Greek Mythology | c. 400-500 BC Oedipus, King of Thebes, was doomed to a prophecy in which he would kill his father and marry his mother, which inevitably came true making for some interesting mythology and the Freudian-termed Oedipus Complex. On his return trip to Thebes, Oedipus encounter the Sphinx - a part-man, part-lion creature who asked travelers to answer a riddle. The riddle was, "What walks on four feet in the morning, two in the afternoon, and three at night?" Know the answer?

The Odyssey | Homer | c. 300 BC The phrase, "Between a rock and a hard place," is the modern day equivalent of, "between Scylla and Charybdis." Scylla was a sea monster with the upper body of a woman and a lower body of tentacles while Charybdis was a sea monster with a large mouth that sucked down ocean water creating whirlpools. Traveling sailors, like Odysseus, had to attempt to pass between the two monsters, but being safe from one monster meant being dangerously close to the other.

Codex Borgia | Mixtec Peoples - Mesoamerican Mythology | c. 400 BC-600 AD Quetzalcoatl, the name given to the feathered serpent god of Mesoamerican peoples by the Nahua people, represented an extremely important deity within central American civilizations. In fact, Quetzalcoatl was so widely revered that he became associated with the winds, fertility, dawn, crafts, knowledge, priesthood, agriculture, and war.

Egyptian Civilization | c. 1290-1256 BC One of the many wives of the Pharaoh Ramesses II, Nefertari was one of very few Egyptian queens deified while alive. Her prominence in Egyptian civilization is supported by her presence in imagery depicting both Nefertari and her husband as being of equal stature, her correspondence with other significant leaders, and the belief that she was instrumental in keeping peace between Egypt and the Hittites. Her tomb in the Valley of the Queens is the largest.

Indian Civilization | 300-400 AD Known as the Lord of Beginnings and the Remove of Obstacles, Ganesha is the patron of arts and sciences, of intellect and wisdom. Although rooted in the Hindu faith, Ganesha is revered by Buddhists, Jains, and people of other faiths. Represented with the head of an elephant, Ganesha is often worshipped by reciting one of two popular Ganesha Sahasranama, which are hymns in which the god is referred to using 1,000 different names.