Much
of the mythology we know today comes from what has been well preserved. For the
most part, what gets preserved in any culture are things important to the
ruling class. The major gods and goddesses and their stories were certainly
known to the commoners, but for the majority of people, household gods, local
heroes, and ancestors played a more important role in daily life. Any Roman who
had the means kept a room in their home for the ancestors. Many households in
Ancient Egypt and Greece had a small shrine to venerate important family
members that had passed. Even after the spread of Christianity, the cult of the
saints informed public life more than the scripture itself. Ancestor veneration
is well entrenched in almost every human culture.