Acantha is often claimed to be a minor character in Greek mythology whose metamorphosis was the origin of the Acanthus plant. Acantha's myth however does not appear in any classical source.
In Greek mythology, Orthrus or Orthus was, according to the mythographer Apollodorus, a two-headed dog who guarded Geryon's cattle and was killed by Heracles. He was the offspring of the monsters Echidna and Typhon, and the brother of Cerberus, who was also a multi-headed guard dog.
In Greek mythology, Astyanax was the son of Hector, the crown prince of Troy, and his wife, Princess Andromache of Cilician Thebe. His birth name was Scamandrius, but the people of Troy nicknamed him Astyanax, because he was the son of the city's great defender and the heir apparent's firstborn son.
Etruscan religion comprises a set of stories, beliefs, and religious practices of the Etruscan civilization, heavily influenced by the mythology of ancient Greece, and sharing similarities with concurrent Roman mythology and religion. As the Etruscan civilization was gradually assimilated into the Roman Republic from the 4th century BC, the Etruscan religion and mythology were partially incorporated into ancient Roman culture, following the Roman tendency to absorb some of the local gods and customs of conquered lands. The first attestations of an Etruscan religion can be traced back to the Villanovan culture.
Aita, also spelled Eita, is an epithet of the Etruscan chthonic fire god Śuri as god of the underworld, roughly equivalent to the Greek god Hades.
In Greek mythology, Nessus was a famous centaur who was killed by Heracles, and whose poisoned blood in turn killed Heracles. He was the son of Centauros. He fought in the battle with the Lapiths and became a ferryman on the river Euenos.
In ancient Arab mythology, Azizos or Aziz is the Palmyran Arab god of the morning star. He is portrayed as riding a camel with his twin brother Arsu, although one source says that "Azizos is depicted as a horseman, whereas Arşu is a cameleer." He was venerated separately in Syria as god of the morning star, Phosphoros, in company with the astral god Monimos, Hesperos.
Aion is a Hellenistic deity associated with time, the orb or circle encompassing the universe, and the zodiac. The "time" which Aion represents is perpetual, unbounded, ritual, and cyclic: The future is a returning version of the past, later called aevum. This kind of time contrasts with empirical, linear, progressive, and historical time that Chronos represented, which divides into past, present, and future.
In Greek mythology, Areto was an Amazon.
In Greek mythology, Iphito was an Amazon who served under Hippolyte. Her name is only known from inscriptions.
Abgal was a pre-Islamic Arabian god, whose worship is attested by inscriptions dating to the Palmyrene Empire – he is thought to have been primarily worshipped by nomads.
Ruda is a deity that was of paramount importance in the Arab pantheon of gods worshipped by the North Arabian tribes of pre-Islamic Arabia.
The Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae is a multivolume encyclopedia cataloguing representations of mythology in the plastic arts of classical antiquity. Published serially from 1981 to 2009, it is the most extensive resource of its kind, providing "full and detailed information." Entries are arranged alphabetically, with black-and-white illustrations indexed to their respective entries.
In Greek mythology, Polybotes was one of the Giants, the offspring of Gaia (Earth), and Uranus (Sky). He fought Poseidon during the Gigantomachy, the war between the Giants and the gods.
Lur is an Etruscan underworld deity with not much known history. Lur does not have many depictions but the ones that have been found show the deity as a male. He has been noted to be associated with a prophetic nature, while also bearing oracular and martial characteristics. He has been linked to another deity by the name of Laran, which, it has been suggested, is where Lur derives his name from. The context of the name has been associated with darkness and the underworld. A fifth century vase found near a sanctuary in San Giovenale bears an inscription that translates: "I am Lurs, that of Laran." Another inscription has been found with the spelling lartla, noting relations to a Lar, which gives a label to Lur that describes features of protection. The name may be related to Latin luridus "pale".
Lilly Louise Kahil was a Swiss-French archaeologist and classicist of Egyptian-German descent. She was the founder of the Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, an encyclopedia of ancient Greek, Etruscan and Roman mythology.
The Mithraeum of Dura Europos was found during excavations in the city in 1934. It is considered to be one of the best-preserved and best-documented cult buildings of Mithraism.
Carmen Arnold-Biucchi is a classical numismatist and archaeologist. Born in Lugano, Switzerland, she studied classical archaeology and ancient history at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, receiving her Magister in 1971. Her dissertation was on Cypriot terracottas. She is an expert on the coinages of Greek Sicily and Hellenistic numismatics.
