Kristiansen the Nebra Find and Early Indo-European Religion

Introducing the »Divine Twins«

The Nebra find combines well known ritual practices fromthe Early Bronze Age with a unique object, a bronze discdepicting the heavenly realm with moon, sun and stars and asun ship, all in gold (Meller 2oo4). It takes the idea of theBronze Age sun cult, as represented by the Trundholm SunChariot, one step further back in time, and it indicates thatthe myth of the journey of the sun (Kaul 1998, 262 fig. 17o;Kaul 2oo4) was anchored in a complex system of astronomicand cosmological knowledge (Randsborg 2oo6, chapter X).This knowledge originated in the Near East, where the sunand moon are often displayed on seals.

In Europe, however, it was wedded to a shared Indo-Euro-pean religion, which placed the sun cult and its practitionersin a milieu of dual gods (Gonda 1974; Olmstedt 1994; Kris-tiansen/Larsson 2oo5, 258–263). Most famous among themwere the so-called »Divine Twins«, the Vedic Asvins and theGreek Dioscuri (Ward 1968; Ward 197o), who were brothersof the sun goddess, her helpers and rescuers during thenight when she was taken away to the underworld. Thereplay of this myth is testified in Nordic Bronze Age iconog-raphy, rock art and bronze figurines dating from 17oo–5ooBC (Kristiansen/Larsson 2oo5, 318 fig. 146; Kristiansen forth-coming). They are also said to represent the morning and

TAGUNGEN DES LANDESMUSEUMS FÜR VORGESCHICHTE HALLE • BAND 05 • 2010

The Nebra find and early Indo-European religion Kristian Kristiansen

Zusammenfassung

Der Fund von Nebra und die frühe indoeuropäische

Religion

Die Himmelsscheibe von Nebra wirft in paradigmatischer

Weise zentrale Fragen zum Wesen frühbronzezeitlicher Reli-

gion auf. Im Folgenden wird die These vertreten, dass man die

rituelle und religiöse Bedeutung der Himmelsscheibe verste-

hen kann, wenn man sie in ein größeres, interdisziplinäres

Wissen einordnet.

Es zeigt sich, dass sich die Scheibe sehr gut in ein rituelles

Deponierungsmuster einfügt, ebenso wie ihr Dualismus mit

einem ähnlichen religiösen Dualismus in der protoindoeuro-

päischen Religion korrespondiert, der sich in den himmli-

schen oder »Göttlichen Zwillingen« darstellt. Die beiden Beile

und Schwerter sind die weltliche Darstellung dieser Götter,

die die Sonne transportieren und deren sterbliche Repräsen-

tanten anhand von in der gesamten Bronzezeit auftretenden

Doppeldeponierungen von Beilen, Schwertern, Helmen und

Luren identifiziert werden können.

Diese Interpretation untermauert ferner die Authentizität

des Funds. Die einzigartige Bronzescheibe mit Sonne, Mond,

Sternen und Himmelsschiff unterstützt die These einer gemein-

samen, synkretistischen bronzezeitlichen Religion vom Nahen

Osten bis nach Skandinavien, die auf dem Sonnenkult basier-

te. So wie die Sonnenscheibe von Trundholm eine spezifisch

nordische Auslegung nahöstlicher Sonnenscheiben ist, repräsen-

tiert die Himmelsscheibe von Nebra eine Umsetzung von nah-

östlicher kosmologischer Ikonographie und Wissen, übertra-

gen in einen europäischen bronzezeitlichen Kontext. Sie zeigt,

dass der Mythos der Sonnenreise in einem komplexen astrono-

mischen und kosmologischen Wissen verankert war, das Perso-

nen mit besonderer gesellschaftlicher Stellung ausübten, die in

Bestattungen und Horten identifiziert werden können.

