I've been reading a bunch up on early cultures and religion and I'm kinda fascinated now watching how early religions evolved. Particularly how gods got incorporated, changed prominence, fell into decline, got imported/exported and sometimes just showed up from somewhere else and eventually kicked out of the rest of the pantheon to be the one true god. In particularly, the evolution of
Yahweh/YHWH who
eventually because the Judaic/Christian/Muslim god but other examples such as the idea that Venus/Aphrodite can be argued to be an evolution of the Sumerian Goddess
Ishtar/Inanna via
Astarte who might even predate that religion according to some scholars. Which would make her one of the oldest gods by proxy that most people have any knowledge of(In the West, since my knowledge of Eastern Religions is slim, though dating back to Sumar puts it in the Old Gods Club for sure.)
There's also the whole Snake/Dragon thing which is fucking weird that when you try looking back at the really, really old stuff, you end up getting into basically animal and spirit worship, you end up seeing snake cults and snake worship and the gods killing a snake/dragon to establish their supremacy(which implies the snake/dragon was always there first). In some religions it became established(Ancient Egyption and possibly Ancient Minion) and some religions still practice it or incorporate the snake thing, but the fact it pops up everywhere is just really kinda weird and only slightly creepy. I'm not alleging lizard people or stupid BS like that but such a universal theme is kinda fascinating and the fact its held on like
forever.
I'm not an anthpology expert by any means so I know there's a lot deeper to go in this but it's all kind of amazing to dive into.