Faces of the Gods

In some studies, Odin is aligned with Hermes. While I feel that Mercury/Hermes could be the same deity, Odin is more tricky for me, no pun intended. If we go by the etymology and reasoning behind the days of the week, we see that the latin form of Mercury's name falls into what we know as Wednesday, or as in Spanish, Miercoles. Wednesday comes from Wōdnesdæg, meaning day of Woden, or Odin. This is of course, as far as I can go in regards to finding any similarity. Odin has been marked as Hermes due to their roles as retrieving the dead. Now, how can I assimilate Hermes, a god of trickery, thieves and divination to the God of the Slain, the Allfather who received hanged men as a sacrifice, the God who Sacrificed his Eye at the Well of Mimir for enlightenment? Though in Book of Lies, they attribute their similarities as well as being Gods of Communication and Speed, and this source strengthens it course due to their origin of their name stemming from wind. I find that Hermes and Enki retain as well many characteristics of Loki, due to their mischief and trickery.

 

This is something that I will definitely explore further. I've always felt a deep connection with Odin, with deep respect and fear of said personality while at the current moment I find myself fostering a close relationship with Hermes, however the feelings seem completely different than those I hold for the Allfather. While I hold that all Gods can change their respective shapes for us to experience them, Odin is widely known to the shapechanger of the pantheon (next to Loki), I have not found this to be the same for Hermes.

Following I have found that some equate Ereshkigal with Hekate, and while Ereshkigal is the Goddess of the Underworld, her Greek equivalent would be Persephone due to similarities of their stories and not Hekate. Ereshkigal represents the seasons and was abducted and taken into the Underwrold to where she was made queen, unwillingly. One of the most beautiful statues represents this in regards to Persephone's abduction by Hades, by Bernini.

The following work of art is titled "The Rape of Proserpina" and we should note that the root of the word rape means "seize, carry off by force, abduct."
Hekate is not an original Olympian as Hesiod writes that she is the daughter of two Titans and relics of her have been found in Phrygia (modern day Turkey) and Mycenea. However, some sources claim that she is the daughter of Demeter (one and two).

To end, the easiest one for me: the goddesses of love, sex, fertility and war Freyja, Inanna, Ishtar, Astarte, Aphrodite, Venus. Perhaps not the latter, as all the information regarding pre-Graeco influence of Venus at the moment seems very sparse. Many of these goddesses have war-attributes, and Aphrodite is no exception: one of her epithets was Aphrodite Areia, the warlike. A surname of Aphrodite, when represented in full armor like Ares, as was the case at Sparta. (Paus. iii. 17. § 5.)

Inanna, Astarte and Ishtar are all Queens of Heaven, while Aphrodite Ourania carries the same title.

Aphrodite

I am trying to bring in as much detail as I can in regards to the findings of gold artifacts of the Goddess Άφροδίτη in the now modern region known as Afghanistan.

This is an image of Aphrodite Bactria, named after the region in which she was found. Her pose is very much in the Grecian style, while having hindi jewelry and a dot (third eye) to show that she is married, while the wings are more of a Near Eastern style placing her as a local deity.

This area, strategically placed within the silk road route, has been trove of treasures for archeologists. Some of their findings include depictions of Buddha with a Greco art-style and images of Herakles, Cybele and Eros.

Some information regarding the region of Bactria can be found here,


While Afghanistan is a relatively new nation—a committee fashioned its borders in the late nineteenth century—the regions bound together include some of the world’s oldest cultures. By 2000 B.C.E. , when the manmade oases flourishing in northern Afghanistan attracted invaders as well as traders, there rose up fortified towns with urban centers. During that era, the renowned city of Balkh became Bactria’s capital city. Described in antiquity as “the mother of all cities,” Balkh was the birthplace of the ancient poet and religious prophet Zoroaster, who may be buried there.

It was Cyrus the Great of Persia who named this area “Bactria” around 530 B.C.E. Darius ruled there shortly thereafter, and Alexander the Great came through around 328 B.C.E. on his way to India. In Balkh, Alexander took Darius III’s daughter as his bride.

Thus, Bactria became an outpost of Greek culture. Aï Khanum, meaning “Lady Moon,” was established by one of Alexander’s commanders, Seleucus, in 300 B.C.E. and unearthed by French archaeologists in 1964, the first evidence of an ancient Greco-Bactrian city. The city flourished until 145 B.C.E., when it was brought down by Eurasian nomads, possibly a tribe related to the nomads buried at Tillya Tepe.

The worship of Aphrodite is far more reaching than I had thought. She is known to be equated with the Sumerian Inanna, Phoenician Astarte, and Etruscan Turan. I am aware however that the Roman Venus was originally a Latin vegetation and vineyard goddess that under Greek influenced became equated with the Goddess risen from the foam.