Sun Gods
You climb the steep stairs of the temple. As you look around, you see the blood of your fellow prisoners pooled on the floor. You see the priests. They are caked with the blood of their former victims. You hear the drums start. They will muffle your screams. The time is 1531. The place is the great Aztec city of Tenochtitlan. You are about to have your heart ripped out of your still living body to appease the angry gods. This is an example of sun worship. In some cultures, the sun was a blood-hungry deity that required human hearts to shine. To others the sun was the creator of the earth and every thing on the earth. The three most noteworthy cultures that had solar religion were the ancient Egyptians and Aztecs. All of these civilizations had a belief of sacred kingship and an extremely well developed urban culture. For example, when the Spanish conquistadors came to the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan they were amazed by the city. "We were amazed....on account of the great towers and temples and buildings rising from the water, and all built of masonry. And some of our soldiers even asked whether the things we saw were not in a dream." 1 Their rulers governed by the power of the sun and their royal families beli
Many of the traditions and customs that we assiocate with Christian holidays like Easter and Christmas date back to ancient sun worshipping festivals. The name of Easter has two explanations behind it. One is that the name Easter is derived from the name Eostre, a goddess of spring and dawn. The other is the connection between "east" where the sun rises and the name Easter. Spring is the time of new life and renewal and the ancient peoples of Asia and Europe would have celebrations to encourage the sun to make their crops grow. The early Church in Rome no doubt took the pagan celebrations of resurrection of the earth and adapted it to give it Christian meanings. Customs like Easter eggs, and rabbits are actually pagan in origin. Dating back to the oldest civilizations in the world, the egg has always resented creation and new life. It is believed that ancient civilizations traded them at spring festivals, the time when the sun revived all things in nature after winter. To the early Church they represented the resurrection of Christ. The custom of the Easter Bunny dates back to the sacred hare of the goddess Eostre. The hare was a symbol of fertility and return of spring. The Roman festival of Sol Invictus (Unconquered Sun) was on December 25 and celebrated the god Mithra, a solar deity. Christians eventually took the date to clear up to clear up confusion regarding the actual date of the birth of Christ, which the Bible shows is actually no later than October. In Japan, the imperial family claims descent from their sun goddess Amatersu, and the sun is featured as a symbol of their nation. Things like our calendar and the 24 hour day come from ancient Egyptian sun worship. Julius Caesar took the Egyptian 365 day solar calendar to replace the Roman lunar one. Today, we still use a form of this calendar. The 24 day goes back to the belief that Re traveled half the time through the twelve domains of the day and half the time through the twelve realms of the underworld. Like mentioned previously, almost every civilization had a deity who represented or personified the sun. To the Celts who lived in central Europe, their sun god was Lugh. The god of the underworld, and leader of the evil Fomorii, Balor was his grandfather. According to a prophecy, Lugh was to kill Balor. When Balor tried to prevent this from happening by attempting to kill Lugh, Lugh went to live with Manannan and became an expert warrior. When he was an adult, Lugh joined the people of the goddess Danu to aid them in their battle against the evil Fomorii and Balor. Balor had an evil eye that killed whoever looked at it. Lugh threw a magic stone at it and killed Balor. To the Greeks, Apollo was the god of the sun, reason, logic, music and healing. He was the son of Leto and the king of the gods Zeus. Leto traveled all around Greece for a place to give birth to Apollo and his twin sister Artemis. She came upon the island of Delos, and the island agreed to allow the birth of the children, if Apollo would found a temple on the island. Leto agreed and when Apollo reached manhood, he made the island of Delos into a beautiful paradise. The most famous temple of Apollo was at the site of Delphi, where the Oracle of Delphi was located. The Fon people of West Africa had a sun god named Liza. His sister-wife Mawu, was the moon-god. With the help of the cosmic serpent Da, they created the universe. Liza's son Gu shaped the world. Liza was the god of heat, work and strength. The ancient Chinese people believed that there were ten suns that appeared, each in turn, in the sky during the Chinese ten day week. Each day, the ten suns would travel with their mother to the Valley of The East. When they were there, Xi He would bathe her children in a lake and put them in the fu-sang, an enormous mulberry tree. From the fu-sang, only one sun would travel the sky for the journey to the mountain Yen-Tzu in the Far west that took all day. Th
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2994
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page double spaced)
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