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Mythology |
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GODS OF ANCIENT EGYPT
- Anubis- a jackal headed god, guardian of the gates of the underworld (like Cerberus with a brain) and the god who had charge of corpses and embalming. A strange choice for a very powerful Goa'uld, as Anubis (or Annubis, either spelling is fine) is usually seen as a servant/messenger to the other gods.
- Apophis- technically, Apophis wasn't a god at all, but was a serpent demon who Ra had to battle during his nightly voyage beneath the earth. Despite Daniel saying otherwise, he didn't "rule the night" or the underworld, this fell to Osiris, lord of the Dead, or Thoth, who was the deity associated with the moon. Still, good call on the serpent thing, and on finding Apophis in the first place, I had to resort to my Graham Kirk 'Myth, It’s Meaning And Function In Ancient And Other Cultures', as he wasn't in any of my Egyptology books. If you're interested in the meaning of myths by the way, Graham Kirk is the guy to look for. If anyone directs you towards a man called Mircea Eliade, run screaming from the library and don't stop. Ever.
- Bast- you all know this one, the fickle Egyptian cat goddess who put a curse on CJ in 'The West Wing'
- Hathor- yep, right all down the line on this one, goddess of love and fertility, her sacred animal was the cow. The bit about falling out with Ra and trying to destroy mankind, is technically correct and is sometimes attributed to Hathor, but more usually belongs to the goddess Sekhmet, otherwise known as the Eye Of Ra. I'm less happy about Hathor being the prototype for these kinds of goddesses, as the worship of Hathor was predated by that of Ishtar in Babylon, and in Egypt itself was probably predated by the worship of the original female deity Nut, the sky goddess, the mother of Isis, Osiris and Seth.
- Heru-Ur- otherwise known as Horus, the son of Isis and Osiris, a hawk-headed god. Horus defeated Seth to become king of Egypt, and the living Pharaohs of Egypt were usually identified with Horus in rituals. Confusingly, there was another, elder Horus god, but I presume this is the one that SG-1 are dealing with.
- Isis and Osiris- the story of Isis and Osiris, is basically that of Hamlet (or for that matter 'The Lion King'). Evil uncle kills father, son (in this case Horus) takes revenge. After his death, Osiris became the god of the underworld, which pretty much encompassed both heaven and hell. Isis was a goddess of many things, fertility, birth, long life and so on. Isis became such an important deity, not just because of her place in Egyptian mythology, but because the Romans in particular also adopted her worship. Osiris has never been played in a film by Jeremy Irons.
- Ra- the big one... Amun Ra (or Re), the Egyptian sun god, he carried the sun in a barque or boat that sailed across the sky in the day and then beneath the earth during the night, battling all sorts of fearsome monsters to rise again in the morning.
- Seth- the god who murdered his brother Osiris and was in turn defeated (sometimes, but not always killed) by Horus (think Jeremy Irons In 'The Lion King'). Technically he wasn't an evil deity as such (the Egyptians were very broad-minded about these things, like a lot of Ancient religions there wasn't a line between good and evil deities) but has come to be regarded as one. This is partly because of the murder of Osiris, and partly because Seth was the patron deity of the Hyksos people who invaded and conquered Egypt in around 1678 BC (Yes for those of you who read these things, the Highlander novel got it about right)
- Sobek- makes a brief appearance in 'Summit', so gets an entry here, he was a crocodile-headed fertility god of the Egyptians
- Sokar- okay, now we have problems. The land of Sokar is the necropolis at Memphis (including the pyramids at Giza), so Sokar would seem to be the patron deity of this area. Unfortunately, that place is already taken by Osiris, who was supposedly buried there, so we can assume that Sokar is simply another name for Osiris the lord of the underworld. The fact that Graham Hancock uses this argument doesn't (for once) make it any less true. This gets even more interesting when you get Simon Schama describing Yu as "the Chinese Osiris" (in 'Landscape And Memory'), so technically, they're using the same god three times under three different names
GODS OF THE NORSE
- THOR- the chief and most powerful of the Norse gods, Thor was God of thunder. His consort was Freja/Freya
GODS OF SOUTH AMERICA
- QUETZALCOTL- the God of Central and South America who was credited with the creation and development of civilisation. Interestingly, Quetzalcotl was the God whom Cortez and his conquistadors were mistaken for, leading to the almost total destruction of the Aztec culture.
GODS OF THE CELTS
- MORRIGAN- one of the three incarnations of the main female Celtic goddess, Morrigan was the Goddess of death and battles. She often appeared as a raven
GODS OF OTHER COUNTRIES
- BAAL- a white bull god of the Cannanites and later the Phonecians. He came to be associated with Beelzebub
- YU- the semi-legendary, semi-mythical first Emperor of China
Author's Note- These are not the gods/Goa'uld/whatevers as portrayed in the show, this page describes the actual mythological beings, although I have pointed out some of the similarities and differences.
These are of course very quick descriptions cribbed from my own small knowledge and my even smaller library (which is why the African and Indo-Chinese deities get short shrift, that's really not my area). If you want more in-depth information, then start with Thomas Bullfinch's Myth and Legend. It may be a hundred years old, but he was almost always right. For some really interesting source material on the Egyptians (although for god's sake don't start believing his conclusions) the noted loon Graham Hancock is always worth a read, particularly 'Keeper Of Genesis' for information on Osiris and Sokar.
For online info, try the wonderful Enclycopedia Mythica at www.pantheon.org/mythica.html.
