Proto-Indo-European mythology

Trundholm sun chariot, Nordic Bronze Age, c. 1600 BCProto-Indo-European mythology is the body of myths and deities associated with the Proto-Indo-Europeans. Although the mythological motifs are not directly attested – since Proto-Indo-European speakers lived in preliterate societies – scholars of comparative mythology have reconstructed details from inherited similarities in mythological concepts found in Indo-European languages, based on the assumption that parts of the Proto-Indo-Europeans' original belief systems survived in the daughter traditions. The Proto-Indo-European pantheon includes a number of securely reconstructed deities, which in various Indo-European traditions have cognate names (linguistic siblings from a common origin) and are associated with similar attributes and myths. These include *Dyḗws Ph₂tḗr, the daylight-sky god; his consort *Dʰéǵʰōm, the earth mother; his daughter *H₂éwsōs, the dawn goddess; his sons the Divine Twins; a solar deity*Seh₂ul; and a moon deity*Meh₁not. Some deities, like the weather god*Perkʷunos or the herding-god *Péh₂usōn, are only attested in limited geographic regions—Western (i.e. European) and Graeco-Ar