Schlüsselbegriffe: Bronzezeit, rituelle Deponierungen, Dualis-

mus, »Göttliche Zwillinge«

Abstract

The Nebra find raises in paradigmatic way central questions

about the nature of early Bronze Age religion. In the follow-

ing paper I propose that by placing it in a wider interdiscipli-

nary field of knowledge it is possible to understand the ritual

and religious role of the Nebra find.

It can be demonstrated that it fits very well into a ritual

pattern of depositions, just as its dualism corresponds to a

similar religious dualism in Proto-Indo-European religion,

represented by the heavenly or »Divine Twins«. The two axes

and swords are a worldly representation of these gods who

carried the sun and whose mortal representatives can be

identified by the recurring deposition of twin axes, swords,

helmets and lurs throughout the Bronze Age.

This interpretation further supports the authenticity of

the find. The unique bronze disc with sun, moon, stars and

heavenly ship supports the interpretation of a shared, syncre-

tistic Bronze Age religion from the Near East to Scandinavia

based upon a sun cult. Just as the Trundholm Sun Disc repre-

sents a specific Nordic interpretation of Near Eastern sun

discs, so the Nebra Sky Disc represents an interpretation of

Near Eastern cosmological iconography and knowledge,

transmitted to a European Bronze Age context. It indicates

that the myth of the journey of the sun was anchored in a

complex astronomic and cosmological system of knowledge

performed by people with a special position in Bronze Age

society, who can be identified in burials and hoard deposi-

tions.

Keywords: Bronze Age, ritual depositions, dualism, »Divine

Twins«

evening star and the twin stars in the constellation of theGemini. This star constellation, which belongs to the wintersky, could possibly be identified in the lower part of theNebra Disc as it consists of eight stars in a formation muchlike what we see on the disc.

Their divine functions as rescuers of sailors, helpers inbattle, healers of illness, master musicians and dancers arefurther testified by recurring scenes on rock art, bronzework and figurines where they appear in pairs:

• either as humans carrying cult axes and playing lurs, asdancers with their staffs or poles (another of their attrib-utes),

• or in their transformed shape as horses1 pulling the sun,• or they transform into twin ships with horse heads

– retaining their identity – as they carry the sun safelythrough the sea of the underworld.

However, there exists a link between this iconography andits material attributes (axes, lurs), as these items are regu-larly found deposited, mostly in pairs throughout Centraland northern Europe (Kristiansen/Larsson 2oo5, 318 fig. 146).I shall now discuss the meaning of these deposits, based onthe textual evidence of the »Divine Twins« in early Indo-European religion, the result of which will also pertain to theNebra hoard.

The »Divine Twins« and their Bronze Age material corre-

lation

The textual evidence of the »Divine Twins« is securely datedto the Bronze Age as they are referred to by their Vedic nameas divine protectors in a treaty between the vassal princeKurtiuaza of the Mitanni and his Hittite overlord and greatking Suppilutima from 135o BC. The most detailed evi-dence, however, comes from the Rigveda, probably writtendown in the late second millennium BC, at the latest around1ooo BC, but referring back to a much earlier period. TheGreek evidence is generally a bit later, and in Germanic andCeltic texts the importance and the identity of the »DivineTwins« have dwindled as they were written down muchlater during the Iron Age and early Medieval period. Balticfolklore retains more evidence of their role (Ward 1968; Zeller199o). The importance of the »Divine Twins« is thus greaterthe further back in time we go. This is supported by archaeo-logical evidence that testifies to their importance during theBronze Age whereas they seem to have disappeared more orless during the Iron Age (Kristiansen 2oo3). Their role isthus safely linked to the earliest stratum of Indo-Europeanreligion.

