chinese, the world was formed. After that, Pangu put his hands on the sky, and his feet on the ground and began to grow. It grew continuously until the sky separated from the earth and became what we see it today. Pangu, when he grew up, broke up into many parts that became the basis of our world. His body became mountains and plains, flesh became earth, breath became air and wind, blood became water, and skin became vegetation.

Chinese mythology

As the Chinese myth about the origin of man says, a world was formed that was inhabited by animals, fish and birds, but people were still. The Chinese believed that the great female spirit, Nuwa, became the creator of mankind. The ancient Chinese revered her as the organizer of the world, she was depicted as a woman with a human body, the legs of a bird and the tail of a snake, who holds a moon disk (Yin symbol) and a measuring square in her hand.

Nuwa began to sculpt human figures from clay, which came to life and turned into people. She worked for a long time and realized that her strength was not enough to create people who could populate the whole earth. Then Nuwa took the rope and passed it through the liquid clay, and then shook it. Where the lumps of wet clay fell, people appeared. But still they were not as good as those that were molded by hand. This is how the existence of the nobility, which Nuwa molded with her own hands, and people of the lower classes, created with the help of a rope, was substantiated. The goddess gave her creations the opportunity to reproduce on their own, and also introduced the concept of marriage, which was observed very strictly in ancient China. Therefore, Nu Wa can also be considered the patroness of marriage.

This is the Chinese myth of the origin of man. As you can see, it reflects not only traditional Chinese beliefs, but also some of the features and rules that guided the ancient Chinese in their lives.

Greek mythology about the appearance of man

The Greek myth of the origin of man tells how the titan Prometheus created people from clay. But the first people were very defenseless and did not know how. For this act, the Greek gods were angry with Prometheus and planned to destroy the human race. However, Prometheus saved his children by stealing fire from Mount Olympus and bringing it to man in an empty reed stalk. For this, Zeus imprisoned Prometheus in chains in the Caucasus, where the eagle was supposed to peck at his liver.

In general, any myth about the origin of people does not provide specific information about the emergence of mankind, concentrating more on subsequent events. Perhaps this is due to the fact that the Greeks considered a person to be insignificant against the background of the almighty gods, thus emphasizing their importance for the whole people. Indeed, almost all Greek legends are directly or indirectly connected with the gods who guide and help the heroes of the human race, such as Odysseus or Jason.

Features of mythology

What are the features of mythological thinking?

As can be seen above, myths and legends interpret and describe the origin of man in completely different ways. It must be understood that the need for them arose at an early age. They arose from the need of man to explain the origin of man, nature, and the structure of the world. Of course, the method of explanation used by mythology is quite primitive, it differs significantly from the interpretation of the world order that science supports. In myths, everything is quite concrete and isolated, there are no abstract concepts in them. Man, society and nature merge into one. The main type of mythological thinking is figurative. Each person, hero or god necessarily has a concept or phenomenon that follows him. This one denies any logical reasoning, based on faith, not knowledge. It is incapable of generating questions that are not creative.

In addition, mythology also has specific literary devices that make it possible to emphasize the significance of certain events. These are hyperbole that exaggerate, for example, the strength or other important characteristics of the heroes (Pangu, who was able to lift the sky), metaphors that attribute certain characteristics to things or beings that do not actually possess them.

Common features and influence on world culture

In general, one can trace a certain pattern in how exactly the myths of different peoples explain the origin of man. In almost all variants, there is some kind of divine essence that breathes life into lifeless matter, thus creating and shaping a person. This influence of ancient pagan beliefs can be traced back to later religions, such as Christianity, where God creates man in his own image and likeness. However, if it is not entirely clear how Adam appeared, then God creates Eve from a rib, which only confirms this influence of ancient legends. This influence of mythology can be traced in almost every culture that has existed since.

