The God of Bouray is a Celtic bronze statuette dredged from the River Juine within Bouray-sur-Juine. The statuette is of a cross-legged human figure with an oversized head and hooved feet. It is thought to represent a Gallic god, perhaps the stag-god Cernunnos.
The statuette was dredged from the Juine River in 1845, in a portion of the river near the gardens of the Château de Mesnil-Voisin in Bouray-sur-Juine. [1] : 64 The statuette was not recognised as an archaeological piece until it was shown to Antoine Héron de Villefosse in 1911. It was obtained by the Musée des Antiquités Nationales in 1933. [1] : fn 117
The statuette is hollow and is made of soldered together bronze plates. [2] The lead solder was originally covered up with copper wiring. [3] : 87 The figure's torso and legs are made of two bronze plates beaten into shape. Two cylinder-shaped plates probably would have formed the figure's arms, now lost. The two plates forming the head were cast. The left eye is inlaid white-and-blue cast glass; the right eye is missing. On the bottom, there are indications that the statuette was once soldered to a metal base. The statuette is 42cm tall. [1] : 64 [2] [4] : 35–36
The statuette is of a male figure. His whole body is rendered, but his head and neck make up more than half the height of the statuette. The figure's head juts forward slightly. The two plates composing the head have been soldered together behind the ears. The figure's chin projects forward. He has a clasped torc around his neck. The figure is beardless with heavy facial features. His mouth is small and thin-lipped. His nose is long and thin. His eyes are rendered in great detail, with the aforementioned glass insets, striations around the eye socket to represent eyelashes, and great arch-shaped eyebrows. The forehead is covered by a straight, centrally parted fringe. Three layers of hair are rendered on the back of the head, giving the impression of depth. [4] : 36–39 [3] : 87–88
The lower half of the statuette is marked by decreasing detail as it goes further down. On the front, two low relief quarter-circles on the torso mark the figure's pectorals and small dots render the nipples. The navel is not even marked. On the back, quarter-circles are used to render the shoulder blades and buttocks. The legs are much undersized and somewhat clumsily rendered. They jut out, hiding the figure's pelvis entirely. The legs are crossed in lotus position and end in hooves (described as goat or deer-like). A small part of the figure's upper arm survives. Traces of solder on the figure's legs suggest his hands rested on his knees. [4] : 36–39 [5]
The date of the statuette is a difficulty. Dates ranging from the 2nd century BC to the 3rd century AD have been proposed, [2] however conventionally the statuette is placed between the 1st century BC and early 1st century AD. [1] : 64 The naturalism of the head seems to bear Roman influence and the statuette does resemble pieces from after the Roman occupation of Gaul in 52 BC, [a] but its facial features, seated position, and general disregard for proportions seem more archaic than this. [1] : 64 [2] Moreover, Roman statuettes of this size are rarely soldered together from as many individual pieces. [1] : 64 Archaeologist Jean-Paul Guillaumet, in classifying Gallic seated figures, complains that the piece has not been securely dated and appears stylistically as "a montage of two pieces from different periods". [7] : 181 [b]
The nude, hooved figure has been widely received as a Gallic god. [1] : 63 Héron de Villefosse recognised the statue as a depiction of a god and drew comparison with the deer-antlered figure on the Gundestrup cauldron, now recognised as a depiction of the Celtic stag-god Cernunnos. [5] Two attributes of Cernunnos, the torc and the crossed legs in lotus position, are represented here. However the statuette lacks the usual antlers. [8] : 89–90, 212 The hooves are perhaps a substitute attribute for antlers; [2] an antlered Cernunnos possesses hooves in a stele found at Beaune. [8] : 90 Raymond Lantier and François Braemer are among those who identify the figure with Cernunnos, [3] : 86–87 but Guillaumet is among those unconvinced. [1] : 64, fn 118
Guillaumet has pushed back on the interpretation of the figure as nude and hooved. He points out that the lack of detail on the torso (and emphasis on the pectorals) are consistent with an anatomical cuirass, [7] : 174 though this is difficult to reconcile with the buttocks and shoulder blades. [1] : 64 Guillaumet has also suggested the hooved-feet are in fact poorly rendered shoes. [7] : 174
In ancient Celtic and Gallo-Roman religion, Cernunnos or Carnonos is a god depicted with antlers, seated cross-legged, and is associated with stags, horned serpents, dogs and bulls. He is usually shown holding or wearing a torc and sometimes holding a bag of coins and a cornucopia. He is believed to have originally been a Proto-Celtic God. There are more than fifty depictions and inscriptions referring to him, mainly in the north-eastern region of Gaul.
The Horned God is one of the two primary deities found in Wicca and some related forms of Neopaganism. The term Horned God itself predates Wicca, and is an early 20th-century syncretic term for a horned or antlered anthropomorphic god partly based on historical horned deities.
The Horned Serpent appears in the mythologies of many cultures including Native American peoples, European, and Near Eastern mythology. Details vary among cultures, with many of the stories associating the mystical figure with water, rain, lightning, thunder, and rebirth. Horned Serpents were major components of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex of North American prehistory.
