Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
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7th century

This page groups deities by the earliest year a surviving written or inscribed source places them, sorting gods by how far back their documented worship can actually be traced. Archaeologists call this kind of earliest possible date a terminus post quem, which Wikipedia defines as "the earliest date the event may have happened or the item was in existence." Browsing by first attestation separates deities known from the oldest surviving records from ones who only appear in much later texts.

Facts
Overview
What Defines This Grouping
The gods of the Celtic-speaking peoples, collected by language family rather than by any shared cult. Two evidence bases barely overlap: Gaulish and British theonyms on Roman-period inscriptions, usually paired with a Roman name, and the Irish gods of medieval manuscripts written by Christian monks centuries after conversion. No unified Celtic pantheon is recoverable from either. 2
Peoples and Traditions Covered
Gaul and the Continental Celtic-speaking peoples, known almost entirely from Roman-period epigraphy and from Greek and Roman writers 2
Peoples and Traditions Covered
Ireland, whose gods survive in medieval Irish manuscript literature written after conversion 2
Peoples and Traditions Covered
Roman Britain, known from inscriptions and from deities paired with Roman ones 2
Attestation
Era of Attestation
Gaulish and British theonyms appear from the first century BCE in Roman-period inscriptions and reliefs; the Irish material only in manuscripts of the eighth to twelfth centuries CE. 2
Veneration Today
The ancient cults did not survive Christianisation as continuous practice. 2
Veneration Today
Venerated in modern Druid and Celtic reconstructionist religions, which are movements of the last three centuries and mostly of the last one. 5
Status
Standing as a Comparative Category
Celtic is a classification of languages. Whether it names one people, or one religion, has been actively disputed in the scholarship for three decades, and that dispute bears directly on whether this grouping names anything at all. 4
Directory
Category
Deities 1
Contested Use
Contested or Appropriated Modern Use
Celtic spirituality and modern Druidry draw on this material, but much of what circulates under those names - the tree calendar and its alphabet above all - was composed between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries and is not attested in the ancient or medieval sources. 3
Origins
Origin of the Name
From the Greek Keltoi, a name Greek and Roman writers used of peoples north and west of the Mediterranean. It was applied to a family of languages only in the eighteenth century, and to the peoples of Ireland and Britain later still. 4
Learn More
The gods of the Celtic peoples

This group gathers the deities of the Celtic-speaking peoples of Ireland, Britain and Gaul. The evidence is uneven: the Irish gods are known from medieval manuscripts written by Christian monks centuries after conversion, the Gaulish and British gods largely from Roman-era inscriptions and altars, so no single, unified Celtic pantheon can be recovered.

The browser will find the Irish Tuatha De Danann (the Dagda, the Morrigan, Lugh, Brigid, Danu), alongside Gaulish and British figures such as Cernunnos, Epona and Sulis. The atlas is explicit that these were distinct regional traditions and that their myths reach us through later, often Christianising, hands.

7th century
Filter Results9 entries

Aengus

7th century

Dagda

7th century

Dian Cecht

7th century

Donn

7th century

Lugh

7th century

Manannan mac Lir

7th century

Nuada

7th century

Ogma

7th century

The Morrigan

7th century
Sources
1. Divinity Atlas Directory Taxonomy, First Edition Category Tree
2. Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia
John T. Koch (ed.), ABC-CLIO, 2006s.v. religious beliefs, pre-Christian CelticView the Source
3. Blood and Mistletoe: The History of the Druids in Britain
Ronald Hutton, Yale University Press, 2009chs. 4-7View the Source
4. The Atlantic Celts: Ancient People or Modern Invention?
Simon James, British Museum Press, 1999ch. 2View the Source
5. Modern Paganism in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives
Michael F. Strmiska (ed.), ABC-CLIO, 2005chapter on Celtic Paganism
Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptions
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