Ancient Turkic mythology about how man appeared

The ancient Turkic myth about the origin of man, the progenitor of the human race, as well as the creator of the earth, calls the goddess Umai. She, in the form of a white swan, flew over the water, which has always existed, and searched for land, but did not find it. She laid the egg right into the water, but the egg immediately sank. Then the goddess decided to make a nest on the water, but the feathers from which she made it turned out to be fragile, and the waves broke the nest. The goddess held her breath and dived to the very bottom. She took out a patch of earth in her beak. Then the god Tengri saw her suffering and sent three iron fish to Umai. She put earth on the back of one of the fish, and it began to grow until all the earth's land was formed. After that, the goddess laid an egg, from which the whole human race, birds, animals, trees and everything else appeared.

What can be determined by reading this Turkic myth about the origin of man? One can see a general similarity with the legends of ancient Greece and China already known to us. Some divine power creates people, namely from an egg, which is very similar to the Chinese legend about Pangu. Thus, it is clear that initially people associated the creation of themselves by analogy with living beings that they could observe. There is also an incredible reverence for the maternal principle, a woman as a continuer of life.

What can a child learn for himself in these legends? What new things does he learn by reading the myths of the peoples about the origin of man?

First of all, this will allow him to get acquainted with the culture and life of the people that existed in prehistoric times. Since the myth is characterized by a figurative type of thinking, the child will quite easily perceive it and be able to assimilate the necessary information. For children, these are the same fairy tales, and, like fairy tales, they are filled with the same morals and information. When reading them, the child will learn to develop his thinking processes, learn to benefit from reading and draw conclusions.

The myth of the origin of people will give the child an answer to the exciting question - where did I come from? Of course, the answer will be wrong, but children take everything on faith, and therefore it will satisfy the interest of the child. By reading the Greek origin myth above, the child will also be able to understand why fire is so important to mankind and how it was discovered. This will be useful in the subsequent education of the child in elementary school.

Variety and benefits for the child

Indeed, if we take examples of myths about the origin of man (and not only them) from Greek mythology, you can see that the colorfulness of the characters and their number are very large and interesting not only for young readers, but even for adults. However, you need to help the child figure it all out, otherwise he will simply get confused in the events and their causes. It is necessary to explain to the child why God loves or dislikes this or that hero, why he helps him. Thus, the child will learn to build logical chains and compare facts, drawing certain conclusions from them.

At the beginning of everything there was a formless, indefinite in its size Chaos, then there appeared the wide-hilled Gaia (Earth), the gloomy Tartarus deep in its bowels and the eternal force of attraction that existed before them - Eros. The Greeks called the same word the god of love, who accompanied the goddess of love Aphrodite, but Eros, who stood at the beginning of the universe, excludes what Hesiod himself understands by the word "love": "A girl's whisper of love, smiles and laughter and deceptions, sweet bliss of love and intoxicating the joy of hugs." It excludes any kind of feeling - it would be strange to imagine that a meteorite flying towards the earth is guided by the power of love. Eros is what we would call the gravitational force that exists in world space as a law. And this force sets in motion both Chaos and the Earth.

Chaos produces the feminine - Night and the masculine - Darkness (Erebus). Creatures of the Night - and Mom, and the gloomy, merciless deities of death kera, and Tanat (Death), and Sleep (Hypnos), and a whole crowd of dreams, and impassive moira, in whose hands human fate will be concentrated with the advent of the human race, and the formidable goddess of retribution Nemesis, and Deception, and Old Age, and Eris, who embodied the rivalry and strife, which brought her unkind offspring to humanity that had not yet arisen - Exhausting labor, Famine, Sorrows, Battles, Murders, False words, Litigation and Lawlessness, but at the same time and adamantly just Orc, punishing anyone who gives a false oath.

And from the union of the Night with Erebus, a light transparent Ether and a shining Day are born. Light from Darkness. This image is also known to Eastern wisdom: "And God saw the light, that it was good, and separated the light from the darkness, and God called the light day, and called the darkness night." But in the Greek picture of the creation of the world, unlike the biblical one, there is no God who creates, experiencing joy from this. Eros, taking the place of the creator, connects and separates, but he himself does not feel either beauty or ugliness. There are no feelings in the world yet, but there is a Law.

