It appears to be a running theme throughout various ancient writings, scripts, ideas and throughout the ages is used again and again. And it may be that it isn’t actually relevant in the bigger scheme of things, and it has merely become familiar so we replicate it, as we sometimes do. But could there be more to it?

Seven Deadly Sins – covered in my article Seven already.

Seven Virtues – the not so talked about opposite to the sins, as it seems they take a centre stage for apparently representing what humans are really like. But there are characteristics that are seen as good, wholesome and well, virtuous.

Seven Chambered Cave – in Mayan folklore they have a place called Chicomoztoc – The Place of Seven Caves which is where they say is the location that birthed humanity.

Seven ancient wonders – not all still with us, or entirely intact if they are. But still impressive, especially if they really all were as they say (Colossus of Rhodes, Great Pyramid of Giza, Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Statue of Zeus at Olympia, Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, and Lighthouse of Alexandria).

Seven Seas – a funny one really, as we have one ocean technically, five named oceans, and sometimes seven seas. So, depends on your reasoning and which geographical definition you want to go by. But I remember it from Sinbad the Sailor stories, and tales of the seven seas.

Seven Continents – for each of the landmasses we have, again, sometimes it’s four, or five, and in times past people have used the term continent for much smaller lands, but today we know it as seven.

Seven handfuls of soil – in the Muslim faith it is said that Allah sent angels to collect handfuls of soil all of different colours, from which man was created. It is also believed that there are seven skies or heavens, so it features more than once there.

Seven Noahide Laws – and the Jewish faith too with the Noahide Laws, although it is said there may have only been 6 originally, but today we find ourselves with seven.

Seven Anunnaki – within the ancient histories of the Sumerians and around the Mesopotamia region the religions had deities called the Anunnaki, seven in fact, who reside within the Underworld and serve as judges of humanity.

I’m sure there are others, and many possible reasons for it, or possibly no real reason at all anymore. Time and change moving on our thought processes and starting points for such reasoning. Pieced together from fragments of ideas or occasionally ‘evidence’, sometimes with very little or no context. So, we do the best we can with what we’ve got, but you can’t deny, it does seem like we are missing an awful lot…

(c) K Wicks