Cultural Heroes
Triptolemus, a cultural hero, taught humanity to use the plough.
The role of the gods as bearers of the knowledge that humanity possesses is present in all mythologies.
Prometheus in Greece, the ancestors in Australia, Quetzalcoatl among the Aztecs, Maui in Polynesia... they are venerated for having taught how to live in the world.
Alongside these figures there are others who taught through example: whether through their virtues, their courage, their perseverance... or even through their weaknesses.
In the myth of Demeter (see mitologiagrecorromana), the episode in which, having attained a certain position in a royal household while searching for her daughter, the goddess places the prince in her care into a divine fire so that his mortal parts may burn away and he may acquire eternal life. However, she is stopped before the ritual is completed.
In Egypt (see mitologiaegipcia) there exists an analogous myth in which Isis becomes the nursemaid of a prince while searching for Osiris, her husband. Whereas in the Egyptian myth the child dies, in the Greek myth Triptolemus becomes a benefactor of humanity, a cultural hero, when Demeter gives him grain, a plough, and the knowledge of agriculture so that he may teach them to humankind.
Triptolemus had his own cult and temple at Eleusis.