While their role originally was as helpers of the sun god-dess, circling day and night in their chariot to draw the sunand break open the daylight, their roles seem to have changedover time. Thus, in Greek and later Roman tradition onetwin represented the warrior function (horse) and the otherfertility and farming (cow; Ward 197o). However, there is apeculiarity of the »Divine Twins« that makes them inter-

esting from an archaeological perspective, and that is theirrole as communicators between gods and humans, whichinclude their many roles as rescuers, which dates back to theRigveda (Zeller 197o, 36–84; Oberlies 1993). This is reflectedalso in the fact that in some legends the one twin is divinewhile the other is human born and thus deadly. The obviousimplication of this is that if some gods can become human,then some humans can also become divine. This »theocratic«trait creates an alliance between the rules of the gods and theruling of humans, which materialize archaeologically. It ex-plains the rich evidence of twin depositions and twin repre-sentations in iconography during the Bronze Age, beginningalready around 2ooo BC.

In the Early Bronze Age we find a rare group of burialsand hoards with twin depositions of objects and chieflymales, the most prominent being Leubingen in Thuringia.The two males, an old and a young person, were positionedacross each other in a cross, and so were their weapons, axesand daggers. Here we have a twin deposition linked to theburial of two aristocratic males. It indicates a special rela-tionship between them and throws light on the widespreaddeposition of twin axes and swords as well as other objectsin hoards. A similar cross deposition as in Leubingen is evi-denced in a burial from Brittany (Hansen 2oo2, 156 Abb. 6),just as the often large number of daggers and axes, whichsuggests that the royal or chiefly elites were connected bytrade and alliances.

However, during the Early Bronze Age it was more com-mon to make ritual deposits of prestige goods in moors andlakes or in the ground. In the Únětice culture we find, be-sides the many hoards with ring ingots, also depositionsespecially of halberds and axes in pairs. In multi-type hoardsit is often possible to find twin sets of ritual axes or halberds,which suggests that several of these hoards had a ritual mean-ing. During Montelius Period 1, which corresponds to thetime of the Nebra hoard in Scandinavia, ritual axes and agroup of magnificent swords or scimitars of Hittite inspira-tion were deposited in pairs (Fig. 1). The scimitar was a royaland divine attribute in the Middle East already from theearly second millennium BC, and in Hittite contexts we findbesides the scimitar another divine attribute: the kalmus. Itis a staff with a crooked terminal and was originally a herdingstaff. They were both symbols of paramount profane anddivine rank, to paraphrase Th. Larsson (1996, 78), and linkedto the sun god: »… den Krummstab kalmus, das Herrschafts-symbol des hethitischen Königs und des Sonnengottes …«(Haas 1994, 512f). Both these symbolic objects were em-ployed in the Nordic realm where we find the scimitar de-posited in ritual hoards in pairs, and the kalmus is displayedon rock art in Bohuslän, western Sweden, carried by a sunwheel figure/god (Fig. 2). These symbols and their transmis-sion to northern Europe point to the same kind of interna-tional connections as those underlying the Nebra Disc andthe famous Kivik grave on the east coast of Scania in Swe-den (Kristianen/Larsson 2oo5, 186–212).

During the Early Bronze Age there was no strict differen-tiation between weapons that were deposited in individual

432 KR IST IAN KR I ST IANSEN


1 Their name »Asvins« means tamer of horses,possessor of horses, born as horses.

433EARLY INDO -EUROPEAN REL IG ION


Abb. 1 Example of a twin deposition of swordsfrom Rørby, Denmark, from the same period asthe Nebra hoard.

graves, and those that were ritually deposited in pairs,mainly in hoards, except that ritual twin depositions con-tained mostly unused and beautifully executed pieces.During the Middle Bronze Age a differentiation took placeso that a class of divine cult objects was singled out for ritualuse only and was never or rarely deposited in burials (Vand-kilde 1999, figs. 8–9). They are richly decorated cult-axes, lateralso blowing instruments (lurs), bronze shields and helmets.In addition a group of »divine« priestly burials was now char-acterized by an exclusive use of sun symbolism and horsesymbolism. I shall characterize only the male burials, butthey are paralleled by a group of female priestly burials withsun discs and spiral decoration, which are often found inritual hoards as well (Kristiansen/Larsson 2oo5, 298 ff.). Inthe Tumulus culture the use of wheel pins may have had thesame symbolic meaning.

