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Proto-Indo-European mythology is the body of myths and deities associated with Proto-Indo-Europeans, the hypothetical speakers of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language. Although mythological motifs are not directly attested – since Proto-Indo-European speakers lived in pre-literate societies – scholars of comparative mythology have pieced together details from the inherited similarities found between Indo-European languages, based on the hypothesis that parts of the Proto-Indo-European language of the original belief systems of Europeans survived in daughter traditions.
The Proto-Indo-European pantheon includes a number of deities that are robustly reconstructed, as they are both related – linguistic siblings of common origin – and associated with similar attributes and body of myths: such as *Dyḗws Ph₂tḗr, the god of the sky and daylight; his wife *Dʰéǵʰōm, mother earth; his daughter *H₂éwsōs, the goddess of dawn; his sons the Divine Twins; and *Seh₂ul, a sun goddess. Some deities, such as the weather god *Perkʷunos or the shepherd god *Péh₂usōn, are attested in only a limited number of traditions – Western (European) and Greco-Aryan, respectively – and may therefore represent late additions that are not are not common throughout the world. various Indo-European dialects.
Some myths are also reliably dated to the Proto-Indo-European era, because they present both linguistic and thematic evidence of an inherited motif: a story describing a mythical figure associated with thunder and killing a snake with several heads to release torrents of water that had previously backed up; a creation myth involving two brothers, one of whom sacrifices the other to create the world; and probably the belief that the Otherworld was guarded by a guard dog and could only be reached by crossing a river.
Various schools of thought exist regarding possible interpretations of reconstructed Proto-Indo-European mythology. The main mythologies used in comparative reconstruction are Indo-Iranian, Baltic, Roman and Norse mythologies, often supported by evidence from Celtic, Greek, Slavic, Hittite, Armenian, Illyrian and Albanian traditions.
One of the oldest attested Indo-European mythologies and therefore one of the most important is Vedic mythology, particularly the mythology of the Rigveda, the oldest of the Vedas. Early scholars of comparative mythology, such as Friedrich Max Müller, emphasized the importance of Vedic mythology to such an extent that they virtually equated it with Proto-Indo-European myths. Modern scholars have been much more cautious, recognizing that while Vedic mythology remains central, other mythologies must also be considered.
Another of the most important source mythologies for comparative research is Roman mythology. The Romans had a very complex mythological system, parts of which have been preserved thanks to the characteristic Roman tendency to rationalize their myths into historical accounts. Despite its relatively late attestation, Norse mythology is still considered one of the three most important Indo-European mythologies for comparative research, due to the vast majority of Icelandic material surviving.
Baltic mythology has also received much attention from scholars, as it is linguistically the most conservative and archaic of all the surviving branches, but has until now remained frustrating to scholars due to the relatively late date of the sources. Nevertheless, Latvian folk songs are considered a major source of information in the process of reconstructing the Proto-Indo-European myth. Despite the popularity of Greek mythology in Western culture, Greek mythology is generally considered to have little importance in comparative mythology due to the strong influence of pre-Greek and Near Eastern cultures, which overwhelms the few Indo-European material that can be extracted from it. Consequently, Greek mythology received little scholarly attention until the first decade of the 21st century.
Although the Scythians are considered relatively conservative towards Proto-Indo-European cultures, retaining a similar lifestyle and culture, their mythology has very rarely been examined in an Indo-European context and rarely discussed with respect to concerns the nature of ancestral Indo-European heritage. mythology. At least three deities, Tabiti, Papaios, and Api, are generally interpreted to have Indo-European origins, while the others have been subject to more disparate interpretations. The influence of Siberian, Turkish and even Near Eastern beliefs, on the other hand, is more widely discussed in the literature.
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