Wide-hilled Gaia also awakens. First, Uranus (Sky) was born by her, so that the gods had a strong and eternal dwelling, then the Mountains rose from the bowels of her, so that immortals could find temporary shelter there, the nymphs born by her filled their wooded slopes, her brainchild Sea (Pontus) spread over the plains . The Black Sea was usually thought to be under Pontus.

Uranus is the personification of the masculine principle, "heaven" in the Greek language of the masculine. Gaia gave birth to him equal in size, and Uranus, according to Hesiod, "as if covered the earth" - a mythological image caused by the illusion that the cup of heaven exactly covers the flat dish of the earth lying under it.

The covering of the Earth with the Sky, understood as the union of a Man and a Woman, led to the appearance of the gods of the first generation - there were twelve of them: six brothers and six sisters, powerful and beautiful. They were not the only children from the union of Gaia and Uranus. Gaia also gives birth to three huge ugly Round-eyed (Cyclops), with a large round eye in the middle of the forehead, and after them three more arrogant giants - the Hundred-armed. But only the titans, having taken their sisters as wives, filled the expanses of Mother Earth and Father Sky with their offspring: they gave rise to a great tribe of gods of the most ancient generation.
The eldest of them, the mighty Ocean, whom the poets called "the beginning of everything," had three thousand daughters, beautiful-haired oceanids, and the same number of river streams that pierced the whole land. Mortals will never remember their names, How not to drain their waters fed by the Ocean. Only the harsh Cimmerians living at the end of the world, blessed Ethiopians and black pygmies, tirelessly waging war with cranes, know about the sources of the streams-brothers of the Nile, Eridan and Istra. What daredevil will find a way to them? And if he finds, will he be able to return back? This is given only to Helios (Sun), generated together with Selena (Moon), Eos (Dawn) and numerous Stars by another pair of titans, who occupied the heights of the universe, and, perhaps, to the fleeting winds Boreas, Note and Zephyr - the winged grandchildren of their third pair.

The titan Iapetus could not boast of as plentiful offspring as his older brothers, but he became famous for a few, but great sons: Atlas, who took the heavy burden of the heavenly vault on his shoulders, and Prometheus, the most noble of the titans.

The youngest son of Gaia and Uranus was Cronus, impudent and impatient. He did not want to endure not only the arrogant patronage of his older brothers, but also the power of his own father. Perhaps he would not have dared to raise his hand against him and encroach on the supreme power, if not for the mother of Gaia. She shared with her matured son a long-standing resentment against her husband: she hated Uranus for the ugliness of her sons - the Hundred-armed giants and imprisoned her, entangling them with chains, in her depths that do not know sunlight. Having met support in her son, Gaia threw out the hard alloy of iron adamant from her bowels, turned it with strong hands into a sharp sickle and handed it over to Krona so that he would forever deprive his father of the opportunity to have offspring, since he did not know how to love his children, no matter what they were in the world.

Creeping up to Uranus under the cover of Nikta, with an unwavering hand Kronus castrated him and seized his father's power.

Having taken his sister Rhea as his wife, Kron laid the foundation for a new tribe, to which people gave the name of the gods. But, having raised his hand against his father, the insidious Kron was afraid of his offspring and, so that no one would deprive him of power, began to swallow his own children as soon as they were born.

Rhea bitterly complained about her sad fate to Mother Earth and received advice from her on how to save another baby. As soon as the child was born, Gaia herself hid him in one of those inaccessible caves, of which there are so many in her vast depths, and Rhea gave her husband a swaddled stone.

Meanwhile, Zeus - as the happy mother of the rescued baby called it - began to grow in a deep cave hidden from the eyes on the slopes of wooded Ida, the highest mountain of the island of Crete, which lies in the middle of the wine-colored sea. There he was guarded by the youths of the Curetes and Corybantes, drowning out the children's cries with blows of copper shields and rattling of weapons, and the noblest of the goats Amalthea fed him with her milk. For this, Zeus, subsequently taking his rightful place on Olympus, constantly took care of her, and after death he raised her to heaven so that she would shine forever in the constellation of the Charioteer. However, Zeus decided to keep the skin of his nurse, making a shield out of it - a sign of higher power. This shield was called "aegis", from the Greek word for "goat". According to him, Zeus received one of his most common epithets - aegis-powerful. And the horn, which Amalthea once broke by negligence during her earthly life, the lord of the gods turned into a cornucopia and gave it to his daughter Eirene, the patroness of the world.

