Ancient Texts - The original source material

Straight from the horses mouth ..

Obviously there's just no way you could buy these original texts, as not only are they out of print, they were never in print! Fortunately they've been translated into English and are pretty easy to find if you know where to look. I'll give you a clue .. they're highlighted in blue ..

The Dead Sea Scrolls

Discovered 1300 feet below sea level in eleven caves along the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, the aptly named Dead Sea Scrolls are the oldest group of Old Testament manuscripts ever found, with the Isaiah Scroll believed to be 1000 years older than any previously known copy of Isaiah. At last some evidence to challenge the old testament.

The Edda by Snorri Snurllson

Pretty much everything we know about Norse Mythology comes from the Eddas. What a nice chap Snorri was, painstakingly collecting and logging all godly details to make sure we knew what went on in Scandinavia back in the day.

The Rig Veda

The oldest of the Hindu books of sacred knowledge holds a bounty of deities that we know today, or at least we did know until the powers that be started chopping and changing as religions went head to head for supremacy.

Kojiki : The Records of Ancient Matters

Written in 712 A.D. Kajiki is probably the oldest literary work in Japan. Compiled from oral tradition it's the all in one sourcebook for everything Japanese : ceremonies, customs, divination, magical practices, myths and legends. It probably has a recipe for sushi in there somewhere ..

The Egyptian book of the Dead

'The Book of the Dead' is the name now given to a collection of religious and magical texts known to the ancient Egyptians as 'The Chapters of the Coming-forth by day'. Their principle aim was to secure a creamy afterlife for the deceased, giving them all manner of magic spells to deal with nasty creatures on the way and hints and tips on how to make it past Ammut and into the otherworld.

I will be adding many more entries to this section over time, but that little lot should be enough to get you started.