{
  "id": "deucalion",
  "type": "entity",
  "name": "Deucalion",
  "summary": "Son of Prometheus, husband of Pyrrha, king in Phthia; when Zeus drowned the men of the bronze age he floated in a chest for nine days to Parnassus and repeopled the earth by throwing stones over his shoulder. Ovid gives the flood its Roman telling with Themis's oracle; Pindar and Pausanias know the landing at Parnassus and the stone-born people.",
  "locale": "en",
  "tags": [
    "greek",
    "mortals",
    "flood-myths",
    "parnassus",
    "prometheus-cycle"
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "rel": "child_of",
      "target": "prometheus"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "pandora"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "zeus"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "hermes"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "themis"
    },
    {
      "rel": "attested_in",
      "target": "bibliotheca"
    },
    {
      "rel": "attested_in",
      "target": "metamorphoses"
    },
    {
      "rel": "discussed_in",
      "target": "flood-myths-compared"
    }
  ],
  "questions": [
    "Who was Deucalion?",
    "How did Deucalion survive the flood?",
    "Why did Zeus send the flood?",
    "How did Deucalion and Pyrrha create new people?",
    "Where did the ark of Deucalion land?",
    "Who were the children of Deucalion?"
  ],
  "claims": [
    {
      "id": "c1",
      "text": "Apollodorus makes him \"a son\" of Prometheus who reigned \"in the regions about Phthia\" and \"married Pyrrha, the daughter of Epimetheus and Pandora, the first woman fashioned by the gods\" (Apollod. 1.7.2).",
      "sources": [
        "apollodorus-library"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.94
    },
    {
      "id": "c2",
      "text": "The flood, in Apollodorus: \"when Zeus would destroy the men of the Bronze Age, Deucalion by the advice of Prometheus constructed a chest\", stored it and embarked with Pyrrha; Zeus flooded \"the greater part of Greece\" except those who fled to the mountains; the chest drifted \"for nine days and as many nights\" to Parnassus, where Deucalion \"sacrificed to Zeus, the god of Escape\" (Apollod. 1.7.2).",
      "sources": [
        "apollodorus-library"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.94
    },
    {
      "id": "c3",
      "text": "Repeopling, in Apollodorus: Zeus sent Hermes to grant a wish, \"and he chose to get men\"; at Zeus's bidding \"he took up stones and threw them over his head, and the stones which Deucalion threw became men, and the stones which Pyrrha threw became women. Hence people were called metaphorically people (laos) from laas, 'a stone'\" (Apollod. 1.7.2).",
      "sources": [
        "apollodorus-library"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.94
    },
    {
      "id": "c4",
      "text": "Ovid tells it in Roman dress and with different machinery: Jupiter chooses water over fire and Neptune strikes the earth with his trident (Met. 1.253); the \"small and fragile boat\" reaches the twin summits of Parnassus, where Deucalion, \"no other so good and just\", and Pyrrha pray to Themis; her oracle says to cast \"the bones of your great mother\" behind them; Pyrrha refuses until Deucalion reads \"Our mother is the Earth, and I may judge the stones of earth are bones\", and the stones soften into people, \"so are we hardy to endure\" (Met. 1.253–348). Apollodorus has Hermes and Zeus's direct command, no Themis and no riddle.",
      "sources": [
        "ovid-metamorphoses"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.93
    },
    {
      "id": "c5",
      "text": "Pindar, the oldest witness here, sets the scene at Opus: \"by the ordinance of Zeus with the flashing thunderbolt, Pyrrha and Deucalion came down from Parnassus and made their first home, and without the marriage-bed they founded a unified race of stone offspring, and the stones gave the people their name\"; the waters overwhelmed the earth, \"but by the skills of Zeus the ebbing tide suddenly drained off the flood\" (Pind. Ol. 9.42–53).",
      "sources": [
        "pindar-olympian-odes"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.93
    },
    {
      "id": "c6",
      "text": "Pausanias records the flood's local traces: in Athens, in the precinct of Olympian Earth, \"the floor opens to the width of a cubit, and they say that along this bed flowed off the water after the deluge that occurred in the time of Deucalion\", where wheat meal and honey are thrown yearly (Paus. 1.18.7); on Parnassus the survivors were led to safety by howling wolves and founded Lycoreia (Paus. 10.6.2); and Elean chronology counts \"about fifty years after the flood came upon the Greeks in the time of Deucalion\" (Paus. 5.8.1).",
      "sources": [
        "pausanias-description"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.92
    },
    {
      "id": "c7",
      "text": "His children carry the names of peoples: \"first Hellen, whose father some say was Zeus, and second Amphictyon, who reigned over Attica after Cranaus; and third a daughter Protogenia\" (Apollod. 1.7.2). Herodotus dates the Hellenic people's home in Phthia to \"the days of king Deucalion\" (Hdt. 1.56.3), and Pausanias reports the opinion that the Delphic assembly was founded by Amphictyon son of Deucalion (Paus. 10.8.1).",
      "sources": [
        "apollodorus-library",
        "herodotus-histories",
        "pausanias-description"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.91
    }
  ],
  "takeaways": [
    "Hesiod and Homer, in the texts read here, do not tell the flood; the Greek witnesses are Pindar (Ol. 9), Apollodorus and Pausanias, the Roman one Ovid.",
    "The stone-people pun (laos from laas) is in both Pindar and Apollodorus; the riddle of \"the bones of your mother\" is Ovid's.",
    "Apollodorus's chest, Hermes and nine days are not in Ovid; Ovid's Themis and small boat are not in Apollodorus.",
    "Deucalion's sons are eponyms, Hellen for the Greeks and Amphictyon for the Delphic league."
