Sonnenverehrung bei den Kelten - Andreas Hofeneder.pdf

8/11/2019 Sonnenverehrung bei den Kelten - Andreas Hofeneder.pdf

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4. Vestiges of sun worship among the Celts

A H, University of Vienna

SUMMARY: In modern scholarship opinions on the importance of sun worship amongthe Celts differ considerably. e principal reason for this is certainly to be looked for inthose sources of a possible sun cult which allow for different interpretations. is paper of-fers a reappraisal of the available and very scanty evidence for a Celtic sun cult and arrivesat the conclusion that the religious conceptions which the Celts had concerning the suncan scarcely be identified.

Everyone who likes to know what religious significance the sun had amongthe Celts will probably first of all consult the important reference-books.So you can read for instance in Bernhard Ms Lexikon der keltischenReligion und Kulturunder the heading Sonne (Maier 1994, p. 294):

ber die Funktion der S[onne] innerhalb der keltischen Religion kann man wegen der Spr-lichkeit der Quellen nur Vermutungen anstellen.

is sceptical position is also shared by Helmut Birkhan in his Kelten. Bilderihrer Kultur, where he writes (Birkhan 1999, p. 32):

Insgesamt mu man aber einrumen, da wir nur sehr wenig ber Sonnen- und Mond-kult wissen.

Totally different on the other hand is the judgement of Jan de Vries (1961,p. 131), according to whom

angenommen werden [darf], da die Himmelskrper, also Sonne, Mond und Sterne, auchdie Kelten stark genug beeindruckt haben, um in ihnen das Walten einer gttlichen Machtwahrzunehmen und dementsprechend ihnen auch einen Kult zu widmen.

1 Because of the meagre sources it is possible to make only assumptions concerning thefunction of the Sun in the Celtic religion.

2 But on the whole we must concede that we know only very little about the sun andmoon cult.

3 it may be presumed that the heavenly bodies, i.e. the Sun, the Moon and the Stars,have also impressed the Celts strongly enough, so that they perceived the working ofa godly power in them and accordingly, devoted a cult to them.


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And Miranda Jane Green writes in her Dictionary of Celtic Myth and Leg-endunder the lemma sun/sun god (Green 1992, p. 202):

e Celts perceived the presence of divine forces in all aspects of nature. One of the mostimportant venerated natural phenomena was the sun, seen as a life-giver, promoter of fer-tility and healing.

e same author comes to a similar conclusion in her monograph e Sun-Gods of Ancient Europe(Green 1991, pp. 137138):

Study of the images and of other material evidence indicates that there probably existeda complicated series of myths and stories concerning divine power of the sun []. e sun

cult appears to have occupied a dominant position within the divine hegemony of Celticand proto-Celtic religion.

I have deliberately quoted these controversial opinions at the beginningof my paper. ey are by no means conditioned by coming from differ-ent stages in the development of the subject. On the contrary, they wereall written down in the second half of the last century by distinguishedscholars who know the source material perfectly. Hence the question aris-es as to how they could arrive at such diametrically opposed judgements.

e principal reason for this is certainly to be searched for in the sourcesfor a possible sun cult. ey are of a kind which definitely allows for differ-ent interpretations. Before I discuss this evidence in more detail, I wouldlike to present very briefly the various categories of sources on which ourreconstruction of Celtic religion might be based. You can roughly classifythem as:

Indigenous texts: Bytheseare meant all sorts of records which stemfrom the Celts themselves. ese are inscriptions, predominantly on stone,but also on other material as with the lead curse tablets. ese texts arewritten either in a Celtic language (Gaulish, Celtiberian, Old British etc.)or and this is mainly the case in Greek or Latin. In Celtic territories thecustom of erecting votive monuments for the gods became widely acceptedonly under Mediterranean influence. e bulk of these testimonies date

from the Roman imperial times, thus from a period in which the Celts had

4 I follow the useful classification of Birkhan 1997, pp. 431490; cf. also Maier 2001, pp. 3454.


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873. Helios, Sol, and Sol Invictus

been romanised to a greater or lesser extent. e epigraphic texts relevantfor our topic belong also to this epoch. e older inscriptions in a Celtictongue which are far more interesting from the point of view of religious

history are not of any value for sun worship.Of considerable importance are ancient literary testimonies, since the

modern ideas about Celtic religion are mainly based on the informationwhich has been handed down to us by ancient Greek and Latin authors.If we lacked these texts (e. g. from Posidonius, Caesar, and Pliny the El-der, to name only three outstanding examples), our knowledge would bemuch more limited. e literary evidence possesses the vividness which

archaeological and epigraphical findings could never offer. However, wheninterpreting the literary testimonies you must proceed with the utmost cau-tion: Many ancient writers were describing the Celts and also their religionfrom a hostile and malevolent point of view. Because of this lack of appre-ciation and due to misunderstandings, the religious practices of the Celtswere presented in a somewhat distorted form. e picture of our sourcesis oen untrustworthy and by no means representative. at applies onan even larger scale to medieval testimonies of Christian provenance andthose of late antiquity, in particular concerning the vitae of Celtic saints.A standard motif of these biographies is the removal of pagan rituals by theholy men. Scattered references to a sun worship can also be found there,but without any details given, for in these the hagiographers were not in-terested. eir main purpose was demonising the pagan cult. In general

