also try out: EPONA MAIN PAGE | HORSE DEITIES | HORSE ARCHAEOLOGY | HORSEMANSHIP, ANTIQUITY | CAMARGUE HORSE |

Celtic, Celtiberian, Romano-Celtic Horse Deities

Page is work-in-progress. It's such a big topic...  // Diese Seite ist noch im Aufbau.
All photos (c) R.H.
Further reading, see for example my paper "How to identify Celtic Religion" from 2007 which discusses Epona and the "Jupiter" on horseback riding over snake-like giant-columns from Roman times (link to academia.edu)

EPONA - Celtic horse goddess / Keltische Pferdegöttin // Déesse celtique du cheval

Epona is probably one of the most well-known horse deities. Though her name is clearly of Celtic origin - epos 'horse' - she became popular in Roman times. She was a chthonic goddess, providing fertility and fecundity for humans, animals and earth. Below just some images of Epona sculptures here. But see my discussion on the EPONA PAGE when I discuss "Celtic" and "Romano-Celtic" religions.
Also see the burial of a mare and her foal under a hexagonal temple in Roman Britain: click here.
Click on image for further information and to enlarge image.

Chthonic Horses & Funerary Cult in the Iron Age | les chevaux chtoniens et le culte funéraire

The horse seems to play a particular role in southern Gaul as see from the Iron Age art from major sites, like Nîmes and Glanum. They were discovered in the same context as sculptures of humans (ancestors?), of human heads and human skulls. This may suggest a chthonic connection of the horse, for example, bringing the souls of the deceased to the otherworld. But this connection to the underworld is also something we see in the context of Epona: she can also appear in a funerary context...

Celtic or Romano-Celtic God on Horseback (?)

More to come...

JUPITER/TARANIS | Male God on Horseback | Jupitergigantenreiter | La colonne du dieux à l'anguipède

Unlike Epona, these sculptures show a male god - usually called after the Roman "Jupiter" - riding on a horse over a serpent-human hybrid monster. The god on horseback is a celestial deity, a sky god, while the 'monster' (or 'giant', 'titan') repreents the chthonic force.
Click on image for further information and to enlarge image.
Probably completely unrelated, but in 5th century Campania (Italy), we find this combination between a rider and his horse and humanoid beings with snake-like legs (as always, please click on photos for more info).

Solar Deity | Solar Horse | Cheval Solaire

The Gallo-Roman "Jupiter" on horseback is a celestial deity, a sky god. In this repect, the Celtiberian idea of a solar horse provide food for thought.
The solar horse chased by a fish-like creature across the night sky... From Burillo & Burillo 2017, in Celtic religions in the Roman period.
The solar horse chased by a fish-like creature across the night sky... From Burillo & Burillo 2017, in Celtic religions in the Roman period.
For futher reading on the Celtiberian solar horse and its iconography, see the paper:  Pilar Burillo-Cuadrato & Francisco Burillo-Mozota (2017), Looking at cosmology through the lens of hermeneutics and semantics. In Haeussler & King (eds), Celtic Religions in the Roman period. Aberytwyth.
And in the Greek world, we find the solar chariot.
INDO-EUROPEAN HORSE-HUMAN HYBRID DEITIES

हयग्रीव // Hayagriva

An avatar of Vishnu is the horse-headed god Hayagriva in Hinduism, the god for knowledge and wisdom.
Picture
Sri Lakshmi Hayagreeva at Chennai, 2009, photo from https://lakshmihayagreeva.wordpress.com/

Celtic horse-human hybrid deities

We find a horse-human hybrid in 'Celtic' religions, like on these coins. This is the androcephallic horse, i.e. a horse with a human head.
Androcephallic horse on a gold stater of the Aulerci Cenomani, 2nd-1st c. BCE
Androcephallic horse on a gold stater of the Aulerci Cenomani, 2nd-1st c. BCE
Androcephallic horse of the Aulerci Diablintes (Delestré 2167)
Androcephallic horse of the Aulerci Diablintes (Delestré 2167)
And here a horse-headed human figure from Iron Age Iberia (from: Burillo & Burillo (2017), Looking at cosmology through the lens of hermeneutics and semantics. In Haeussler & King (eds), Celtic Religions in the Roman period. Aberytwyth).
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Ralph Haeussler