  ],
  "faqs": [
    {
      "q": "How did Deucalion survive the flood?",
      "claim": "c2"
    },
    {
      "q": "How did Deucalion and Pyrrha create new people?",
      "claim": "c3"
    },
    {
      "q": "Where did the ark of Deucalion land?",
      "claim": "c2"
    },
    {
      "q": "Why did Zeus send the flood?",
      "claim": "c2"
    },
    {
      "q": "Who were the children of Deucalion?",
      "claim": "c7"
    }
  ],
  "evidence_tier": "primary",
  "evidence": {
    "level": "theoretical",
    "source_types": [
      "paper"
    ]
  },
  "moat_flag": false,
  "winning_edge": "Separates the Greek flood (Pindar, Apollodorus) from Ovid's Roman retelling detail by detail, and adds the local evidence Pausanias saw, so the flood-myth comparison can quote a witness for every element.",
  "confidence": 0.92,
  "last_verified": "2026-09-03",
  "media": [],
  "x": {
    "myth": {
      "pantheon": "greek",
      "kind": "mortal",
      "domains": [
        "the flood",
        "repeopling the earth"
      ],
      "symbols": [
        "chest",
        "stones"
      ],
      "wikidata": "Q207715"
    }
  },
  "canonical_url": "https://mythosdata.dev/k/deucalion",
  "api_url": "https://mythosdata.dev/api/k/deucalion.json",
  "jsonld": {
    "@context": "https://schema.org",
    "name": "Deucalion",
    "description": "Son of Prometheus, husband of Pyrrha, king in Phthia; when Zeus drowned the men of the bronze age he floated in a chest for nine days to Parnassus and repeopled the earth by throwing stones over his shoulder. Ovid gives the flood its Roman telling with Themis's oracle; Pindar and Pausanias know the landing at Parnassus and the stone-born people.",
    "url": "https://mythosdata.dev/k/deucalion",
    "license": "https://spdx.org/licenses/CC-BY-4.0.html",
    "dateModified": "2026-09-03",
    "citation": [
      {
        "@type": "CreativeWork",
        "name": "Apollodorus, The Library (Bibliotheca) — tr. Sir James George Frazer (Loeb, 1921), Perseus TEI edition",
        "url": "https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-greekLit/blob/master/data/tlg0548/tlg001/tlg0548.tlg001.perseus-eng2.xml"
      },
      {
        "@type": "CreativeWork",
        "name": "Pausanias, Description of Greece — tr. W. H. S. Jones (Loeb, 1918–1935), Perseus TEI edition",
        "url": "https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-greekLit/blob/master/data/tlg0525/tlg001/tlg0525.tlg001.perseus-eng2.xml"
      },
      {
        "@type": "CreativeWork",
        "name": "Herodotus, Histories — tr. A. D. Godley (Loeb, 1920), Perseus TEI edition",
        "url": "https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-greekLit/blob/master/data/tlg0016/tlg001/tlg0016.tlg001.perseus-eng2.xml"
      },
      {
        "@type": "CreativeWork",
        "name": "Pindar, Olympian Odes — tr. Diane Arnson Svarlien (1990), Perseus TEI edition",
        "url": "https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-greekLit/blob/master/data/tlg0033/tlg001/tlg0033.tlg001.perseus-eng2.xml"
      },
      {
        "@type": "CreativeWork",
        "name": "Ovid, Metamorphoses — tr. Brookes More (1922), Perseus TEI edition",
        "url": "https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-latinLit/blob/master/data/phi0959/phi006/phi0959.phi006.perseus-eng3.xml"
      }
    ],
    "@type": "Article",
    "headline": "Deucalion"
  }
}