Taranis Jupiter with wheel and thunderbolt Le Chatelet Gourzon Haute Marne

Celtic mythology Celtic mythology is the body of myths belonging to the Celtic peoples.Cunliffe, Barry, (1997) ''The Ancient Celts''. Oxford, Oxford University Press , pp. 183 (religion), 202, 204–8. Like other Iron Age Europeans, Celtic peoples followed a ...

, Taranis ( Proto-Celtic: *''Toranos'', earlier ''*Tonaros''; Latin: Taranus, earlier Tanarus) is the god of thunder, who was worshipped primarily in Gaul and Hispania but also in the Rhineland and Danube regions, amongst others. Taranis, along with Esus and

Toutatis Toutatis or Teutates is a Celtic god who was worshipped primarily in ancient Gaul and Britain. His name means "god of the tribe", and he has been widely interpreted as a tribal protector.Paul-Marie Duval (1993). ''Les dieux de la Gaule.'' Éditio ...

, was mentioned by the Roman poet

Lucan Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (3 November 39 AD – 30 April 65 AD), better known in English as Lucan (), was a Roman poet, born in Corduba (modern-day Córdoba), in Hispania Baetica. He is regarded as one of the outstanding figures of the Imperial ...

in his epic poem '' Pharsalia'' as a

Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language * Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Fo ...

deity to whom human sacrificial offerings were made. Taranis was associated, as was the

Cyclops In Greek mythology and later Roman mythology, the Cyclopes ( ; el, Κύκλωπες, ''Kýklōpes'', "Circle-eyes" or "Round-eyes"; singular Cyclops ; , ''Kýklōps'') are giant one-eyed creatures. Three groups of Cyclopes can be distinguish ...

Brontes ("thunder") in Greek mythology, with the wheel. Gundestrup C

Many representations of a bearded god with a thunderbolt in one hand and a wheel in the other have been recovered from Gaul, where this deity apparently came to be

syncretised Syncretism () is the practice of combining different beliefs and various schools of thought. Syncretism involves the merging or assimilation of several originally discrete traditions, especially in the theology and mythology of religion, thu ...

with Jupiter.

Name and etymology

The Proto-Celtic form of the name is reconstructed as *''Toranos'' ('Thunder'), which derives through metathesis (switch of sounds) from an earlier *''Tonaros'', itself from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) stem for 'thunder', *''(s)tenh₂-''. The original, unmetathesized form of the name is attested in the dative form ''tanaro'' (

Chester Chester is a cathedral city and the county town of Cheshire, England. It is located on the River Dee, close to the English–Welsh border. With a population of 79,645 in 2011,"2011 Census results: People and Population Profile: Chester Loca ...

, 154 AD), found on a votive altar dedicated by a Roman officer from Clunia (modern Burgos Province), and in the Gaulish hydronym '' Tanarus'' ('thundering' or 'thunderous'), an ancient name of the

River Po The Po ( , ; la, Padus or ; Ancient Ligurian: or ) is the longest river in Italy. It flows eastward across northern Italy starting from the Cottian Alps. The river's length is either or , if the Maira, a right bank tributary, is included. Th ...

(northern Italy). Similar European hydronyms have also been proposed to belong to the same root. The PIE ''s''-initial seems to have been retained in Celtiberian ''steniontes'', ''stenion'', and ''stena''. In the Indo-European context, the Proto-Celtic name *''Tonaros'' is identical to the Proto-Germanic Thunder-god ''*Þun(a)raz'' (cf. ON ''Þórr'', OE ''Þunor'', OS ''Thunar'', OFris. ''Thuner'', OHG ''Donar''), and further related to the Sanskrit ''stánati'' and Latin ''tono'', both meaning 'to thunder'. According to scholar Peter Jackson, the Celtic–Germanic

isogloss An isogloss, also called a heterogloss (see Etymology below), is the geographic boundary of a certain linguistic feature, such as the pronunciation of a vowel, the meaning of a word, or the use of some morphological or syntactic feature. Major d ...

*''Þun(a)raz'' ''~ *Tonaros'' may have emerged as the result of the fossilization of an original epithet (or epiclesis) of the Proto-Indo-European thunder-god *'' Perk^wunos''. The later form *''Toranos'' is attested in the Gaulish divine names ''Taranis'' and ''Taranucnos'', as well as in the personal name ''Taranutius''. The name '' Taran'', which appears in the prehistoric section of the Pictish King-List, may also be interpreted as a euhemerized god. The

Hispano-Celtic Hispano-Celtic is a term for all forms of Celtic spoken in the Iberian Peninsula before the arrival of the Romans (c. 218 BC, during the Second Punic War). In particular, it includes: * A northeastern inland language attested at a relative ...

