[gothic-l] Re: Goths, Eruli in the East

[einarbirg]

--- In gothic-l at y..., andreas.schwarcz at u... wrote:

 ***Hæ Andreas.                                                  
Thanks for the information. I must admit that this is a subject I do 
know little about.

  Bless,bless Einar.*****


> Dear Einar,
> I agree that there is not much that we know about the religion of 
the 
> Goths, but we do know something about it. You will find some 
> evidence for this in Wolfram's book on the Goths and in my article 
> about cult and religion of the Tervingi in The Visigoths (ed.Peter 
> Heather). We know nothing of the gods of the Gothones of the 1st 
> century A.D. The Greuthungi seem to have worshipped (according 
> to Jordanes) a gothic version of Mars, i.e. a war god. The Tervingi 
> brought sacrifices to the river gods before their conversion to 
> Christianity and worshipped wooden idols which they are said to 
> have brought over the Danube into the empire (by Eunapius). No 
> source whatever mentions a mother goddess or gives the name of 
> Freya or Freyr in connection with any group of the Goths. But we 
> know from the archeological sources that all Gothic groups from 
> Wielbark till the cemeteries of the Visigoths in Spain have in 
> common  that they buried their male dead without weapons (cf. 
> Bierbrauer and Kazanski). In this respect Wielbark f.i. was totally 
> different to all contemporary neighbouring cultures and to the 
> situation in Scandinavia at the same time, one of the strongest 
> arguments. by the way, against a Scandinavian origin of the Goths, 
> together with the total difference in house forms analysed by 
> settlement archeology (cf. f.i. the publications of Kmiecinski in 
> Peregrinatio Gothica). We know from Paulus Diaconus that the 
> Longobards worshipped Freya and then chandeg to Woden. 
> Nothing of that kind of information is there for the Goths and 
their 
> archeology tells us that their ideas of the world of the dead 
differred 
> from other peoples' ideas.
> Kind regards
>                      Andreas    
> ao.Univ.Prof.Dr.Andreas Schwarcz
> Institut fuer oesterreichische Geschichtsforschung
> Universitaet Wien
> Dr.Karl-Lueger-Ring 1
> A 1010 Wien
> Oesterreich
> tel.0043/1/42-77/272-16
> fax 0043/1/42-77/92-72
> email andreas.schwarcz at u...


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