During Montelius Period 2 the horse head was a definingattribute of a group of chiefly priests in the Nordic realm aswe know them from rich tumuli burials. We find it on thehandle of the razor, which is symbolically formed as a ship,and also on the belt hooks (Fredell 2oo3, fig. 5,14). Theimportance of the horse head as a symbol of the Asvins andtheir role as rescuers and helpers is apparent from the Vedictexts:

Dem Dadhyanc, dem Atvarasohn, gabt ihr Asvin einenPferdekopf zum Ersatz.

… In der Begeisterung des Soma sagt es der Ausija laut:»Ihr gewinnt des Dadhyanc Sinn und der Pferdekopfstand euch Rede« …Worüber der Maghavan den Dadhyanc unterrichtete,das sagte (dieser) euch mit dem Pferdekopf.(excerpt from Zeller 199o, 79)

The role of the horse and especially its head in rituals is wellknown. The horse was divine, and the Asvins were horseborn and symbolized by a horse head in some hymns. Whenwe find the horse head as a main symbol on razors, whichcould also have been used for medical and ritual purposes,and when this very same group of graves also contains

• a special type of full-hilted swords with spiral decoration(the sun symbol), which were used mainly for parading(Kristiansen 1984),

• a spiral decorated war axe,• drinking cups with a protruding sun star at the bottom• and sometimes also a so-called »shaman bag« as in the

Hvidegård grave,

then we have here all the attributes of a mortal Asvin or rathera divine »Asvin-priest«. He was a medical expert/healer, awar leader (but not a warrior), a leader of rituals and drink-ing ceremonies and also performing in the important rituals,especially linked to the sun journey, as testified on rock art.

Later in the Bronze Age a goose or swan head replaced thehorse head on razors and ritual iconography, and ox hornsalso became a defining element on the helmets they wore. Itcorresponds to the several places in the Veda where theAsvins are called bulls. The important role of honey (whichis the basis for mead) in the Veda is interesting, as it was animportant morning ritual for the Asvins in order to breakopen the daylight. They used their whip to mix the honeyinto the soma drink:

Wecke die beiden Frühanspanner auf: Die Asvins solltenhierher kommen zum Trunke dieses Soma. Die auf gutemWagen die besten Wagenfahrer sind, die beiden Götter,die an den Himmel reichen, diese Asvins rufen wir. Eurehonighaltige, glückbringende Peitsche, ihr Asvin, mit derwürget das Opfer.… Eure Wagen (und) Pferde, die stärkungs- und honigrei-chen, fahren beim Hellwerden der Morgenröte aus, dieganz zugedeckte Finsternis den Raum durchziehend.(excerpt from Zeller 199o, 89f.)

This ceremony is directly reflected in the artful wooden cupsin the above group of graves where in two cases pollen anal-ysis has demonstrated that they contained honey, probablyas an ingredient in mead/soma, a tradition that is also docu-mented in the Single Grave culture of the third millenniumBC (Klassen 2oo5, 39ff.). Thus, when the cup was lifted tothe mouth, the sun would rise as the protruding star at thebottom became visible. I can think of no better parallel be-tween a ritual text and its corresponding piece of materialculture although separated by thousands of kilometres butonce unified by Bronze Age long-distance networks andtheir Eurasian origin in the third millennium BC.



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Abb. 2 From Anatolia to Scandinavia. The international context of thescimitar and herding staff (kalmus) linked to divine rulers and the sun godin the Hittite kingdom and in Early Bronze Age Scandinavia.



