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Ancient Origins Tour IRAQ

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Myths & Legends

All over the world there are extraordinary stories—stories that once upon a time were believed to be true but are today limited to the sphere of ancient myths and legends. The question remains, are those myths and legends something that existed in the minds of our ancestors, or were they based on true events? It is true that most of those ancient myths and legends appear to the scientific world to be fictitious products of vivid imaginations whose goals were purely to explain phenomena beyond their comprehension. Yet is it not arrogant to accuse our ancestors of being uncivilised and ignorant in one breath, then offer them praise and admiration over their monuments, buildings, art, sculptures, and societies in the next? This only proves that our modern society has two contradictory attitudes toward our past.

In this section we will explore some of the most amazing myths and legends from around the world—legends that may hold truths that can unlock the secrets of our ancient origins.

The sacred and magical sistrum of ancient Egypt

The sacred and magical sistrum of ancient Egypt

The sistrum was one of the most sacred musical instruments in ancient Egypt and was believed to hold powerful magical properties. It was used in the worship of the goddess Hathor, mythological...
Theseus and Ariadne at the Entrance of the Labyrinth

The Abandoned Heroine Archetype in Greek and Roman Myth

In the epic myths of Ancient Greece and Rome, it is common for heroes to abandon their heroines in order to reach the end of their quests, as it was considered virtuous in these cultures for a man to...
Chickasaw Migration Story

The Chickasaw Migration Story: Journey from the Place of the Setting Sun

From their prehistoric migration to present-day Mississippi, Kentucky, Alabama and Tennessee, to the purchase of their new homeland in south-central Oklahoma in the mid 1800s, Chickasaw culture and...
Mural artwork about Hopi emergence and migration

Gene Flow and Counter Current—Hopi Sea Voyages From the Lost Continent of Mu

To the layperson genetics can seem like a foreign language. Phylogenetic trees look somewhat like schematics for electronic circuit boards. I can read neither. However, if one can manage to decipher...
The Teresh of The Sea Peoples

Identifying the Teresh of The Sea Peoples

It has long been suggested that the Teresh, an ethnic group listed among the Sea Peoples in Egyptian sources, were one and the same as the Tyrrhenians (also referred to as Tyrsenians in other Greek...
Lunar Myths - Supermoon

Exploring Ancient Lunar Myths and Legends as Supermoon set to Dazzle Tonight

The moon has been an object of worship, veneration, and intrigue among ancient civilizations for thousands of years. Now, it is set to capture our admiration once again as the biggest and brightest...
Jörmungandr, the World Serpent

Snakes with Beards and Other Strange Serpent Tales

By Liz Leafloor | Mysteriorum The snake is one of the oldest and most pervasive mythological symbols in the world. There are as many creation myths about snakes as there are religions and cultures,...
The Lost Continent of Kumari Kandam

The Lost Continent of Kumari Kandam

Most people are familiar with the story of Atlantis, the legendary sunken city as described by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato. Till this day, opinion is still divided as to whether this story...
The gentle and benevolent Qilin of Chinese mythology

The gentle and benevolent Qilin of Chinese mythology

Chinese mythology is full of fantastic supernatural and mythical creatures. Whilst the Western world is probably most familiar with the dragon and the phoenix, there are other equally interesting,...
Floating Islands - Myth and Reality

Floating Islands Seen at Sea: Myth and Reality – Part 2

(Read Part 1 ) Floating islands do indeed exist on six of the seven continents; they may have trees growing upon them, be hundreds of meters across, and support the weight of humans living upon them...
Floating Islands - Myth and Reality

Floating Islands Seen at Sea: Myth and Reality

A floating island—can such a thing exist? Can the chunks of the solid earth on which we stand drift easily about the surface of a body of water? The idea of a floating island seems impossible,...
Gilgamesh Cylinder Seal

The Legend of Gilgamesh

Myths are traditional stories that address the various ways of living and being. The well-known myth of Gilgamesh has been cited in many sources as one of the first stories in our recorded human...
Montezuma

The Stolen Treasure of Montezuma

In 1519, the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes arrived on the outskirts of Tenochtitlan, the capital of the mighty Aztec Empire. It has been said that to the Aztec emperor, Montezuma II, Cortes and...
Ancient Battle

Identifying an Ancient Battle and Dating the Song of Deborah

In the world of academia, it has always been the general consensus that some of the Bible’s poetry predates its prose literature. For instance, the poetry came first, whether it was preserved orally...
The Four Mythological Symbols of China

The Four Mythological Symbols of China

In ancient Chinese astronomy, the sky ecliptic was divided into four sections. Each of these sections contained seven mansions, and together they formed the 28 Mansions. The 28 Mansions may be...
The Enigma of the Thracians and the Orpheus Myth

The Enigma of the Thracians and the Orpheus Myth – Part 2

The Orphic Mysteries ( Part 1 ) The Thracians worshiped Ares, the god of war, Sabazios, the sky father god, and had faith in the Sun, son of the goddess Bendis, the incarnation of perfection and...
Thracian Tomb - Orpheus Myth

The Enigma of the Thracians and the Orpheus Myth

The passage of the millennia has brought us traces of ancient civilizations that shone enough to make their cultural glimpses last through the ages. Humanity itself has featured in the art, culture,...
The Menhune of Hawaii

The Menehune of Hawaii – Ancient Race or Fictional Fairytale?

In Hawaiian mythology, the Menehune are said to be an ancient race of people small in stature, who lived in Hawaii before settlers arrived from Polynesia. Many scholars attribute ancient structures...
Viking ship with dead

Why and How Different Cultures Bury the Dead

By Tara MacIsaac , Epoch Times Funerary rites, like death, are a source of fascination tinged by mystery and fear. Closely related to how we view the afterlife and how we relate to one another, these...
Mycenaean Greeks in the Egyptian military of Ramesses

Did Mycenaean Greeks serve in the Egyptian military of Ramesses?

In the year 2006, news outlets all across the globe began to report of an extraordinary archaeological find from a Mycenaean palace located on the island of Salamis, the largest island within the...
Griffin

The ancient origins of the legendary griffin

The griffin is a legendary creature with the head and wings of an eagle, and the body, tail, and hind legs of a lion. As the eagle was considered the ‘king of the birds’, and the lion the ‘king of...
The battle of Qadesh

Trojans at the Battle of Qadesh

The Battle of Qadesh (Kadesh) immortalized the embellished feats of Ramesses II (i.e. Ramesses the Great), the 19th Dynasty Pharaoh of the New Kingdom of Egypt ca. 1279 - 1213 BCE. The pharaoh would...
Sea Peoples - Philistines

In Search of the Origins of the Philistines – Part 2

(Read Part 1 here ) Commonly referred to as the modern Queen of the Philistines , archaeologist Trude Dothan, believes that in some part, the Philistines originated from the island of Cyprus to the...
Delilah’s Betrayal and Samson’s Imprisonment by the Philistines

In Search of the Origins of the Philistines - Part 1

They would be immortalized as ancient Israel’s worst enemy in the scriptures of the Old Testament. They are the Philistines. Much like the ancient Israelites, the Philistines were strangers to the...

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