5 In the acta Sanctorum Marcelli et Anastasii(= ASS 29. Iunius V p. 477 C ff. = Zwicker

19341936, III, pp. 259260) the paganpraesesHeraclius takes an oathper deum Solis etseptuaginta et septem deos et Dianam matrem deorumthat he will torture Marcellus, ifhe will not sacrifice magno Apollini et Herculi. Much the same is said in thepassio SanctiLupercii(= ASS 28. Iunius V p. 353 D = Zwicker 19341936, III, p. 263) about anotherpraeseswho is said to have implored the saintper Solem et septuaginta et octo deos et ma-trem eorum Dianamto sacrifice to Apollo. For an inquiry about a Celtic sun god thesepassages are, as Birkhan 1997, p. 578 fn. 5 rightly remarks, nicht ohne weiteres [] zu

verwenden und wohl auch voneinander abhngig. According to thepassio Sancti Mar-celli Tungrensis(= ASS 4. September II p. 197 C = Zwicker 19341936, III, pp. 293294)there was a Solis simulacrumnear Cabillonum(now Chlon-sur-Sane, dp. Sane-et-

Loire). In another version of this legend (passio altera Sancti Marcelli Tungrensis= ASS4. September II p. 200 D = Zwicker 19341936, III, pp. 293294) a Solis imagois men-tioned.


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these messages are of a very low value, since they oen date from the LateMiddle Ages and therefore it is highly questionable whether the blemishedcults contained Celtic elements at all and are not rather to be regarded as

an expression of the syncretism of late antiquity.Concerning the issue of a Celtic sun cult, of much greater importance

are the archaeological findings. Of most relevance are reliefs representinggods, statues, votive and burial objects, and finally the sanctuaries. Also inthis group of source material are the more significant testimonies whichdate from Roman times. Previously a sun cult could be grasped only fromiconographic depictions using symbols such as the swastika or the wheel.

Interpretations of these images have a high degree of uncertainty. Oen itis a matter of debate whether these representations are Celtic at all and, ifso, what underlying significance they had. Anthropomorphic images onthe other hand are very rarely attested in the pre-Roman Celtic Iron Age.Only the Roman influence brought a radical change in the religious modeof expression. e iconography of the local gods was also influenced mas-sively by that of the Mediterranean gods. For example, the Celtic healinggoddess Sulisappears in the figure of the RomanMinerva, the god Grannosas youthfulApollowith his classical attributes. One names this phenome-non using a concept stamped by Tacitus interpretatio romana. It meant thata foreign divinity was equated with one of their own pantheon, even if thecorrespondence between both numinawas only superficial. An essentialpoint to make, however, is that the Gallo-Roman religion is a hybrid and

very complicated mixture of Celtic and Roman-Mediterranean elements.As far as we can judge today, this was a longer-lasting process at whose

end something absolutely new emerged. Hence, archaeological findingsfrom the imperial time can be used only with considerable reservations asa means of determining the religious concepts of the Pre-Roman Iron Age.

As another source etymologiesare to be mentioned. ese are indispen-sable to find out the essence of Gallic gods. By means of comparison withCeltic or other Indo-European linguistic material, it makes it possible toestablish the meaning of the gods name. In some cases the etymology is

transparent and undisputed. For example the Celtic god Taraniss name isto be connected unquestionably with the Welsh word for thunder taran(cf. also OIr. torann) and his sphere of activity consequently must have


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stood in connection with this physical phenomenon. Whether Taranisal-ways had this function cannot be decided purely linguistically, because thenaming can date far back. Here extra-linguistic arguments must be added.

e linguist Wolfgang Meid (2003, p. 27) was perfectly right in stressing:

Gewisse Wrter und Namen knnen so alt sein, da ihre ursprngliche Bedeutung nichtmehr ihrer aktuellen Funktion entspricht und daher die Etymologie nicht mehr als eine Remi-niszenz ist, brauchbar allenfalls als Fingerzeig, aber nicht als Mittel zur Wesensbestimmung.

is admonition is worth remembering in any case. However, much moreproblematical are those Gaulish theonyms for which two or even more

competing etymologies were suggested by the linguistic research. To thisgroup belong also the names of some gods for whom solar aspects weresupposed to exist. Regrettably, non-linguists incline to build up far-reach-ing speculations on the basis of such questionable etymologies.

As another source Indo-European parallelscan be used. Since the Celtsform a part of the Indo-European language community, the comparisonwith religious traditions of other Indo-European people can be absolutelyilluminating. Admittedly, caution is also right here, because as BernhardMaier (2001, p. 52) formulated it:

Nachrichten ber Kulte, Riten und Mythen eine gewisse Bandbreite der Interpretation ge-statten und sich daher nicht mit derselben Eindeutigkeit einander zuordnen lassen wie etwagrammatische Flexionsendungen.

e same scepticism is also recommended for the evaluation ofvernaculartextsof the Middle Ages. ese are, above all, Irish, Welsh and Breton texts

which were written down aer Christianisation and are therefore only oflimited use for the reconstruction of the pre-Christian religion of the Celts,

da hier nicht nur mit der Aufzeichnung authentischer berlieferungen, sondern auch mitder Rckprojektion christlicher Anschauungen und Einrichtungen, der literarischen Sti-lisierung nach dem Vorbild biblischer und patristischer Vorbilder sowie schlielich derUmdeutung genuin vorchristlicher Relikte infolge von Miverstndnissen zu rechnen ist.(Maier 2001, p. 49)

As the last, although extremely problematic type of source material laterfolkloreis to be mentioned. One should use this, nevertheless, only as


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additional evidence for otherwise testified facts. Modern as opposed toolder research does not value such folkloric traditions highly, because itcannot be proved in most cases that they continue pre-Christian customs.

Aer these basic statements I would like to go now directly ad fontes. I be-gin with a text of Rufius Festus Avien(i)us, a Latin poet of the 4 centuryA.D. Apart from other poems he composed the ora maritima, a descriptionof the seashores of Brittany up to the Black Sea, from which only the first713 verses survived and which breaks off in the middle of the descriptionfrom Massalia. Avien(i)us was a typical representative of the senatorial up-per class which consciously took care of the preservation of the pagan past.

