Founding myth in the context of National mythos

A national myth is an inspiring narrative or anecdote about a nation's past. Such myths often serve as important national symbols and affirm a set of national values. A myth is entirely fictitious but it is often mixed with aspects of historic reality to form a mythos, which itself has been described as "a pattern of beliefs expressing often symbolically the characteristic or prevalent attitudes in a group or culture". Myths, or mythoi, thereby operate in a specific social and historical setting that help structure national imagination and identity. A national myth may take the form of a national epic, or it may be incorporated into a civil religion. Mythos derives from μῦθος, Greek for "myth".

A national myth is a narrative which has been elevated to a serious symbolic and esteemed level so as to be true to the nation. The national folklore of many nations includes a founding myth, which may involve a struggle against colonialism or a war of independence or unification. In many cases, the meaning of the national myth is disputed among different parts of the population. In some places, the national myth may be spiritual and refer to stories of the nation's founding by a God, several gods, leaders favored by gods, or other supernatural beings.

The Aeneid (/ɪˈniːɪd/ ih-NEE-id; Latin: Aeneis [ae̯ˈneːɪs]) is a Latin epic poem that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who fled the fall of Troy and travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. Written by the Roman poet Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, the Aeneid comprises 9,896 lines in dactylic hexameter. The first six of its twelve books tell the story of Aeneas' wanderings from Troy to Italy, and the latter six tell of the Trojans' ultimately victorious war upon the Latins, under whose name Aeneas and his Trojan followers are destined to be subsumed.

The hero Aeneas was already known to Graeco-Roman legend and myth, having been a character in the Iliad. Virgil took the disconnected tales of Aeneas' wanderings, his vague association with the foundation of Rome, and his description as a personage of no fixed characteristics other than a scrupulous pietas, and fashioned the Aeneid into a compelling founding myth or national epic that tied Rome to the legends of Troy, explained the Punic Wars, glorified traditional Roman virtues, and legitimised the Julio-Claudian dynasty as descendants of the founders, heroes, and gods of Rome and Troy.

Korean mythology (Korean: 한국 신화; Hanja: 韓國神話) is the group of myths told by historical and modern Koreans. There are two types: the written, literary mythology in traditional histories, mostly about the founding monarchs of various historical kingdoms, and the much larger and more diverse oral mythology, mostly narratives sung by shamans or priestesses (mansin) in rituals invoking the gods and which are still considered sacred today.

The historicized state-foundation myths representing the bulk of the literary mythology are preserved in Hanja literary works such as Samguk sagi and Samguk yusa. One state's foundation myth, that of the first Korean kingdom of Gojoseon by legendary king Dangun, has become the founding myth of the whole Korean nation. State-foundation myths are further divided into northern, such as that of the kingdom of Goguryeo and its founder Jumong, where the founder is the son of a celestial male figure and an earthly female figure, and southern, such as that of the kingdom of Silla and its founder Hyeokgeose, where the founder begins as an object descended from the heavens, and himself marries an earthly woman. Other literary myths include the origin myths of family lineages recorded in genealogies.

In Greek mythology, Pelops (/ˈpiːlɒps, ˈpɛlɒps/; Ancient Greek: Πέλοψ, romanized: Pélops) was king of Pisa in the Peloponnesus region (Πελοπόννησος, lit. "Pelops's Island"). He was the son of Tantalus and the father of Atreus.

He was venerated at Olympia, where his cult developed into the founding myth of the Olympic Games, the most important expression of unity, not only for the people of Peloponnesus, but for all Hellenes. At the sanctuary at Olympia, chthonic night-time libations were offered each time to "dark-faced" Pelops in his sacrificial pit (bothros) before they were offered in the following daylight to the sky-god Zeus (Burkert 1983:96).

In Greek mythology, King Laius (/ˈleɪəs, ˈlaɪəs/ L(A)Y-əs) or Laios (Ancient Greek: Λάϊος, romanized: Láïos) of Thebes was a key personage in the Theban founding myth.

The Origo Gentis Langobardorum (Latin for "Origin of the tribe of the Lombards") is a short, 7th-century AD Latin account offering a founding myth of the Longobard people. The first part describes the origin and naming of the Lombards, the following text more resembles a king-list, up until the rule of Perctarit (672–688).

The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts is a 2001 a book by Israel Finkelstein, Professor of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University, and Neil Asher Silberman, an archaeologist, historian and contributing editor to Archaeology Magazine. The book discusses the archaeology of ancient Israel and its relationship to the origins and content of the Hebrew Bible.

Finkelstein and Silberman contend that the composition of the Bible began in the Iron Age, centuries after the events of Israel's founding myths—the patriarchs and the Exodus from Egypt. They argue that numerous biblical passages conflict with the Bronze Age and Iron Age archaeological record of the Land of Israel, and that the text reflects an authorship bias toward the Kingdom of Judah at the expense of the Kingdom of Israel. They also reject the historical plausibility of a prosperous united kingdom of Israel and Judah ruled by David and Solomon from Jerusalem in the 10th century BCE, instead positing this narrative as an ideological construct promoted by late Judahite kings such as Hezekiah and Josiah. The book was both praised and criticized by biblical scholars for its reconstruction of ancient Israel's history.