THE INDIANS...
Amongst their many gods, worshipped one group of water-gods known as the Asparas,who were celestial flute-playing water-nymphs.
IN JAPANESE AND CHINESE...
Legends there were not only mermaids but also sea-dragons and the dragon-wives. The Japanese mermaid known as Ningyo was depicted as a fish with only a human head; where as the POLYNESIAN mythology includes a creator named Vatea who was depicted as half-human form and half-porpoise.
GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY...
Is often placed together as the two are very similar and it is in the literature from these cultures that one finds the first literary description of the mermaid, and indeed the mermen.
Homer mentions the Sirens during the voyage of Odysseus but he fails to give a physical description. Ovid on the other hand writes that the mermaids were born from the burning galleys of the Trojans where the timbers turned into flesh and blood and the 'green daughters of the sea'.
Poseidon and Neptune were often depicted as half-man and half-fish but the most popular motif of the ancient world that depicts mermen was the representations of the tritons.
TRITON... being the son of the powerful sea-god. Besides the vase is the trident, known to have been carried by the sea-god and thought to be magical, the figure of Poseidon in the film Jason and the Argonauts, 1973 is shown with the trident. Specimens of tritons in classical times were said to be found at Tanagara and Rome.
The Nereids... who were the daughters of Nereus and the Oceanides, who were associated with Ocean and the Naiads who lived in the fresh waters of the ancient world, while being water creatures were depicted as humans and not merpeople.