Accordingly all his works are adaptations of older literary sources, thus alsothe ora maritima. Around the nature and the age of these sources persis-tent debates on which I cannot dwell here have been conducted fora long time. In spite of all controversies, it is beyond debate that Avien(i)us is based on sources from the B.C. era. Verses 644646 run as follows:

But that side of the ridge that rises up and gives forth the river, the natives call pillar ofthe sun.

According to Adolf S the river mentioned here is the Rhne andthe mountain called solis columnaby the locals the Dammastock, fromthe recesses of which the Rhne springs. e idea behind it still lives onin the modern mountain names Sonnenhorn or Sonnighorn which arewidespread in the Alps. For Andr Berthelot the solis columnacould beidentified with several mountains, because comparable names, like Picdu Midi, Aiguille du Midi, Dent du Midi, Meije are frequent in the Alps

(Berthelot 1934, p. 107, fn. 1; cf. Hofeneder 2005, p. 23 + fn. 82). Howev-er one may stand on the localisation issue, crucial for our purpose is thefact that Avien(i)us verses were interpreted by Alfred Holder (18961907,

6 See in more detail Hofeneder 2005, pp. 1617.7 Avien. ora marit. 644646: at rupis illud erigentis se latus,/ quod [d]edit amnem,gentici

cognominant/ solis columnam.8 Schulten 1922, p. 120, where he also refers to the scholiast to Dionys. Perieg. 290 = GGM

II 443 who likewise mentioned the pillar of the sun: . Schultens localisation is taken over by Clemen 1941/42, pp. 177178; deVries 1961, p. 131 fn. 98.


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II, p. 1599) and Carl Clemen (1941/42, pp. 117118) as testimony to sunworship among the Celts. e passage was also referred to in connectionwith the cosmic ideas of the sky which the Celts might have had. Perhaps

the solis columnacould be regarded as a vague reference to a central pillarsupporting the sky. Anyway, in the absence of other sources, this remainsmere speculation.

at we stand on shaky ground is illustrated also by the next passagesfrom the commentarii de bello Gallico. Caesar has inserted, as is well known,in his sixth book a long ethnographic digression on the Gauls and the Ger-mans. About the druids, the priests of the Gauls, he says:

ey have also much knowledge of the stars and their motion, of the size of the world andof the earth, of natural philosophy, and of the powers and spheres of action of the immor-tal gods, which they discuss and hand down to the youth.

Caesar discusses in this section the contents of druidic lore. Even if he de-scribes the activities of the druids only very summarily, his characterisa-tion is altogether honourable. In the first place he mentions the intensivestudy of astronomy (multa de sideribus atque eorum motu). Quitesimilar is the formulation of Pomponius Mela, a geographer of the mid-dle of the 1 century A.D., who probably took the following informationdirectly from Caesar:

9 In this sense already Jullian 1903, p. 87 + fn. 23; cf. Birkhan 1997, pp. 781782: Im-merhin scheint die kosmische Vorstellung der alten Kelten einen Himmel gekannt zu ha-ben, der entweder als groes Wasser gedacht war oder aus einer festen Substanz (Stein?)

bestand. Ob er auf einer zentralen Weltsule (vergleichbar der germanischen Irmensl)aufruhte oder am Rande von Sttzen (vergleichbar den vier himmeltragenden Zwergenin der Edda) gehalten wurde, knnen wir nicht entscheiden. Birkhan 1997, p. 782 fn. 2refers expressly to the passage from the ora maritima. us also Sterckx 2003, p. 252 +fn. 18. Sopea Genzor 1995, p. 229 also links this notice with the idea of an axis mundi,but erroneously refers to una Solis columnaall donde nace el Rn.

10 Cf. Clemen 1941/42, p. 117 fn. 1, criticizing the older speculations of MacCulloch 1911,p. 228 and MacCulloch 1913, pp. 1213. See also Nitschke 1983, p. 20 + fn. 69.

11 Caes. bell. Gall. 6, 14,6: multa praeterea de sideribus atque eorum motu, de mundi ac ter-rarum magnitudine, de rerum natura, de deorum immortalium vi ac potestate disputant

et iuventuti tradunt.12 Cf. Note 11. For this field of druidic lore see Hofeneder 2005, p. 198 with further ref-

erences.


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ese [sc. the druids] claim to know the size and shape of the earth and universe, the mo-tion of the stars and the sky, and the will of the gods.

Knowledge in this science is a precondition for the production of a calen-

dar, because without observation of the celestial bodies a regulation of feastdays was not possible. at the Gauls had at their disposal a profound lev-el of astronomical knowledge, is confirmed by the Gallo-Roman calendarof Coligny (dp. Ain). is was found in 1897 and consists of approxi-mately 150 fragments of a bronze tablet of 148 90 cm, on which a cal-endar covering five years was engraved. Even if this text might not haveoriginated before the end of the 2 century A.D., the models on which

it is based are certainly far older. Interestingly, this calendar is based ona lunar year which was synchronized to the solar year by the intercalationof extra months. at the moon played a bigger role than the sun in theOld-Celtic calendar is confirmed also by other sources.

e following information about peculiar sacrifices of certain Celts comesagain from Caesars ethnographic digression on Gaul:

Others use figures of immense size, whose limbs, woven out of twigs, they fill with living

men and set on fire, and the men perish in a sheet of flame.

Caesar is referring here to a special form of human sacrifice where in enor-mous images of wickerwork people are burnt alive. By this he certainlywants to stress the cruelty of the Gauls. Strabo also describes this peculiarrite among other kinds of sacrifice of the Gauls:

ey prepare a stack of hay and wood which they set on fire aer having placed cattle, allkinds of animals, and men in it.

