Proto-Indo-European mythology

Proto-Indo-European mythology is the possible mythology of the Proto-Indo-Europeans.^[1] These are the people who spoke the Proto-Indo-European language. Scholars believe many mythologies like Greek mythology have elements from it.^[2]

Proto-Indo-European Mythology Media

Trundholm sun chariot, Nordic Bronze Age, c. 1600 BC
Portrait of Friedrich Max Müller, a prominent early scholar on the reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European religion and a proponent of the Meteorological School.^[3]
Scheme of Indo-European language dispersals from c. 4000 to 1000 BCE according to the widely held Kurgan hypothesis.
- Center: Steppe cultures
- 1 (black): Anatolian languages (archaic PIE)
- 2 (black): Afanasievo culture (early PIE)
- 3 (black) Yamnaya culture expansion (Pontic-Caspian steppe, Danube Valley) (late PIE)
- 4A (black): Western Corded Ware
- 4B-C (blue & dark blue): Bell Beaker; adopted by Indo-European speakers
- 5A-B (red): Eastern Corded ware
- 5C (red): Sintashta (proto-Indo-Iranian)
- 6 (magenta): Andronovo
- 7A (purple): Indo-Aryans (Mittani)
- 7B (purple): Indo-Aryans (India)
- [NN] (dark yellow): proto-Balto-Slavic
- 8 (grey): Greek
- 9 (yellow): Iranians
- [not drawn]: Armenian, expanding from western steppe
Charon prepares to receive the shade of a youth into his skiff. The ferryman leans on his pole and is surrounded by the reeds of the river Acheron (one of the five rivers of the Greek underworld).
Zoroastrian deities Mithra (left) and Ahura Mazda (right) with king Ardashir II.
Zeus with a laurel crown. Gold stater from Lampsacus, Mysia (ca. 360–340 BC), obverse.
Eos in her chariot flying over the sea, red-figure krater from South Italy, 430–420 BC, Staatliche Antikensammlungen, Munich.
Possible depiction of the Hittite Sun goddess holding a child in her arms from between 1400 and 1200 BC.