Lord Bacon said: 

“The mythology of the Greeks, which their oldest writers do not pretend to have invented, was no more than a light air, which had passed from a more ancient people into the flutes of the Greeks, which they modulated to such descants as best suited their fancies.”

This profoundly wise and great man, who has illuminated every subject which he has touched, guessed very close to the truth in this utterance.

The Hon. W. E. Gladstone has had quite a debate of late with Mr. Cox as to whether the Greek mythology was underlaid by a nature worship, or a planetary or solar worship.

Peru, worshipping the sun and moon and planets, probably represents very closely the simple and primitive religion of Atlantis, with its sacrifices of fruits and flowers.  This passed directly to their colony in Egypt.  We find the Egyptians in their early ages sun and planet worshippers.  Ptah was the object of their highest adoration.  He is the father of the god of the sun, the ruler of the region of light.  Ra was the sun-god.  He was the supreme divinity at On, or Heliopolis, near Memphis.  His symbol was the solar disk, supported by two rings.  He created all that exists below the heavens.

The Babylonian trinity was composed of Idea, Anu, and Bel.  Bel represented the sun, and was the favorite god.  Sin was the goddess of the moon.

The Phoenicians were also sun-worshippers.  The sun was represented by Baal-Samin, the great god, the god of light and the heavens, the creator and rejuvenator.

“The attributes of both Baal and Moloch (the good and bad powers of the sun) were united in the Phoenician god Melkart, “king of the city,” whom the inhabitants of Tyre considered their special patron.  The Greeks called him “Melicertes,” and identified him with Hercules.  By his great strength and power he turned evil into good, brought life out of destruction, pulled back the sun to the earth at the time of the solstices, lessened excessive beat and cold, and rectified the evil signs of the zodiac.  In Phoenician legends he conquers the savage races of distant coasts, founds the ancient settlements on the Mediterranean, and plants the rocks in the Straits of Gibraltar.” ("American Cyclopaedia,” art.  Mythology.)

The Egyptians worshipped the sun under the name of Ra; the Hindoos worshipped the sun under the name of Rama; while the great festival of the sun, of the Peruvians, was called Ray-mi.

Sun-worship, as the ancient religion of Atlantis, underlies all the superstitions of the colonies of that country.  The Samoyed woman says to the sun, “When thou, god, risest, I too rise from my bed.”  Every morning even now the Brahmans stand on one foot, with their hands held out before them and their faces turned to the east, adoring the sun.  “In Germany or France one may still see the peasant take off his hat to the rising sun.” ("Anthropology,” p. 361.) The Romans, even, in later times, worshipped the sun at Emesa, under the name of Elagabalus, “typified in the form of a black conical stone, which it was believed had fallen from heaven.”  The conical stone was the emblem of Bel.  Did it have relation to the mounds and pyramids?