9 World Chronicles

Western African-Congo

Efik

Anansa, goddess of the Sea, allure and beauty.[citation needed]

Vodun

Erzulie Freda Dahomey, loa of love, beauty, jewelry, dancing, luxury, and flowers.

Yoruba

Oshun, goddess of luxury and pleasure, sexuality and fertility, beauty and love, the river and fresh water  venerated in Ifá, Yoruba religion, Dahomey mythology, Vodun, Santería, Candomblé, Haitian Vodou

Afroasiatic Middle East

Canaanite

Astarte, goddess of sex and war, Canaanite version of Inanna.

Qetesh, goddess of love, beauty, and sex; "Qetesh" is her Egyptian name.

Egyptian

Bastet, goddess of felines, love, protection, perfume, beauty, and dance.

Bes, god of music, love, and dance.

Hathor, goddess of love, beauty, and music; originally a sky goddess.

Min, god of reproduction, love, and sexual pleasure.

Qetesh, goddess of love, beauty, and sex; apparently borrowed by the Egyptians from the Canaanites.

Hausa

Zamani, god of sex and beauty.

Mesopotamian

Inanna/Ishtar, goddess of sex and war.[3]

Nanaya, goddess personifying voluptuousness, sexuality and sensuality.

Western Eurasia

Albanian

Prende, goddess of love, beauty and fertility.

Balto-Slavic

Lithuanian

Milda, goddess of love and freedom.

Slavic

Dogoda, Polish spirit of the west wind, associated with love and gentleness.

Siebog, god of love and marriage.

Živa, goddess of love and fertility.

Celtic

Áine, Irish goddess of love, summer, wealth, and sovereignty; possibly originally a sun goddess.

Branwen, Welsh goddess of love and beauty

Cliodhna, Irish goddess, sometimes identified as a goddess of love and beauty.[4]

Norse-Germanic

Freyja, goddess of love/sex, beauty, seiðr, war, and death; often thought of as the Norse equivalent of \

Lofn, goddess who has permission from Frigg to arrange forbidden marriages.

Sjöfn, goddess associated with love.

Greek / Hellenic

Aphrodite, goddess of love, sex and beauty, Greek version of Astarte and ultimately Inanna.

Eos, Greek reflex of Hausos, who may have been the PIE lust/sex goddess.

The Erotes

Anteros, god of requited love.

Eros, god of love and procreation; originally a primordial deity unconnected to Aphrodite, he was later made into her son, possibly with Ares as his father; this version of him was imported to Rome where he came known as Cupid.

Himeros, god of sexual desire and unrequited love.

Hedylogos, god of sweet talk and flattery.

Voluptas, Roman version of the Greek Hedone.

Cupid, Roman version of the Greek Eros, also called Amor.

Suadela, Roman version of the Greek Peitho.

Venus, Roman version of the Greek Aphrodite.

Etruscan

Albina, goddess of the dawn and protector of ill-fated lovers.

Turan, goddess of love and vitality.

Western Asia

Armenian

Astghik, goddess of fertility and love.

Hindu-Vedic

Kamadeva Hindu god of human love or desire.

Rati, consort of Kama, goddess of love, carnal desire, lust, passion and sexual pleasure.

Persian Zorostarian

Anahita, seems to have gained an association with fertility and sex due to being influenced by the Mesopotamian Inanna; originally appears to have been a water goddess.

Asia-Pacific / Oceania

Filipino

Bangan: the Kankanaey goddess of romance; a daughter of Bugan and Lumawig

Amas: the Aeta deity who moves to pity, love, unity, and peace of heart

Dian Masalanta: the Tagalog goddess of lovers,

Mangagayuma: the Tagalog deity specializing in charms, especially those which infuses the heart with love; one of the five agent brothers

Far East Asia

Chinese

Yue-Lao, a god of love, who binds two people together with an invisible red string.

Tu Er Shen, a deity who oversees love between (effeminate) homosexual men.

god. On her first assignment with a client, a prostitute was supposed to make a sacrifice to him.

Qian Keng (Peng Zu), a god of health-focused sex.

