Uranus (mythology) - The Creation Myth, Cultural context of flint, The planet Uranus, Consorts/Children

In Greek mythology, the earliest sky-god, who was the father of the Titans. A very insubstantial figure, not the subject of worship or of art, he was displaced by Cronus. He is equivalent to Roman Caelus, ‘the heavens’.

Greek deities series
Titans and Olympians
Aquatic deities
Chthonic deities
Personified concepts
Other deities
Primordial deities
Chaos Aether Gaia Uranus	Eros Erebus Nyx Ophion Tartarus

for the Marvel Comics character of this name, see Uranos (comics)

Uranus is the Latinized form of Ouranos (Οὐρανός), the Greek word for sky. In Greek mythology Uranus was the son and husband of Gaia the Earth.

Other sources give a different parentage for Uranus. According to the Orphic Hymns, Uranus was the son of the goddess of Night, Nyx.

The Creation Myth

In the Olympian creation myth, as Hesiod tells it in Theogony, Uranus came every single night to cover the earth and mate with Gaia, but he hated the children she bore him. She shaped a great flint-bladed sickle and asked her sons to castrate Uranus. From the blood which spilled from Uranus onto the Earth came forth the Gigantes, the three avenging Furies—the Erinyes— Meliae, ash-tree nymphs, and according to some the Telchines. For this fearful deed, Uranus called his sons Titanes Theoi, or "Straining Gods".

After Uranus was deposed, Cronus re-imprisoned the Hecatonchires and Cyclopes in Tartarus. Uranus and Gaia then prophesied that he in turn was destinied to be overthrown by his own son, and so the Titan attempted to avoid this fate by devouring his young.

Uranus was scarcely regarded as anthropomorphic, aside from the genitalia in the castration myth.

Cultural context of flint

The detail of the sickle's being flint rather than bronze or even iron was retained by Greek mythographers (though neglected by Roman ones).

The planet Uranus

The ancients Greeks and Romans knew of only five wandering stars or planetai: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Following the discovery of a sixth planet in the C18th, the name Uranus was chosen as the logical addition to the series: for Mars (Greek Ares) was the son of Jupiter, Jupiter (Zeus) the son of Saturn, and Saturn (Cronus) the son of Uranus.

Consorts/Children

All the offspring of Uranus are with Gaia, save Aphrodite, born when Cronus castrated him and cast his severed genitalia into the sea (Thalassa).