The Gundestrup cauldron is a richly decorated silver vessel, thought to date from between 200 BC and 300 AD, or more narrowly between 150 BC and 1 BC. This places it within the late La Tène period or early Roman Iron Age. The cauldron is the largest known example of European Iron Age silver work. It was found dismantled, with the other pieces stacked inside the base, in 1891, in a peat bog near the hamlet of Gundestrup in the Aars parish of Himmerland, Denmark. It is now usually on display in the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen, with replicas at other museums; it was in the UK on a travelling exhibition called The Celts during 2015–2016.
The Master of Animals, Lord of Animals, or Mistress of the Animals is a motif in ancient art showing a human between and grasping two confronted animals. The motif is very widespread in the art of the Ancient Near East and Egypt. The figure may be female or male, it may be a column or a symbol, the animals may be realistic or fantastical, and the human figure may have animal elements such as horns, an animal upper body, an animal lower body, legs, or cloven feet. Although what the motif represented to the cultures that created the works probably varies greatly, unless shown with specific divine attributes, when male the figure is typically described as a hero by interpreters.
The Pillar of the Boatmen is a monumental Roman column erected in Lutetia in honour of Jupiter by the guild of boatmen in the 1st century AD. It is the oldest monument in Paris and is one of the earliest pieces of representational Gallo-Roman art to carry a written inscription.
The ancient carnyx was a wind instrument used by the Celts during the Iron Age, between c. 200 BCE and c. 200 CE. It was a type of trumpet made of bronze with an elongated S shape, held so that the long straight central portion was vertical and the short mouthpiece end section and the much wider bell were horizontal in opposed directions. The bell was styled in the shape of the head of an open-mouthed boar or other animal.
Gallo-Roman religion is a fusion of the traditional religious practices of the Gauls, who were originally Celtic speakers, and the Roman and Hellenistic religions introduced to the region under Roman Imperial rule. It was the result of selective acculturation.
The Ambiani were a Belgic coastal tribe dwelling in the modern Picardy region during the Iron Age and Roman periods.
The gods and goddesses of the pre-Christian Celtic peoples are known from a variety of sources, including ancient places of worship, statues, engravings, cult objects, and place or personal names. The ancient Celts appear to have had a pantheon of deities comparable to others in Indo-European religion, each linked to aspects of life and the natural world. Epona was an exception and retained without association with any Roman deity. By a process of syncretism, after the Roman conquest of Celtic areas, most of these became associated with their Roman equivalents, and their worship continued until Christianization. Pre-Roman Celtic art produced few images of deities, and these are hard to identify, lacking inscriptions, but in the post-conquest period many more images were made, some with inscriptions naming the deity. Most of the specific information we have therefore comes from Latin writers and the archaeology of the post-conquest period. More tentatively, links can be made between ancient Celtic deities and figures in early medieval Irish and Welsh literature, although all these works were produced well after Christianization.
Deities depicted with horns or antlers are found in numerous religions across the world. Horned animals, such as bulls, goats, and rams, may be worshiped as deities or serve as inspiration for a deity's appearance in religions that venerate animal gods. Many pagan religions include horned gods in their pantheons, such as Pan in Greek mythology and Ikenga in Odinala. Some neopagan religions have reconstructed these deities into the concept of the Horned God, representing the male aspect of divinity in Wiccan belief.
The Gauls were a group of Celtic peoples of mainland Europe in the Iron Age and the Roman period. Their homeland was known as Gaul (Gallia). They spoke Gaulish, a continental Celtic language.
The Palaikastro Kouros is a chryselephantine statuette of a male youth (kouros) excavated in stages in the modern-day town of Palaikastro on the Greek island of Crete. It has been dated to the Late Minoan 1B period in the mid-15th century BC, during the Bronze Age. It is now on display in the Archaeological Museum of Siteia. Standing roughly 50 cm tall, its large size by the standards of other figurines in Minoan art, and the value of its materials may indicate that it was a cult image for worship, the only one known from the Minoan civilization.
The Statuette of Mercury is a Roman bronze statuette of the god Hermes created in the 2nd century CE. Acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2023, it is among a set of similar set of figurines acquired throughout the museum's history to be of either Gallic or Italic origin that likely served as a figure of worship in family household shrines.
The Celtic leaf-crown is a motif of Celtic art from the early La Tène period. A leaf-crown is composed of two broad lobe-shaped elements. The crowns adorn the heads of anthropomorphic figures, almost always male and often bearded. The lobes have been identified with mistletoe leaves. The interpretation of this motif is doubtful, but it has been suggested to bear connotations of high status or divinity.
The Euffigneix statue or God of Euffigneix is a Celtic stone pillar statue found near Euffigneix, a commune of Haute-Marne, France. The statue has been dated to the 1st century BC, within the Gallo-Roman period. The statue is a human bust with a large relief of a boar on its chest. The boar was a potent symbol for the Celts and the figure has been thought to represent a Gaulish boar-god, perhaps Moccus.
The God of Amiens is a Gallo-Roman bronze statuette found in Amiens, Somme. The statuette, which has been dated to the end of the 1st century CE, is of a male youth sat in lotus position, with the right ear of an animal, perhaps a deer's. This statuette is on display at the Musée de Picardie.
The God of Étang-sur-Arroux is a Gallo-Roman bronze statuette, probably found in the commune of Étang-sur-Arroux, not far from Autun, France.
The Lyon cup is a silver Gallo-Roman cup found in Lyon, France.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)