Buddhist

Kuni, god of love.

Native Americas

Central American and the Caribbean

Aztec

Xochipilli, god of love, art, games, beauty, dance, flowers, maize, fertility, and song.

South America

Rudá, god of love.

Papyrus

A symbol of life merging from primeval water. The plant is used to produce the papyrus paper, the world’s first paper

Papyrus, writing material of ancient times and also the plant from which it was derived, Cyperus papyrus (family Cyperaceae), also called paper plant. The papyrus plant was long cultivated in the Nile delta region in Egypt and was collected for its stalk or stem, whose central pith was cut into thin strips, pressed together, and dried to form a smooth thin writing surface.

Papyrus is a grasslike aquatic plant that has woody, bluntly triangular stems and grows up to 4.6 m (about 15 feet) high in quietly flowing water up to 90  cm (3 feet) deep. The triangular stem can grow to a width of as much as 6 cm. The papyrus plant is now often used as a pool ornamental in warm areas or in conservatories. The dwarf papyrus (C. isocladus, also given as C. papyrus ‘Nanus’), up to 60 cm tall, is sometimes potted and grown indoors.

The ancient Egyptians used the stem of the papyrus plant to make sails, cloth, mats, cords, and, above all, paper. Paper made from papyrus was the chief writing material in ancient Egypt, was adopted by the Greeks, and was used extensively in the Roman Empire.

Due to its prevalence in the Nile Delta, the papyrus was the heraldic plant of Lower (northern) Egypt, while the lily or lotus stood for Upper (southern) Egypt.

The goddess Wadjet, depicted as a rearing cobra  or a woman with the head of a lioness , was the tutelary deity of Lower Egypt, and often is shown carrying a papyrus-shaped scepter.

In ancient Egyptian cosmology, the world was created when the first god stood on a mound that emerged from limitless and undifferentiated darkness and water, a mythical echo of the moment each year when the land began to reappear from beneath the annual floodwaters. Papyrus marshes were thus seen as fertile regions that contained the germs of creation Ceilings in temples and tombs were frequently supported with columns in the form of papyrus plants, turning their architectural settings into models of this primeval marsh

In one of the great mythic cycles central to Egyptian religion, the goddess Isis took her infant son Horus to the papyrus thickets of the north to conceal him from her brother Seth, who had murdered her husband Osiris and usurped his throne. Horus grew to manhood here, hidden among the swaying reeds whose rustling sounds soothed him and masked his cries, until he emerged to defeat his wicked uncle and reclaim his patrimony (. Horus was protected and nursed while a baby by the goddess Hathor, who was worshipped in the ritual of the Shaking of the Papyrus.

To celebrate her role as wet-nurse of Horus and symbol of rebirth and resurrection in the celestial realm, this goddess is shown in the form of a cow emerging from the papyrus thicket The handles of mirrors, associated with Hathor as the goddess of eroticism and beauty, were often in the form of papyrus plants.

The Papypus has served mankind well

Hotep: An offering table that is set before the gods. Certain pharaohs names connected to the word Hotep to the god. Amun hotep, Mentuhotep. In this form Hotep means pleasing to the god, The name of the physician Imhotep means bringer of peace. It is used as a greeting by many today

Hotep is an Egyptian word that roughly translates as "to be satisfied, at peace". The word also refers to an "offering" ritually presented to a deity or a dead person, hence "be pleased, be gracious, be at peace". It is rendered in hieroglyphs as an altar/offering table. The noun ḥtp.w means "peace, contentment

According to Dr. Molefi Kete Asante, Temple University’s Chair of African American Studies, hotep has been used as a greeting among some back people since at least the 1970s. Reporter D.L. Chandler recalled hearing the greeting in the 1980s. A letter to the editor of The Black Collegian in 1990 used the greeting hotep.

In particular, hotep is used as a greeting by adherents of Afrocentrism, a movement that looks to African history to inform values for the black diaspora. Afrocentrists often look to Ancient Egypt as the source of African culture, hence the adoption of the Egyptian term hotep.