13 Pomp. Mela 3, 19: hi terrae mundique magnitudinem et formam, motus caeli ac siderumet quid dii velint, scire profitentur.

14 From the relevant literature about the calendar of Coligny I quote only Duval & Pinault1986; Olmsted 1992; Le Contel & Verdier 1997.

15 Caes. bell. Gall. 6, 16,4: alii immani magnitudine simulacra habent, quorum contexta vi-minibus membra vivis hominibus complent. quibus succensis circumventi flamma exani-mantur homines.

16 Strab. Geogr. 4, 4,5: ,

. Poseid. FGrHist 87F 116 = Diod. 5, 32,6 says: - ,


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Even if Strabo mentions the sacrifice of animals which is missing inCaesar, both describe unambiguously the same rite. It is generally acceptedthat Caesar bases his report not on personal observation but on Posidoni-

us. is is also confirmed by his strangely vague manner of expression;he ascribes this custom just to others (alii habent). We can only guesswho is meant by others (cf. Bari 1985, p. 78; Hofeneder 2005, p. 202 +fn. 1243). It is also doubtful whether the use of the words simulacraand refers to a human form of these structures. Was this simulacruma representation of the god to whom these victims were offered? (thus e. g.Brunaux 1996, p. 131). We simply do not know.

Likewise concerning the meaning of this rite only conjectures can bemade. As fire was the medium in which these victims perished, JohnA. MacCulloch (1948, p. 55) considered the possibility, that they were of-fered to a sun god, with a view of obtaining his fertilising power. MirandaJane Green (1991, p. 108) also saw in this a fire ritual, which may have beensolar in origin. And already Sir James Frazer has pointed in this context toa number of West European folk customs where during midsummer (or

. (ey keep evildoers in custody for five years and then impale themin honour of their gods. ey construct enormous pyres and then devote them togetherwith many other first-fruits.) Whether Poseidonios-Diodor meant the same with as Caesar with simulacraor Strabo with , as sometimes supposed(e. g. de Vries 1961, p. 222; Bari 1985, p. 78), is not certain at all.

17 Brunaux 1996, p. 132 regards the wild animals mentioned by Strabo as tout fait dou-teuse, without giving arguments for his opinion.

18 Clemen 1941/42, p. 131 confounded Strabo with Caesar, when he writes that [man] nach

Caesar auch mit Tieren angefllte kolossale Menschenfiguren verbrannte. MacCulloch1925, p. 619 committed the same error.19 Cf. Clemen 1941/42, p. 131; de Vries 1961, p. 222; Bari 1985, p. 78; Brunaux 1996, pp. 131

132; Birkhan 1997, p. 800; Maier 2001, p. 111; Hofeneder 2005, p. 202 + fn. 1242 (withadditional references).

20 Piggott 1968, p. 110: is strange rite, which has caught the imagination of all who sub-sequently wrote on Druids, remains unexplained and unparalleled. Powell 1958, p. 154:

e wickerwork containers, whether or not it can be admitted that they took the formof human figures, recall the various Irish stories, some certainly mythological, of housesburnt down, and the death of people, sometimes kings, within. de Vries 1961, p. 246:

sollten wir den gallischen Brauch, Menschen in aus Zweigen geflochtenen Behltern zuverbrennen [], nicht vielleicht auch mit diesem Ttungsritus eines Knigs in Verbind-ung bringen drfen?


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midwinter) festivals animals were burnt in wickerworks, something thatcould be an echo of the Gallic custom. However, to our understanding ofthe sacrifice described by Caesar and Strabo this late folklore can contrib-

ute only a little, because the medieval and modern ceremonies are linkedwith such ideas as the burning of witches. By the way, there are also otherinterpretations of the ritual, which although also hypothetical do notrelate to a solar cult. e only sure thing is, in my opinion, the fact thatthere were these sacrifices. But it is not clear who practised them, how of-ten, at which time of the year and for what purpose. Caesars descriptionhas stimulated, in any case, the imagination of later generations, as might

be illustrated by e Wicker image, a copperplate engraving from AylettSammess Britannia Antiqua Illustratafrom 1676.Some lines later Caesar says of the Gauls:

Of the gods they most of all worship Mercury. He has the largest number of images, andthey regard him as the inventor of all the arts, as their guide on the roads and in travel, andas chiefly influential in making money and in trade. Next to him they worship Apollo, Mars,Jupiter and Minerva. About these gods they hold nearly the same views as other people do:that Apollo drives away disease, that Minerva first instituted the arts and cras, that Jupiter

rules the heavens and Mars the issue of war.

e countless problems which are connected with this short passage can-not be dealt with here (cf. Hofeneder 2005, pp. 198211). For our pur-pose it is important that Caesar translates the main Gallic divinities withthe names of the important Roman godsMercurius,Apollo,Mars, IuppiterandMinerva. About the last four of them the Gauls hold nearly (attentionmust be paid to thefere) the same views as other people. By reliquae gen-

tes it is primarily the Romans and the Greeks that are being referred to.Caesars characterisation of the Gallic pantheon is particularly revealing,

21 e material is collected by Frazer 2000, pp. 946955.22 Cf. Birkhan 1997, p. 799 fn. 4; Birkhan 1999, p. 389, Fig. 756; Hofeneder 2005, p. 202 +

fn. 1247 and the picture on the front-page.23 Caes. bell. Gall. 6, 17,12: deum maxime Mercurium colunt. huius sunt plurima simula-

cra, hunc omnium inventorem artium ferunt, hunc viarum atque itinerum ducem, hunc adquaestus pecuniae mercaturasque habere vim maximam arbitrantur. (2) post hunc Apol-

linem et Martem et Iovem et Minervam. de his eandem fere quam reliquae gentes habentopinionem:Apollinem morbos depellere, Minervam operum atque artificiorum initia tra-dere, Iovem imperium caelestium tenere, Martem bella regere.


