Maripjan Koshmatov
HCIV 101
Dr. David Thornton
Essay 1

“I think that we need mythology. We need bedrock of story and legend in order to live our lives coherently”.
- Alan Moore

Ancient civilizations disappeared a long ago; however people are still curious about them. Despite the absence of most of the historical evidences, one who is really interested in learning as much as possible about the past civilizations, will find all the available information. Myths are some of the historical evidences that could “survive”. Thus, the purpose of this essay is to show how mythologies can help us in examining the past. But before moving to the main part of the essay, it would be quite beneficial to define mythology itself in order to avoid any possible confusion.
The word Mythology comes from a combination of two Greek words “mythos”, meaning a narrative and “logos”, meaning speech or argument. The term has two meanings. The first one refers to a bunch of stories that attempt to explain the origins of a given culture, the universe and humanity. While according to the second definition, Mythology can simply be defined as a study of myths. But what is myth itself? The word myth is defined by Oxford Dictionary as : “A traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events” (Oxford Dictionary of English 2010). In other words, myths are ancient stories that explain the