Our visit to the Christmas market in Naumburg yesterday has once again deepened the mystery of the customs surrounding the mistletoe that is hung on front doors during Advent - what is the truth behind this ancient mythology?

Emerging from the merger of various nomadic tribes around 500 AD, the tribal federation of the "Turks" was initially more of a community of interests that campaigned for the expansion of their pastures and control of the few oasis towns in Central Asia.

In our article on the dynasty of the ancient Persian Achaemenids, we reported on the development of the ancient city of Kelainai, which was later called Apameia Kibotos and was located at the sources of the Meander river.

What armies could not do was possible for the great hero Bellerophon, who, like Heracles, was one of the great heroes of Greek mythology.

Pastor Jean Richier called the Easter bunny hiding the eggs "a fable to be opened to the simple-minded and to children" (fabula, que simplicioribus et infantibus imponunt) and he consequently had to leave his native France in the 17th century for reasons of religious persecution.

Our tour of the central cemetery in Vienna brought not only our amazement due to the huge dimensions of the cemetery, the sometimes bizarre types of use and the social integration into the local people community, but also numerous insights into the symbolism on the tombstones and monuments.

Poseidon (Latin: Neptunus) was the god of the sea and, as "Earth-Shaker," of earthquakes in Greek mythology. The name of the sea-god Nethuns in Etruscan was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman mythology: both were sea gods analogous to Poseidon.

The sun is the central star in our heaven, all life on the earth depends on it. This great importance has been conscious to the people since ages. Thus many earlier cultures revered the sun as a god.

In ancient times, Delphi was considered to be the center of the world of that time. According to the myth, the divine Zeus had let two eagles rise from one end of the world, which lateron they met in Delphi.

Archaeologists have uncovered temples to the Moon-god throughout the Middle East.

In Greek and Roman mythology, Apollo is one of the most important and diverse of the Olympian deities. Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of light and the sun; truth and prophecy; archery; medicine, healing and plague; music, poetry, and the arts; and more.

In Greek mythology Demeter  was the goddess of the harvest, who presided over grains, the fertility of the earth, the seasons and the harvest. Though Demeter is often described simply as the goddess of the harvest, she presided also over the sanctity of marriage, the sacred law, and the cycle of life and death.

Dionysus or Dionysos is the ancient Greek god of wine, the god who inspires ritual madness and ecstasy, and a major figure of Greek mythology. He is included as one of the twelve Olympian Gods in some lists. Dionysus is typical of the god of the epiphany, "the god that comes".

Heracles was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon  and great-grandson (and half-brother) of Perseus. He was the greatest of the Greek heroes,a paragon of masculinity, the ancestor of royal clans who claimed to be Heracleidae.

Zeus is the King of the Gods in Greek Mythology.  Zeus was viewed as a king who oversaw the universe. In Hesiod's Theology, he assigns the various gods their roles. In the Homeric Hymns he is referred to as the chieftain of the gods. He is also called the "Father of Gods and men", according to Hesiod's Theology.