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when compared to the description of the Germanic belief in gods whichhe gives a few chapters later:

ey rank in the number of the gods those alone whom they behold, and by whose instru-mentality they are obviously benefited, namely, the sun, fire, and the moon; they have notheard of the other deities even by report.

It is nowadays widely accepted that this appraisal is wrong. Caesar pre-sents here only a stereotype of the ancient ethnography which regardedthe veneration of the celestial bodies as a sign of unsophisticated religionand the absence of invisibly acting gods as a distinguishing feature of un-

civilized primitive races (cf. Maier 1994, p. 295 and Maier 2003, p. 25). Itis remarkable, in any case, that according to Caesars understanding theGauls have already surmounted this primitive stage. About a Gaulish suncult he did not say a word. e gods ascribed to the Gauls Mercurius,

Apollo,Mars, IuppiterandMinerva are found on a huge number of Gallo-Roman votive inscriptions and they were oen equated with indigenoustheonyms.

Above all, the Celtic healing divinities equated with Apollo are relevantto our question, because for some of them a solar aspect was considered.In the first place the supra-regional honoured gods Blenosand Grannosshould be named. e cult of Blenosis documented in literary and epi-graphic sources, above all for the north of Italy, the eastern Alpine regionand the south of Gaul. In many works on Celtic religion his name is ex-plained with the IE verbal root *gwel-gleam, shine. From this assumptionit is but a step to identify Blenosas a sun god, as it has done for instance

Jan de Vries. In view of the much discussed etymology of the theonym sucha conclusion is extremely problematic, above all because the supposed ver-bal root is not attested in any Indo-European language. e name can alsobe interpreted quite differently. According to Patrizia de Bernardo Stem-pel (2003, pp. 5657) it is a substantival derivation of the IE verbal root

24 Caes. bell. Gall. 6, 21,2: deorum numero eos solos ducunt, quos cernunt et quorum aperteopibus iuvantur, Solem et Vulcanum et Lunam. reliquios ne fama quidem acceperunt.

25 us dArbois de Jubainville 1873, p. 197; Ihm 1897, p. 201; Brusin 1939, p. 2 + fn. 3;de Vries 1961, pp. 7576 (cf. the critical review of Maier 2001, p. 194 fn. 166); Zajc1979, p. 81; Euskirchen 1997, p. 546; Polom 1997, p. 741.


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*gwelH-dribble, stream, a proposal which takes into account the gods in-timate relationship with springs.

e etymology of the theonym Grannos is equally insecure. We have

a comparatively large amount of dedications in which the god appearsalmost always asApollo Grannus from nearly all parts of the Roman Em-pire and even from beyond the frontiers. Centres of the cult might havebeen Grand in France, Aachen and the Altbachtal near Trier in Germany,but inscriptions were also found in Pannonien, Bavaria, Swabia, Rome,Scotland, in the northeast of Gaul, in Brittany and in Spain. Grannosisdoubtless to be regarded as a healing god. e interpretation of his name,

however, has puzzled the linguists for a long time. An older theory connectsthe theonym with the OIr. word for sun (gran), which is mostly connectedwith speculations about the solar nature of the god. Although only recentlyJrgen Zeidler (2003, pp. 7792) has made a stand for this etymology, it isrejected for linguistic reasons by many scholars as impossible. We entersteadier ground with the interpretation of the theonymAmarcolitanos. isis a qualifying epithet of the god Grannus, attested only in one single in-scription from Branges (dp. Sane-et-Loire). Since Rudolf urneysen thebyname has been interpreted convincingly as who has the far sight or thefarsighted (a possessive compound; cf. OIr. amarc, m. vision + altkelt. lita-nos far, broad). It was regarded as an appropriate epithet for a sun god.

26 For a collection of the evidence cf. Sterckx 1996, pp. 6066.27 For the etymology of the theonym cf. de Vries 1961, pp. 7475; Olmsted 1994, p. 389; Ster-

ckx 1996, p. 66, Birkhan 1997, pp. 620621, Delamarre 2003, p. 183, Sterckx 2004, p. 311.28 us Weisgerber 1931, p. 192; Schmidt 1957, p. 122; de Vries 1961, p. 72 + fn. 12; evenot

1968, p. 100; Maier 1994, p. 17; Sterckx 1996, p. 73; Birkhan 1997, pp. 585, 620; Sterckx1998, p. 29, Jufer & Luginbhl 2001, p. 94, Delamarre 2003, p. 40. Holder 18961907,III, p. 582 segments the theonym marcltns and cites Ernoults interpretation valdeequis amplus. is implausible explanation was also adopted by Olmsted 1994, p. 385(criticized by Delamarre 2003, p. 40).

29 evenot 1968, p. 100: Amarcolitanus, au demeurant, apparat dans linscription commeun dterminatif de Grannus. Ce texte pourrait avoir quelque rapport avec une sourcegurisseuse connue sur le territoire communal. Quoi quil en soit, lexplication proposeest parfaitement vraisemblable pour un dieu prsum solaire, invoqu par les maladesde la vue. Birkhan 1997, p. 620: Wie Amarcolitanuszeigt, hatte Grannus vielleicht

auch den Charakter eines Sonnengottes (gehabt?), bevor er zum Heilgott wurde. Ster-ckx 1998, p. 29: Toute lhistoire de lApollon celte est remplie dyeux: la source prs delaquelle il est n (les sources sont des yeux deau dans les langues celtiques) fait exploser


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Admittedly, it could also indicate the function of an oracle god or a healinggod who was particularly responsible for the cure of eye-diseases. is needis attested by numerous eye-shaped ex-votos found in Gallo-Roman temples.

