Information about Uranus (god)

For other uses, see Uranus (disambiguation).

Greek deities series
Titans and Olympians
Aquatic deities
Chthonic deities
Personified concepts
Other deities
Primordial deities
Chaos Aether Gaia Uranus Hemera Chronos	Eros Erebus Nyx Ophion Tartarus

Uranus (IPA: /ˈjʊərənəs, jʊˈreɪnəs/) is the Latinized form of Ouranos (Οὐρανός), the Greek word for sky. In Greek mythology Uranus is personified as the son and husband of Gaia, Mother Earth (Hesiod, Theogony). Uranus and Gaia were ancestors of most of the Greek gods. Uranus is revered as Father Heaven.

Other sources claim a different parentage of Ouranos. Cicero, in De Natura Deorum ("The Nature of the Gods") claims that he was the offspring of the ancient gods Aether and Hemera. According to the Orphic Hymns, Ouranos was the son of the personification of night, Nyx.

His equivalent in Roman mythology was Caelus, likewise from caelum the Latin word for "sky".

Creation myth

The Castration of Uranus: fresco by Giorgio Vasari and Cristofano Gherardi, c. 1560 (Sala di Cosimo I, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence)

In the Olympian creation myth, as Hesiod tells it in Theogony, Uranus came every single night to cover the earth and mate with Gaia, but he hated the children she bore him. Hesiod names the Titans, six sons and six daughters, the one-hundred-armed giants (Hecatonchires) and the one-eyed giants, the Cyclopes. Uranus imprisoned Gaia's youngest children in Tartarus, deep within Earth, where they caused pain to Gaia. She shaped a great flint-bladed sickle and asked her sons to castrate Uranus. Only Cronus, youngest of the Titans, was willing: he ambushed his father and castrated him, casting the severed testicles into the sea. For this fearful deed, Uranus called his sons Titanes Theoi, or "Straining Gods"^[1].

From the blood which spilled from Uranus onto the Earth came forth the Gigantes, the three avenging Furies — the Erinyes — Meliae, the ash-tree nymphs and according to some, the Telchines. From the genitals in the sea came forth Aphrodite. Some say the bloodied sickle was buried in the earth and from this was born the fabulous Phaeacian tribe.

After Uranus was deposed, Cronus re-imprisoned the Hecatonchires and Cyclopes in Tartarus. Uranus and Gaia then prophesied that Cronus in turn was destined to be overthrown by his own son, and so the Titan attempted to avoid this fate by devouring his young. Zeus, through deception by his mother Rhea, avoided this fate.

These ancient myths of distant origins were not expressed in cults among the Hellenes (Kerenyi p. 20). The function of Uranus is as the vanquished god of an elder time, before real time began. After his castration, the Sky came no more to cover the Earth at night, but held to its place, and "the original begetting came to an end" (Kerenyi).

Uranus was scarcely regarded as anthropomorphic, aside from the genitalia in the castration myth. He was simply the sky, which was conceived by the ancients as an overarching dome or roof of bronze, held in place (or turned on an axis) by the Titan Atlas.

Cultural context of flint

The detail of the sickle's being flint rather than bronze or even iron was retained by Greek mythographers (though neglected by Roman ones). Knapped flints as cutting edges were set in wooden or bone sickles in the late Neolithic, before the onset of the Bronze Age. Such sickles may have survived latest in ritual contexts where metal was taboo, but the detail, which was retained by classical Greeks, suggests the antiquity of the mytheme.

Robert Graves' and others' identification of the name Ouranos with the Hindu Varuna is widely rejected. The most probable etymology is from Proto-Greek *worsanos, from a PIE root *wers- "to moisten, to drip" (referring to the rain).

Planet Uranus

The ancients Greeks and Romans knew of only five 'wandering stars' (Greek: πλανεται, planetai): Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Following the discovery of a sixth planet in the 18th century, the name Uranus was chosen as the logical addition to the series: for Mars (Ares in Greek) was the son of Jupiter, Jupiter (Zeus) the son of Saturn, and Saturn (Cronus) the son of Uranus.

Consorts/Children

All the offspring of Uranus are with Gaia, save Aphrodite, born when Cronus castrated him and cast his severed genitalia into the sea (Thalassa).

Cyclopes, one-eyed giants
Brontes
Steropes
Arges
Hecatonchires, hundred handed, fifty headed giants
Briareus
Cottus
Gyes
Titans, the elder gods
Coeus
Crius
Cronus
Hyperion
Iapetus
Mnemosyne
Oceanus
Phoebe
Rhea
Tethys
Theia
Themis
Erinyes, the three Furies.
Alecto
Megaera
Tisiphone
Gigantes, the giants
Alcyoneus
Athos
Clytias
Enceladus
Echion
Meliae, the ash-tree nymphs.
Aphrodite

Notes

1. ^ Modern etymology suggests that the linguistic origin of Τιτάνες lies on the pre-Greek level.

