Indo-European religion

The religion of the Proto-Indo-Europeans is not directly attested, but reconstruction has been attempted based on the existence of similarities among the deities, religious practices and mythologies of the Indo-European peoples. The hypothesized reconstructions below are based on linguistic evidence using the comparative method. Archaeological evidence is difficult to match to any specific culture in the period of early Indo-European culture in the Chalcolithic. Other approaches to Indo-European mythology are possible, such as the trifunctional hypothesis of Georges Dumézil.

Linguists are able to reconstruct the names of some deities in the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) from many types of sources. Some of the proposed deity names are more readily accepted among scholars than others.

The term for "a god" was *deiwos, reflected in Hittite, sius; Latin, deus, divus; Sanskrit, deva; Avestan, daeva (later, Persian, div); Welsh, duw; Irish, dia; Old Norse, tívurr; Lithuanian, Dievas; Latvian, Dievs.

The supreme ruler of the Proto-Indo-European pantheon was the god *Dyḗus Pḥ_ɑtḗr, whose name literally means "Sky Father." He is believed to have been worshipped as the god of the daylit skies. He is, by far, the most well-attested of all the Proto-Indo-European deities. The Greek god Zeus, the Roman god Jupiter, and the Illyrian god Dei-Pátrous all appear as the head gods of their respective pantheons. The Norse god Týr, however, seems to have been demoted to the role of a minor war-deity. *Dyḗus Pḥ_ɑtḗr is also attested in the Rigveda as Dyáus Pitā, a minor ancestor figure mentioned in only a few hymns. The names of the Latvian god Dievs and the Hittite god Attas Isanus do not preserve the exact literal translation of the name *Dyḗus Pḥ_ɑtḗr, but do preserve the general meaning of it.

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