Illyrian religion

Symbols are depicted in every variety of ornament and reveal that the chief object of the prehistoric cult of the Illyrians was the Sun,[4][5] worshipped in a widespread and complex religious system.

[8][3] To these can be added a larger body of inscriptions from the south-eastern Italian region of Apulia written in the Messapic language, which is generally considered to be related to Illyrian,[3][9][2][10] although this has been debated as mostly speculative.

[32] Early figurative evidence of the celestial cult in Illyria is provided by 6th century BCE plaques from Lake Shkodra, which belonged to the Illyrian tribal area of what was referred in historical sources to as the Labeatae in later times.

[7] The solar deity was often depicted by Illyrians as an animal figure, the likes of the birds, serpents and horses, or represented geometrically as a spiral, a concentric circle or a swastika.

The solar deity was worshipped in the family life cycle, in the cult of hearth and fire, of water and the mountains; in oath swearing but also as a source of livelihood, of health and fertility, or simply as a useful protective object.

[14][42] The importance of the serpent in the symbolic and religious system of the Illyrians is reflected in numerous archaeological discoveries in their settlements and necropolises, especially in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Serbia.

The word blavor is related to Albanian bullar and Romanian balaur, which are pre-Slavic Balkanisms that show the continuity of the cult of the serpent among the peoples of the region.

[52] A 3rd-century BC silvered bronze belt buckle, found inside the Illyrian Tombs of Selça e Poshtme near the western shore of Lake Lychnidus in Dassaretan territory, depicts a scene of warriors and horsemen in combat, with a giant serpent as a protector totem of one of the horsemen; a very similar belt was found also in the necropolis of Gostilj near the Lake Scutari in the territory of the Labeatae, indicating a common hero-cult practice in those regions.

[52][53] The reliefs of the Thracian horseman spread from the eastern Balkans into Illyria during the Roman era, appearing in the typical image of a hunter on horseback, riding from left to right.

[3][9][61] The lexicographer Hesychius of Alexandria (fifth or sixth century AD) mentioned a god named Dei-pátrous, worshiped in Tymphaea as the Sky Father (*Dyēus-Ph2tḗr) and a cognate of the Vedic Dyáuṣ Pitṛ́, Greek Zeus Patēr and Roman Jupiter.

[64] Hesychius recorded that the Illyrians believed in satyr-like creatures called Deuadai, which has been interpreted as a diminutive of the inherited Indo-European word for a "god" (*deywós).

[68] His name keeps on being used in the Albanian Kepi i Rodonit ("Cape of Rodon"), a headland located near Durrës which could be analysed as an Illyrian sanctuary dedicated to the god of the sailors in the past.

[81] Portrayed as riding on horseback and carrying a lance, Medaurus was the protector deity of Risinium, with a monumental equestrian statue dominating the city from the acropolis.

[85] Sedatus, Epona, Mars Latobius, Jupiter Optimus Maximus Teutanus, and other non-Illyrian deities were thus introduced by Roman and Celtic foreigners in the region, and local religion is hardly traceable before the Severan period.

Under the name Silvanus Messor, he was the protector of the harvest, while the epithet Silvestris, often paired with Diana and the Nymphs, depicted the hunter and the rural woodland identity.

[90] Some scholars have interpreted those peculiarities from the point of the view that Silvanus was an indigenous deity resembling Pan, but recognized by Classical writers as 'Silvanus' through the eyes of interpretatio romana.

[91] They generally link the representations of Silvanus with an erect phallus to pre-Roman fertility cults found earlier in the region, especially local ithyphallic depictions of the Iron Age.

[93] An opposing view regards the cult of Silvanus in Dalmatia and Pannonia as a tradition of Italian origin eventually adopted by Balkan populations living in Romanized areas during the second century AD.

[96] Vidasus is identified with Silvanus,[97] and his name may derive from the PIE root *widhu- ("tree, forest"), with a possible cognate in the Norse god Víðarr, who is said to live amid long grass and brushwood.

[102] Certainly due to a mixing of local traditions under Hellenistic influence, he was often associated with Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, fertility and religious ecstasy.

Variants like Andia or Andio were also common among the Dardanians,[119] and a lot of Illyrian personal names are found under the forms Andes, Andueia or Andena.

[122] Iapygian tribes (the Messapians, Daunians and Peucetians) all shared Messapic as a common language until the Roman conquest of Apulia from the late 4th century BC onwards.

[125] Indigenous Iapygian beliefs featured the curative powers of the waters at the herõon of the god Podalirius and the fulfilling of oracles for anyone who slept wrapped in the skin of a sacrificed ewe.

[131] Attested by the early 6th century BC,[132] Zis is not a loanword adapted from the Greek Zeus, but a parallel inheritance from the Proto-Indo-European sky-god *Dyēus (via an intermediate form *dyēs), and other cognates appear in Albanian Zojz, Vedic Dyáuṣ, Latin Jovis (*Djous) and Illyrian Dei(-pátrous).

[151] The opinion[12] according to which the Illyrians apparently did not develop a uniform cosmology on which to center their religious practices is incompatible with the discovery of a monument representing a round labyrinth that was dedicated to the "Dardanian Goddess" from Smira.

There is used a numerological and geometric approach through a multidimensional holographic field, which illustrates the Dardanian perception of the cosmic order and the interconnection between the material world and the higher realm.

[157] In Roman times Bato was one of the most notable Illyrian names, which perhaps was originally a nomen sacrum, and is outstandingly spread but condensed in Illyria, Thebes and Troas, with the presence of a temple dedicated to him at Argos, as recorded by Pausanias.

[165] Totemism may translate the ancient social relationships and religious conceptions held by Illyrians and their predecessors, a set of traditions that was still alive during the Roman period.

[23] The custom of burial in tumuli in the contracted position, which appeared also in southern Italy, especially in Apulia, suggest a movement of Illyrian peoples from the eastern Adriatic shore at the beginning of the first millennium BC.

[23] In the Iron Age, during the late 6th and early 5th century BC, the increase in cremation graves in the Glasinac culture has been interpreted as a possible collapse of the tribal structure which led to changes in the prevailing religious belief.