For yet other epithets of the CelticApollonrelations with the sphere oflight were considered. For example there isApollo Livicus, attested in onededication from Dietkirchen near Bonn, whose name possibly means theshining (the theonym was compared with OIr. l, Welsh lliw). In the caseof Luxovius a local divinity known by two inscriptions from the ther-mal springs near Luxeuil (dp. Haute-Savoie) it was supposed that hisname derives from the root *leuk - shining. is interpretation might be

supported by the statue of a horseman bearing a solar wheel found in situ.e divinity Vindonnus, locally honoured in the spring La Cave(at Essa-rois, dp. Cte dOr), was also postulated as having a solar function (thusGreen 1986, p. 164; Green 1991, pp. 119120). e name of the source godequated with Apollo belongs to the Celtic word *uindos white, brightly,nicely. is does not really mean much, because it can also refer to theclearness of the source which is water. Indeed, on one of the three pre-served dedications the god is shown asApollowith an aureole (CIL 5645:deo Apollini Vind] onno et Fontibus), which can be interpreted under cer-tain circumstances as a hint of his solar function.

Of central importance in the discussion about a sun cult among the Celtsis the British goddess Sulis(cf. Hofeneder 2008, pp. 149155) who was re-

vered at the famous thermal spring in Bath (next to the river Avon in the

les yeux de ceux qui osent la regarder indment; ses eaux sacres possdent des vertus

particulires pour la gurison des maux dyeux; il est un dieu solaire et le Soleil est lilde Dieu dans les langues celtiques (cf. also Sterckx 1996, p. 73).30 CIL XIII 8006; for Livicuscf. Holder 18961907, II, p. 250; de Vries 1961, pp. 7273 + fn.

15; Sterckx 1996, p. 86; Birkhan 1997, p. 582 + fn. 67; Sterckx 1998, p. 95; Jufer & Lug-inbhl 2001, pp. 49, 94; Delamarre 2003, p. 205.

31 CIL XIII 5425, 5426, for the evidence see Holder 18961907, II, pp. 351, 358; Sterckx1996, p. 56; Jufer & Luginbhl 2001, p. 49.

32 us Green 1986, pp. 153, 165; Green 1991, pp. 110, 120; Sterckx 1996, p. 56; Sterckx1998, p. 102.

33 CIL XIII 56445646, for the evidence see Holder 18961907, III, p. 349; Sterckx 1996,

p. 116; Jufer & Luginbhl 2001, p. 72.34 de Vries 1961, p. 73 fn. 19; evenot 1968, p. 103; Olmsted 1994, p. 394; Birkhan 1997,

p. 622; Sterckx 1998, p. 133.


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county of Somerset). is still existing spring has a daily output of about1.17 million litres of 46 C hot water. About the use of the thermal springbefore the arrival of the Romans nearby nothing is known, but finds of

Celtic coins indicate that the place was already visited and revered in thePre-Roman Iron Age (cf. Cunliffe & Davenport 1985/88, I, p. 177; Green1986, p. 154). In Roman times a great complex of buildings was erected inBath. A temple from the second half of the 1 century A.D. for the protec-tive divinity of the spring also belonged to it. According to the numerouslyfound votive altars and curse tablets this was called Sul(is), suggestingthat Bath was named in antiquity aer the goddessAquae Sulis. On the

inscriptions dedicated to her she appears either alone or together with herinterpretatio romana, the Roman goddessMinerva. In conformity with thisinterpretatioshewas also portrayed like the classical goddess. is showsa gilded, slightly larger than life-sized bronze head with the typical look of

Minervawhich was found in 1727 in Bath and belonged in all probabilityto a cult statue of the Sulis Minerva.

Speculations about the nature of the goddess oen proceed from the ety-mology of her name. It is a well established fact, that Sulishas an exact par-allel in the OIr. word for eye look (sil, f. < *sli-). Celtic *sli- on theother hand was connected with the IE word for the sun (*shu-/*shuns- ;

35 e epigraphic evidence is collected by Holder 18961907, II, pp. 16611662; Ihm19091915, pp. 15911592; Heichelheim 1931, pp. 723727; Maier 1994, pp. 303304;Green & Raybould 1999, pp. 104105, 111112, 115116; Jufer & Luginbhl 2001, pp. 6465.

36 e name of goddess is attested in inscriptions only in the genitive (Sulis) and the dative(Suli). Whether the nominative was Sulisor Sul, cannot be decided with certainty. Nev-

ertheless, certain scholars advocated for one of these forms, albeit with not really con-clusive arguments. I refer only to the different positions of Rivet & Jackson 1970, p. 68(nom. Sulis) and Girard 1984, p. 48 fn. 89 (nom. Sul).

37 Itin. Ant. 486, 3:Aquis Sulis. is toponym is attested only here. Ptol. geogr. 2, 3,13mentions just in the territority of the British Belgae. Holder 18961907,II, p. 1662 and Ihm 19091915, p. 1591 have also referred to Aquis in Geogr. Rav. 5,31 = p. 430,5 Pinder & Parthey. isAquis, however, is to be connected with the following

Arnemeze(=Arnemetiae). In the Ravenna Cosmography the ancient name of Bath istransmitted, if at all, only in a mutilated form; see in more detail Rivet & Smith 1979, p. 255.

