[5][6][7][8] Most linguists trace the etymology of the name Οὐρανός to a Proto-Greek form *Worsanós (Ϝορσανός),[9] enlarged from *ṷorsó- (also found in Greek οὐρέω (ouréō) 'to urinate', Sanskrit varṣá 'rain', Hittite ṷarša- 'fog, mist').

Of some importance in the comparative study of Indo-European mythology is the identification by Georges Dumézil (1934)[12] of Uranus with the Vedic deity Váruṇa (Mitanni Aruna), god of the sky and waters, but the etymological equation is now considered untenable.

[13] In Hesiod's Theogony, which came to be accepted by the Greeks as the "standard" account,[14] from Gaia (Earth), the first entity to come into existence after Chaos (Void), came Uranus, the Ourea (Mountains), and Pontus (Sea).

[15] Then, according to the Theogony, Uranus mated with Gaia, and she gave birth to the twelve Titans: Oceanus, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetus, Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, Tethys and Cronus; the Cyclopes: Brontes, Steropes and Arges; and the Hecatoncheires ("Hundred-Handed Ones"): Cottus, Briareus, and Gyges.

[27] Passages in a section of the Iliad called the Deception of Zeus suggest the possibility that Homer knew a tradition in which Oceanus and Tethys (rather than Uranus and Gaia, as in Hesiod) were the parents of the Titans.

[32] As Hesiod tells the story, Gaia "first bore starry Heaven [Uranus], equal to herself, to cover her on every side, and to be an ever-sure abiding-place for the blessed gods.

According to the Alexandrian poet Callimachus (c. 270 BC), Cronus's sickle was buried at Zancle in Sicily, saying that it was "hidden in a hollow under the ground" there.

He was simply the sky, which was conceived by the ancients as an overarching dome or roof of bronze, held in place (or turned on an axis) by the Titan Atlas.

In formulaic expressions in the Homeric poems ouranos is sometimes an alternative to Olympus as the collective home of the gods; an obvious occurrence would be the moment in Iliad 1.495, when Thetis rises from the sea to plead with Zeus: "and early in the morning she rose up to greet Ouranos-and-Olympus and she found the son of Kronos ...".

[52] Sale concluded that the earlier seat of the gods was the actual Mount Olympus, from which the epic tradition by the time of Homer had transported them to the sky, ouranos.

Georges Dumézil made a cautious case for the identity of Uranus and Vedic Váruṇa at the earliest Indo-European cultural level.

[12] Dumézil's identification of mythic elements shared by the two figures, relying to a great extent on linguistic interpretation, but not positing a common origin, was taken up by Robert Graves and others.

The most probable etymology is from Proto-Greek *(W)orsanόj (worsanos) from a Proto-Indo-European language root *ers "to moisten, to drip" (referring to the rain).

Knapped flints as cutting edges were set in wooden or bone sickles in the late Neolithic, before the onset of the Bronze Age.

Such sickles may have survived latest in ritual contexts where metal was taboo, but the detail, which was retained by classical Greeks, suggests the antiquity of the mytheme.