''tar(a)nekūm'' could mean 'of the descendants of Tar(a)nos'. Additional cognates may also be found in medieval Celtic languages, such as Old Irish ''torann'' ('thunder, noise'),

Old Breton Breton (, ; or in Morbihan) is a Southwestern Brittonic language of the Celtic language family spoken in Brittany, part of modern-day France. It is the only Celtic language still widely in use on the European mainland, albeit as a member of t ...

''taran'',

Old Cornish Cornish ( Standard Written Form: or ) , is a Southwestern Brittonic language of the Celtic language family. It is a revived language, having become extinct as a living community language in Cornwall at the end of the 18th century. However, k ...

''taran'', and Middle Welsh ''taran'' (' eal ofthunder, thunderclap'). The Gaulish word for 'thunder' has been preserved in Gascon ''taram''.

Association with the wheel

The wheel, more specifically the

chariot A chariot is a type of cart driven by a charioteer, usually using horses to provide rapid motive power. The oldest known chariots have been found in burials of the Sintashta culture in modern-day Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia, dated to c. 2000&nbs ...

wheel with six or eight

spoke A spoke is one of some number of rods radiating from the center of a wheel (the hub where the axle connects), connecting the hub with the round traction surface. The term originally referred to portions of a log that had been riven (split l ...

s, was an important symbol in historical

Celtic polytheism Ancient Celtic religion, commonly known as Celtic paganism, was the religion of the ancient Celtic peoples of Europe. Because the ancient Celts did not have writing, evidence about their religion is gleaned from archaeology, Greco-Roman accounts ...

, apparently associated with a specific god, known as the wheel-god, identified as the sky- sun- or thunder-god, whose name is attested as Taranis by

. Numerous Celtic coins also depict such a wheel. The half-wheel shown in the Gundestrup cauldron "broken wheel" panel also has eight visible spokes. Symbolic votive wheels were offered at shrines (such as in Alesia), cast in rivers (such as the

Seine ) , mouth_location = Le Havre/Honfleur , mouth_coordinates = , mouth_elevation = , progression = , river_system = Seine basin , basin_size = , tributaries_left = Yonne, Loing, Eure, Risle , tributarie ...

), buried in tombs or worn as amulets since the

Middle Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

. Such "wheel pendants" from the Bronze Age usually had four spokes, and are commonly identified as solar symbols or " sun crosses". Artefacts parallel to the Celtic votive wheels or wheel-pendants are the so-called ''

Zierscheibe ''Zierscheibe'' (German for "ornamental disk") in archaeology is the term for a kind of metal jewellery dating to the European Iron Age. They are found in graves and are thought to have been worn as pendants attached to the tunica, or as part of ...

n'' in a Germanic context. The identification of the Sun with a wheel, or a chariot, has parallels in Germanic, Greek and Vedic mythology (see

sun chariot A solar deity or sun deity is a deity who represents the Sun, or an aspect of it. Such deities are usually associated with power and strength. Solar deities and Sun worship can be found throughout most of recorded history in various forms. The ...

). File:Stone Wheel from Santa Tegra.jpg, Stone wheel representation from the Santa Tegra hill-fort (

A Guarda A Guarda is a municipality in the province of Pontevedra in the autonomous community of Galicia, in Spain. It is situated in the ''comarca'' of O Baixo Miño. Demography Colors= id:lightgrey value:gray(0.9) id:darkgrey value:gray(0.7) ...

Galicia Galicia may refer to: Geographic regions * Galicia (Spain), a region and autonomous community of northwestern Spain ** Gallaecia, a Roman province ** The post-Roman Kingdom of the Suebi, also called the Kingdom of Gallaecia ** The medieval King ...

). Museo arqueolóxico do castro de Santa Tegra File:Rouelle d or Balesme Haute Marne.jpg, Golden Celtic wheel with symbols, Balesme, Haute-Marne.

Musée d'Archéologie Nationale The National Archaeological Museum (French: Musée d'Archéologie nationale) is a major French archaeology museum, covering pre-historic times to the Merovingian period (450–750 CE). It is housed in the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye in the ' ...

Later cultural references

Taranis and

are often mentioned by characters of the '' Asterix'' series. Taranis and other Celtic gods are often referred to in the EPIX television series Britannia.

Footnotes

References

* * Ellis, Peter Berresford, ''Dictionary of Celtic Mythology'' (Oxford Paperback Reference), Oxford University Press, (1994): * * MacKillop, James. ''Dictionary of Celtic Mythology''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. . * * Wood, Juliette, ''The Celts: Life, Myth, and Art'', Thorsons Publishers (2002):

External links

Celtic Gods and Associates
* * {{Authority control Gaulish gods Gods of the ancient Britons Thunder gods Jovian deities