We may conclude that a recurring twin symbolism char-acterized a certain segment of the material and iconographicworld of the Early and Middle Bronze Age in Central andnorthern Europe. It was already introduced in the Úněticeculture, and in the Leubingen grave we can link the twinsymbolism to a ritual pairing of princely »twin« males. In allprobability it defined a dual ritual leadership. Later, duringthe Middle Bronze Age, a class of priestly chiefs can be de-fined. They were linked to the Asvins through horse headsymbolism and the exclusive use of sun symbolism throughspiral decoration and wheel symbolism. A small number ofdouble or »twin« male chiefly burials continued the traditionintroduced by the Leubingen grave. The importance of theritual sphere is underlined by the production of specialritual objects which are never found in burials. Thus, a com-plex ritual and religious system had emerged headed bychiefly priests (ritual leaders), who were in the service of theAsvins or rather their worldly representatives. They consti-tuted a ritualized, political leadership. Below them a chieflygroup of warriors without ritual functions was now in place,defined by the flange hilted sword. A large group of com-moners, who are ritually invisible, must be assumed to have

supported this chiefly structure, which was anchored in eachlocal community.

Thus, the twin swords and axes in the Nebra hoard corre-spond to a widely shared ritual tradition of such depositions,which is the material that correlates to the »Divine Twins«in Bronze Age ritual. It is further supported by the NebraDisc which links the »Divine Twins« (twin axes and swords)and the sun cult together and thus confirms their intimaterelation.

Divine Twins and twin kings – a Bronze Age tradition

The material and iconographic correlates of the myths of the»Divine Twins« are most clearly represented during theBronze Age. In the Vedic texts they are the most populargod, and also in Greece they were very popular. They helpedIndra, their mother’s brother and thus uncle, to get the somafrom Tvastar, the sky father, which suggests their impor-tance in the second and third generation of gods. Thereforethey are constantly referred to as young. Based on archaeol-ogical evidence from Europe, it is clear that the »DivineTwins« were dominant gods during the second millennium

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Abb. 3 Example of a double male burial of a ritual leader with full-hilted sword and staff (burial A) and a war leader with flange-hilted sword (burial B)from southern Jutland.

BC. Their popularity was linked to the expansion of the warchariot after 2ooo BC, which they used to drive around theearth with the sun. However, in the Vedic texts it is ratherdescribed as a cart with three wheels (or sets of wheels?),and in this it corresponds to the sun chariot from Duplje,which has three wheels (Kristiansen/Larsson 2oo5, 3o6f.fig.139), but also the cart carrying the horse and the sun inthe Trundholm miniature could be considered as a threeaxle cart. These examples suggest that the Vedic texts referto the use of miniatures which were to be rolled in ritualsand therefore needed an extra set of wheels.

The »Divine Twins« probably originated in the third mil-lennium BC, as we have a number of double male burialswhich may correspond to the twin chiefs/priests of theBronze Age (Madsen 197o). The tumulus barrow is also a sunsymbol, so its role in Indo-European religion dates back tothis period. Also the recurring beaker in male burials waslinked to ritual drinking as it contained mead or beer (Klas-sen 2oo5). Rich female burials with two sun shaped amberdiscs may further refer to a ritual role in the sun cult whereasthe dominant war axe or rather axe hammer in male burialsmay be a symbol of the oldest god, the sky god Tvastar.

However, it is not until the Bronze Age proper from 2oooBC onwards that a richer material culture and outstandingconditions of preservation in oak coffin burials in Denmarkallow us to reconstruct the religious institutions linked tothe sun cult and the »Divine Twins« or rather their earthlyrepresentatives. By this time the second and third genera-tion of young gods, headed by the »Divine Twins«, had takenprecedence. They are often referred to as young and shining,and their roles were numerous. By acting as mediators be-tween the sky and the earth, between the divine and the pro-fane, they instituted a divine, ritualized leadership basedupon dual kings or twin chiefs. N. Wagner already pointedout this relationship in 196o (Wagner 196o). He also pointedto the role of the »Divine Twins« in training young warriorsas they were supreme sportsmen, winners of running andboxing contests in the first Olympic Games but also dancersand leaders of the weapon dance (a training programme).Thus, he linked them to the training and initiation of youngwarriors, which would then be in the hands of their earthlyrepresentatives, the twin kings.