38 See Cunliffe & Davenport 1985/88, I 1, p. 181; Green 1992, p. 201; cf. also Green 1986,

p. 156, Fig. 70.39 For the etymology of the theonym see Holder 18961907, II, p. 1661; Ihm 19091915,

p. 1592; Schmidt 1957, p. 270; Cunliffe & Davenport 1985/88, I, p. 177; Maier 1994, p. 303;


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continued in derivations in Welsh haul, Cornish heuul, Bret. houl, heolsun). It was supposed that due to a semantic shi in Old Irish the wordchanged its meaning from sun to eye (Schmidt 2000, p. 442). On this et-

ymology is based the widespread view that Sulis at least by name hasbeen a sun goddess. However, this interpretation was severely attackedby Pierre Yves Lambert. In his opinion a derivation of OIr. silfrom the IEword for the sun presents some semantic and phonetic difficulties. More-over, for the Celtic world unlike in Vedic India and in Homeric Greece(Schmitt 1967, pp. 163164) the religious and poetic metaphorical ex-pression eye for the sun is not attested. Even if this assertion is to be

modified, one will agree with his fundamental appraisal that le cultesolaire pourrait tre considr comme tranger au celtique. For Lambert(1980, p. 177) the etymological derivation from silis based on antiquated

Olmsted 1994, pp. 363364; de Bernardo Stempel 2003, p. 63; Delamarre 2003, p. 287;Zeidler 2003, p. 87; Sterckx 2004, p. 314.

40 To illustrate this, I quote some scholars supporting this idea:Croon 1953, p. 81: the connection in meaning between eye and sun is far from

absurd. We have, therefore, to do with a solar cult.de Vries 1961, p. 79: Das Wort Sulwird wohl Sonne bedeuten.Nitschke 1983, pp. 2021: Es mag sein, da sich hinter dem Namen eine Sonnengot-

theit, dem lateinischen Sol entsprechend verbirgt.Kenner 1989, p. 885: auch ihr Name Sul, der wohl mit Sol zusammenhngt, weisen

die Minerva von Bath nicht nur als Heil- und Erdgttin, sondern auch als Lichtgestalt aus.Green 1986, p. 155: Sulis was the Celtic goddess of the spring and her name has so-

lar connotations.Green 1991, p. 22: e great British healer-goddess Sulis of Bath is etymologically

a solar deity, (cf. also pp. 39, 97, 109, 120121, 126).Green 1992, p. 201: Her name is linked philologically with the sun, and this mayhave been because of the heat of the springs.

Birkhan 1997, p. 581: Es gab also eine weibliche Gottheit, die, dem Namen nach Son-nengttin, fr die Heilquellen zustndig war, offenbar weil man das warme Wasser mit derwohltuenden Sonnenwrme verband und sich so trotz des konkurrierenden maskulinenlat. Soldie offenbar zum religisen Glauben besser stimmende feminine Form durchsetzte.

41 Lambert 1980, p. 175: La mtaphore de lil pour designer le soleil ne se rencontre pasdans les littratures celtiques.

42 Cf. Gaelic sil DhGods eye, a name for the sun (e. g. in the Carmina Gadelica III,

pp. 306307 Carmichael, which, however, is a very late testimony and therefore of ratherlimited value for older Celtic notions); see Sterckx 19911995, p. 70; Olmsted 1994, p. 364;Birkhan 1997, p. 580 fn. 3; Sterckx 2004, pp. 313314.


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mythological theories of the 19 century. Instead, he prefers to regard sli-as a compound from Celt. su- good and *wel- see (sli-


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and weighs 910 gs. e unique specimen decorated with punches shows inthe upper frieze alternating crescents and balls interpreted as moons andsuns. Under it there are seven animals of which only a deer and a boar

can be identified with certainty. Since the bowl was found in a 6 centu-ry B.C. context, the older research assumed a contemporary dating of thepiece. Indeed, technical and typological comparisons with golden bowlsfrom Villena (prov. Alicante, Spain) have clearly shown that the bowl fromAltstetten comes from an Iberian studio and was already being producedaround 1,000 B.C. Consequently this artefact must be excluded as docu-mentary evidence of an early Celtic star symbolism.

Very important in the discussion about a Celtic sun cult are the existingfindings of wheel representations discovered since the Hallstatt period. Forinstance, in the late La Tne layers of the sanctuary of La Villeneuve-au-Chtelot (dp. Aube) more than 70,000 wheel models of various metalshave been found, obviously consecrated there as votive deposits. Also suchwheel amulets were deposited in large quantities in graves and rivers. ewheel is shown particularly oen on Celtic coins. Furthermore the wheeloccurs as a divine attribute. e famous silver cauldron of Gundestrup datesfrom the pre-Roman period. On one of the plates (Fig. 2) a bearded godholding a spoked wheel in his right hand is to be seen. From Gallo-Romantimes we have a large number of representations of (in the most cases un-named) gods with the wheel, such as for example a bronze statuette fromChtelet (dp. Haute-Marne; Fig. 3). It shows a bearded god dressed onlyin boots with thunderbolt in his right and a wheel in his le hand. Fromnear the town of Ansfelden (to the south of Linz) comes a limestone al-

tar which was erected in the 1 century A.D. by a leading member of thelocal society. On the front of the altar is a dedication to Iuppiter Optimus

Maximusand on the right side the gods thunderbolt. On the le side re-lief (Fig. 4) a naked wanderer is to be recognised, with a stick in the lehand and a wheel fastened to a handle over his right shoulder. In modernliterature these divine figures are oen rather rashly declared to be repre-sentations of Taranis. Nevertheless, there is no proof of this identification.