Having matured, Zeus became stronger than his father and not by cunning, like Kron, but by force overcame him and forced him to regurgitate his swallowed brothers and sisters from the womb. They were Hades, Poseidon, Hera, Demeter and Hestia. The brothers cast lots and shared their father's power: Poseidon became the ruler of the entire water element, Hades - the underworld and the kingdom of death, and Zeus, who defeated Kron - the whole world.

The end of the era of the titans was approaching, which by this time had filled the expanses of heaven and earth with several of their generations. The era of the gods was beginning, but they still had to defeat their mighty predecessors...

The interest of many people around the world in ancient Greek mythology does not decrease even after millennia, on the contrary, it even bursts from time to time. Some are interested in them from a scientific point of view, others simply enjoy immersing themselves in the unique world of heroes and gods, but there are actually no people indifferent to Greek mythology. Among the many different myths, one can be singled out, which is of paramount importance, this is the myth of the creation of the whole world and the story of how the ancient Greeks imagined this process.

This is an ancient legend about the immense Chaos that has always existed outside of time and space. Once, an unknown and powerful force acted on him, under the influence of which he began to deform and change, which eventually led to the creation of the Universe. Thus, Chaos became the progenitor of the world that surrounds modern people. His first creation was Time, associated with the great ancient god Chronos. Also, shortly after him, new creatures arose from Chaos: Gaia - the Earth and Tartarus, who is the personification of the Incomprehensible Abyss. Eros became another creation of Chaos - an indefinable force of attraction, the only force to which the very creation of the primordial Universe was subject, after that, the god of love will be called by the same name.

The well-known expression "Light from darkness" also comes from those distant times when Chaos gave birth to Erebus and Nikta, who became the embodiment of darkness and impenetrable night, respectively. Their union had a very strange result, which can only be called a paradox, since it resulted in the appearance of Ether and Hemera, who personified the Eternal Light and the Shining Day. Gaia, after her awakening, contributed to the emergence of Uranus and Heaven, which was destined to become a permanent home and place of residence for the assembled pantheon of immortal cults.

Then Gaia was created and - Pontus, he, along with Uranus, was her husband. The union of Gaia and her first husband Uranus gave birth to powerful titans, cyclops and giants with a hundred arms, whose strength was so great that their own father began to fear them. Fearing that the children would eventually raise a rebellion and take away his power, he sent them to the Incomprehensible Abyss, but Gaia raised her children to rebellion, as a result of which Kronos became the ruler of the world. This son of Uranus was the progenitor of all the known Olympic gods, which are described in various ancient Greek myths.

However, the described legend is only one of the myths of Ancient Greece about the creation of the world, there is another version of the creation of the Universe, which has been known since pre-Hellenic times. According to him, Eurynome, the most ancient goddess of all things, has risen from Chaos and found herself in an empty space where there is nothing and nothing to rely on. Then she began the process of creation, dividing the sky and the sea, in the waves of which she danced, creating the wind. In order to keep warm among the gusts of the cold north wind, the naked Eurynome danced faster and more frankly, which aroused desire in the giant serpent Ophion. He entwined the goddess, and they conceived a child through the penetration of the north wind.

After the process of fertilization, Eurynome turned into a dove, which laid the World Egg, which the great serpent hatched. Planets, the earth, as well as all living beings and everything around them in this world appeared from this Egg. Ophion and Eurynome settled on Olympus, but soon there was a quarrel between them, and the serpent was expelled by the goddess into the underworld. Eurynome, on the other hand, continued the process of creation, creating planetary forces and their patrons, the titans, and the first people arose from the teeth that she knocked out of Ophion.