Wagner (196o) further pointed to several examples fromlater Germanic sources of twin or dual leadership, the mostwell known being Horsa and Hengist of the Jutes (whichmigrated to Kent in England in the fifth century AD), andwhose ritualized names refer to horses. Also among theGreeks we do find dual kingship, most famous again withthe Spartans, who traced it back to the Dioscuri, which weretheir national gods. The Spartans were originally migrants,just like the Jutes in Kent. Wagner therefore pointed to apossible relationship between dual leadership and conquestmigrations, leading to the foundation of new royal lineagesand chiefdoms.

The introduction of new traditions was another charac-teristic feature of the »Divine Twins«. This could just as wellbe linked to travelling, and therefore they were also the pro-

tectors and rescuers of sailors and travellers. The »DivineTwins« were eternal travellers in their golden chariot andthus epitomized the importance of speed and travelling inthe new more international and interconnected Bronze Ageworld. That was part of their dominant position. Their char-iot further represented the new warrior aristocracy, whichrose to power throughout Eurasia after 2ooo BC and oftenbased on dual leadership.

Looking at the archaeological evidence it lends support tothe dominant role of dual leadership in the Bronze Age. Wehave a few examples of double male burials, where a ritualchief and a warrior chief were buried together (Fig. 3). Thequestion is how it relates to the performance of »DivineTwins« on rock art and in ritual depositions. Here mortalchiefs with ritual functions played the role of the twins atthe large ceremonies.

Thus, we have at hand two possible models of dual leader-ship:

• one that was constituted by two divine/political leaders;• one that was constituted by a divine/political leader and

a warrior chief.

In the later case we must assume a subordination of the war-rior chief to the divine chief, which represented the highestleadership constituted in heaven by the »Divine Twins«. Inthe first case, the leadership was a replay of the »DivineTwins« and thus represented two equals, who may not havemet regularly but only on occasions of large rituals wherethey had to perform together. I leave the question open aswe have evidence which points to both models, and theymay indeed have co-existed. However, in Indo-Europeanmythology the dual leadership of the first, divine functionwas long ago demonstrated by G. Dumezil to be a wide-spread phenomenon from India to Rome and Scandinavia(Dumezil 1988). One might envisage that a ritual/politicalleader or king, supported by a war leader in periods of war-fare, constituted local political leadership. The »Divine Twin«leadership would thus have represented a higher level of lead-ership, for a whole chiefdom or kingdom, whereas the ritualleader and warrior chief would have been the normal modelat community levels.

The Greek evidence supports it where in Mycenaeantimes the great king was named »wanax« whereas the warleader was named »lavagetas« and subordinate to him. Thisrelationship could often be one of foster brothers, as in thecase of Achilles and Patrocles. The Spartan model of twoequal kings would thus represent an old Bronze Age heritagethat the Dorians brought with them from the northern Bal-kans into their new territories. The beginning of this dualleadership instituted in heaven is thus represented by theLeubingen burials and in the many following twin deposi-tions, of which the Nebra hoard is the most prominent. Itrepresents a wedding between old Indo-European religionand new astronomical knowledge from the Near East, whichalso characterized other areas of Bronze Age society andwhich lends the Bronze Age a unique historical character.





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Illustration credits

1 after Larsson 1996, fig. 152 adapted from Larsson 1996, fig. 153 Kristiansen/Larsson 2oo5, 276

fig. 122

Prof Dr Kristian KristiansenUniversity of Gothenburg

Department of Archaeology and Ancient HistoryBox 2oo

4o53o GöteborgSweden

[email protected]

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Kristiansen the Nebra Find and Early Indo-European Religion

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