45 See Kimmig 1983, pp. 101118; Maier 1994, pp. 1516; Birkhan 1999, p. 416; Armbruster2004, pp. 119151.


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Furthermore on the so-called Jupiter Giant Columns there sometimesappears the wheel as an attribute of the riding god. e Jupiter Giant Col-umns are archaeological monuments which were erected particularly in

the time between 170 and 240 A.D. and mainly in the provinces of Ger-mania superiorand Gallia Belgica. ese (mostly only very fragmentarilypreserved) monuments normally had a base depicting Roman gods, whichsupported a metre-high pillar, oen decorated with a scale pattern. ecolumn was crowned with a statue of Jupiter, usually on horseback, tram-pling a serpent-footed giant. e much discussed Jupiter Giant Columnsare a typical product of the mixed culture of the Gallo-Roman time. Apart

from Roman elements they contain unquestionably Celtic components.One of them is the wheel, which Iuppiteroccasionally holds instead of hisclassical thunderbolt.

For lack of space I cannot give more examples. e crucial point is thatfor a long time the various wheel representations have been interpreted assolar symbols. at the wheel can stand for the sun is an ancient and wide-spread concept, attested in many cultures and even in written sources; e. g.the Latin poetic expression solis rota(Lucret. 5,432). According to ClaudeSterckx the Irish have ever since (depuis toujours) used the term solarwheel (roth grene). However, since he quotes only two references whichare not from Old or Middle Irish but from Early Modern Irish texts of the13/14 centuries A.D., they prove little to nothing at all about older Irishor ancient Celtic notions.

In any case, by the end of the 19 century Henri Gaidoz (1884/85), ina voluminous paper with the title Le dieu gaulois du soleil et le symbolisme

de la roue, had come to the conclusion that the wheel depicts the sun, a viewwith which many later scholars concurred (for surveys cf. de Vries 1961,pp. 3437; Sterckx 19911995, I, pp. 3461). Admittedly, there were oth-ers who wanted to see in the wheel primarily a thunderbolt symbol. How-ever, since for both interpretations strong arguments can be put forward,one should not reduce the wheel to one single symbolic meaning. Recent

46 For these monuments, see in more detail de Vries 1961, pp. 3134; Mller 1975; Bauch-henss & Noelke 1981; Sterckx 19911995.

47 See Gaidoz 1884/85, p. 15; Sterckx 19911995, I, p. 34 with further examples.


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scholarship has rightly stressed that the wheel is polyvalent and can sym-bolise the sun as well as lightning (which was possibly understood as anemanation from the sun). In this connection it was referred to an interest-

ing hagiographical tradition. In the acts (dating to the 6 century A.D.) ofthe Christian Vincentius, who suffered his martyrdom in Agen (Aquitaine,dp. Lot-et-Garonne) at the beginning of the 4 century, it is reported thatthe saint witnessed a peculiar custom where a flaming wheel was rolled outof a local temple down to a river, hit the water and was then reassembledin the temple. To explain this practice it was connected to a custom, tes-tified to till modern times in the folklore of many areas of Europe, where

at the beginning of spring and at the summer solstice flaming wheels wererolled from hills down into the valley. However, it is controversial whetherin these customs the flame wheel symbolises the beneficial and fertility-spending strength of the sun or instead possesses a purifying function, i.e.serving as protection against witches and other demons which could doharm to fields and cattle. In addition, fire rites in the course of midsum-mer festivals are so widespread in Europe that they cannot be explainedonly in terms of Celtic ideas. Scholars like Helmut Birkhan (1999, p. 32)consider it far more likely that this Central European folklore goes backto Germanic influence.

I close here my necessarily brief survey and summarise once again: eavailable source material for a Celtic sun cult is very scanty. e most ex-pressive sources, namely the ancient literary testimonies, ignore this phe-nomenon almost completely. is fact cannot simply be explained in termsof the general disfavour into which the tradition had fallen, because about

other aspects of the Celtic religion we are informed much better. It remainsbeyond debate that in Gallo-Roman times there are several divinities linkedwith thermal springs in relation to which some sort of solar aspects are

48 ASS 9. Iunius p. II 166 AB = Zwicker 19341936, III, pp. 302303. ere are threerecensions of the acta Sancti Vincentii; the text of the extant manuscripts is quite cor-rupt. de Gaiffier 1952, pp. 160181 has procured a new edition which vastly differs(cf. pp. 175176) from the old one in the Acta Sanctorum.

49 A thorough description of this custom and similar folklore is given by Frazer 2000,

pp. 903943, who also quotes the interpretations at that time. Cf. also Gaidoz 1884/85,pp. 1931; Hatt 1951, p. 84; Green 1991, pp. 19, 59, 108, 164; Birkhan 1997, pp. 577578;Birkhan 1999, p. 32.


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likely. It must again be stressed at this point, however, that oen such in-terpretations are merely based on unsafe etymologies of the divine names.ese numina, mostly equated withApollo, are perceptible for us primar-

ily in their role as a healer. Since their solar function shines through onlyweakly, I would not call them sun gods in the narrower sense.

It is also beyond doubt that the Celts revered a sky god whose mostprominent attribute was the cosmic symbol of the wheel. is divine figure,which is not clearly perceptible before Roman times and which was equat-ed with the Roman sky god Iuppiter, can be determined in the absence ofwritten sources only quite vaguely. An unprejudiced consideration of the

available evidence must come to the conclusion that the religious concep-tions which the Celts had concerning the sun can scarcely be identified.erefore it seems to me that the sceptical positions, of which I have quotedtwo at the beginning of this paper, are right in the end. A solar cult with anelaborated mythology and complicated rites, as it is attested in ancient Egyptand old Iran, in India and among the Aztecs, the ancient Celts never had.

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Sonnenverehrung bei den Kelten - Andreas Hofeneder.pdf

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