Keeping Mythology and History Apart

A short methodological note — the principle that governs how every other page here is written.

The four categories I keep separate

1. Mythology — narrative and symbol, valuable on its own terms, but not a record of events.
2. Religious tradition — how living communities understand things; described, never asserted as fact.
3. Archaeology — material evidence, with its own uncertainties.
4. History — reconstruction from evidence, stated with appropriate confidence.

Why the discipline matters

Collapsing these categories is how archives lose credibility. A temple's mythological origin story and its excavated foundation date are both worth recording — but they are not the same kind of claim, and this archive never lets one masquerade as the other.

Practical rule

Every page carries a sourceType in its frontmatter, and the template shows a banner explaining what kind of claim the reader is looking at. When in doubt, label down, not up.

Related in the archive

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