Traditions
Coverage is uneven by design.
About this archive
- Coverage is uneven by design — some traditions are richly catalogued, others barely.
- Regional groups and the map are browsing aids, not scholarly taxonomies. Traditions stay distinct even when grouped together, and the schematic map is approximate — it does not show precise historical or cultural boundaries.
- Abrahamic entries include angels, prophets, and opposing figures for cross-cultural comparison, not only deities.
Relationships
Three ways to read a figure. Focus lays out its immediate family as cards. Web draws the network around it — parents, children, siblings, consorts, and optionally the comparative parallels that cross traditions. Tradition Tree shows a whole tradition arranged by recorded parentage. Some traditions kept extensive divine families; others passed mythic relation through ritual rather than lineage, and read thinner here by design. Click any connected figure to follow the line.
Timeline
Each bar is a tradition's active span; the darker inner band marks its peak. Traditions still practiced today reach the right edge; those that lapsed end where they did. The BCE/CE boundary is in gold. Click a row to open its family tree.
Deified Humans
Historical persons elevated to divine status — by state decree, posthumous cult, or folk veneration. Rome institutionalized it with the imperial cult; East Asia enshrined sage-kings, generals, and scholars; Egypt deified Imhotep two millennia after his death. The line between great ancestor and god is porous.
Notable Mentions
Figures kept outside the main catalogue — secondary heroes, regional deities, names that appear inside other figures' stories, and alternate names of catalogued gods. One line of context each; no family trees.