Universal Properties of Mythological Networks

TL;DR

This study applies statistical mechanical tools to mythological networks, revealing their universal properties and ability to distinguish between historically based and fictional narratives.

Contribution

It introduces a network analysis approach to compare mythological narratives, identifying features that differentiate real from fictional social networks.

Findings

Network analysis can discriminate real from imaginary social networks.

The Irish epic's artificiality is linked to anomalous network features.

Adjusting for character amalgams makes the Irish narrative comparable to others.

Abstract

As in statistical physics, the concept of universality plays an important, albeit qualitative, role in the field of comparative mythology. Here we apply statistical mechanical tools to analyse the networks underlying three iconic mythological narratives with a view to identifying common and distinguishing quantitative features. Of the three narratives, an Anglo-Saxon and a Greek text are mostly believed by antiquarians to be partly historically based while the third, an Irish epic, is often considered to be fictional. Here we show that network analysis is able to discriminate real from imaginary social networks and place mythological narratives on the spectrum between them. Moreover, the perceived artificiality of the Irish narrative can be traced back to anomalous features associated with six characters. Considering these as amalgams of several entities or proxies, renders the plausibility of the Irish text comparable to the others from a network-theoretic point of view.