References

Kerenyi, Carl, 1951. The Gods of the Greeks
Graves, Robert, revised edition, 1960. The Greek Myths.

External links

Theoi Project, Ouranos references to Uranus in classical literature
Greek Mythology Link, Titans summary of Uranus myth

Uranus can refer to:

Uranus, the seventh planet from the Sun
Uranus (astrology) astrological aspects of Uranus
Uranus (mythology), a deity in Greek mythology
Uranus (1990 movie)
"Uranus, the Magician", a movement in Gustav Holst's

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Greek mythology is the body of stories belonging to the Ancient Greeks concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices.
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Titans (Greek: Τιτάν Titan; plural: Τιτάνες Titanes
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Twelve Olympians, also known as the Dodekatheon (Greek: Δωδεκάθεον
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The ancient Greeks had a large number of sea gods. The philosopher Plato once remarked that the Greek people were like frogs sitting around a pond -- their many cities hugging close to the Mediterranean coastline from the Hellenic homeland to Asia Minor, Libya, Sicily and
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Chthonic (from Greek χθόνιος-khthonios, of the earth, from khthōn, earth; pertaining to the Earth; earthy) designates, or pertains to, gods or spirits of the underworld, especially in relation to Greek religion.
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Asclepius (Greek Ἀσκληπιός, transliterated AsklēpiÃ³s; Latin Aesculapius) is the demigod of medicine and healing in ancient Greek mythology.
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The ancient Greeks proposed many different ideas about the primordial gods in their mythology. The many theogonies constructed by Greek poets each give a different account of which gods came first.

In Homer, Ocean and Tethys are the parents of all the gods.

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Chaos or Khaos is the primordial state of existence from which the first gods appeared. In other words, it is the dark void of space. It is made from a mixture of what the Ancient Greeks considered the four elements: earth, air, water and fire.
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Aether (also Ã†ther, Greek: ᾿Αιθήρ), in Greek mythology, is one of the Protogenoi (first-born). He is the personification of the "upper sky," space, and heaven, and the elemental god of the "Bright, Glowing, Upper Air.
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For other uses, see Gaia.

Gaia (pronounced /'geɪ.ə/ or /'gaɪ.
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In Greek mythology Hemera was the personification of day and one of the Protogenoi or primordial deities. She is the goddess of the daytime and, according to Hesiod (Theogony, 115), the daughter of Erebos and Nyx (the goddess of night).
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In Greek mythology, Chronos (Χρόνος in Greek) in pre-Socratic philosophical works is said to be the personification of time. He emerged from the primordial Chaos.
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Personified concepts

Muses
Nemesis
Moirae
Cratos
Zelus
Nike
Metis
Charites
Oneiroi

Adrasteia
Horae
Bia
Eros
Apate
Themis
Eris
Thanatos
Hypnos

In Greek mythology, Eros
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In Greek mythology Erebus (Έρεβος Erebos, "Deep blackness/darkness or shadow " from Ancient Greek Ἔρεβος
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Nyx (Νύξ, Nox in Roman translation) was the primordial goddess of the night. A shadowy figure, Night stood at or near the beginning of creation, and was the mother of personified gods such as Sleep and Death.
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Ophion ("serpent"), also called Ophioneus ruled the world with Eurynome before the two of them were cast down by Cronus and Rhea, according to some sources.

Sources

Pherecydes of Syros's Heptamychia is the first attested mention of Ophion.
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Tartarus, or Tartaros (Greek Τάρταρος, deep place). It is either a deep, gloomy place, a pit or abyss used as a dungeon of torment and suffering that resides within Hades or the entire underworld with Hades being the hellish
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This chart shows concisely the most common way in which the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is applied to represent the English language.

See International Phonetic Alphabet for English for a more complete version and Pronunciation respelling for English for phonetic
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Official language of: Vatican City
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Roman Catholic Church
Language codes
ISO 639-1: la
ISO 639-2: lat
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Writing system: Greek alphabet
Official status
Official language of: Greece
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The sky is the part of the atmosphere or of outer space visible from the surface of any astronomical object. It is difficult to define precisely for several reasons.
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For other uses, see Gaia.

Gaia (pronounced /'geɪ.ə/ or /'gaɪ.
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Theogony (Greek: Θεογονία, theogonia = the birth of God(s)) is a poem by Hesiod describing the origins and genealogies of the gods of the ancient Greeks, composed circa 700 BC.
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Orphism may be:

Orphism (art) (a school of art, also known as "Orphic cubism")
Orphism (religion) (a religious movement in antiquity, supposed to have been founded by Orpheus)

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