by Jason Mankey
I feel comfortable writing that at least forty images of Cernunnos have been discovered, because most of those images are remarkably consistent. Cernunnos nearly always has the antlers of a stag, appears to be sitting, wears and/or carries a torc, and appears with a ram-headed serpent or coins. If Cernunnos wasn’t a god, it’s unlikely he’d be represented in such a consistent manner. Images of Cernunnos have been found in a variety of settings, and the god has been found on bowls, cups, altars, and columns. There are also several small statues of the god that have survived to the present day.
The surviving images of Cernunnos are important because they provide insights into how he was possibly worshipped in the ancient world. We’ll never know with absolute certainty what role Cernunnos filled for the Celts of Gaul, but we can make some pretty educated guesses. In this section of the book, we’ll take a close look at some of the more famous images of Cernunnos and use them to shed some light on his worship two thousand years ago.
Figure 6: Val Camonica rock drawing (artist’s rendition).
One of the oldest depictions of Cernunnos
is also one of the most unique.
The oldest surviving image of Cernunnos is a rock carving from Val Camonica, a valley in northern Italy not too far from the Swiss border (Figure 6). Created by Celts in the fourth century BCE, the image of Cernunnos from Val Camonica is not extremely detailed, but it contains most of the tell-tale signs of Cernunnos in art.85 The most noticeable part of the carving are the antlers on the god’s head.
Just what the antlers of Cernunnos signify is an open question. For most of us, they suggest a link to the natural world. Over the decades, several scholars have suggested that Cernunnos was a hunting deity, with the antlers supporting that assumption. Certainly in Val Camonica, hunting would have been an important and life-preserving activity. Stags might have simply been seen as powerful animals in their own right, and therefore worthy of adoration. Since stags are a source of meat, clothing, shelter, and tools, there’s certainly a lot to honor there.
Less prominent to the untrained eye, but hard to miss for the Cernunnos devotee, are the torcs around the arms of Cernunnos. To the ancient Celts, torcs were more than ornaments or jewelry; they were symbols of wealth, power, and status.86 The Snettisham Great Torc (found in Norfolk, England) is made of silver and gold and weighs just over a kilogram and incorporates sixty-four separate wires in its design! The torcs being wielded here by Cernunnos must have been thought to be similarly large, judging by their size on his arms. Both torcs and antlers are a part of nearly every Cernunnos image and are one of the primary ways he can be identified in ancient art.
It’s also worth noting the posture of Cernunnos’s arms in the Val Camonica carving. They appear to be in what’s known as the orans position, which tends to indicate prayer or supplication. It’s a common posture in Christian art and one still used by Catholic priests today, but it was also used by ancient Pagans. The fact that the small figure next to Cernunnos is also in this position also helps to indicate the divine status of the antlered god, in my opinion.
The squiggly line that begins on the left side of the figure and goes behind his back is most likely a snake or serpent. As we will discuss later in this chapter, the ram-headed serpent is a frequent companion of Cernunnos, so this could be a version of that. Cernunnos’s garb varies from image to image. Here he is wearing a long robe. The robe is not typical dress for the god, and it’s so long that it seems like it would make hunting unlikely, but it shows up in a few other images as well.
What’s really strange about the Val Camonica image is that Cernunnos is standing. In the fifty-plus images we have of Cernunnos from the ancient world, fewer than five have the god standing on his own two feet.87 Usually the god is sitting in a “Buddhic” posture (legs crossed, seat on the ground). Because this early image features him standing, this suggests that the sitting posture might have come later, or the standing pose might have been chosen simply because it was easier to draw. The Val Camonica image is not a masterpiece.
Regardless of the image’s quality, it is still important, because it suggests that all the things that make Cernunnos were in place by the fourth century BCE. It’s likely that the god went through some changes over the centuries, but his core essence seems likely to have stayed the same.
Figure 7: Gundestrup cauldron.
The panel featuring Cernunnos is on the inside of the vessel.
Perhaps the most iconic image of the Horned God in antiquity is Cernunnos on the Gundestrup cauldron (Figure 7). Unearthed in a peat bog in Denmark and created in Southeastern Europe (most likely modern-day Bulgaria or Romania), the Gundestrup cauldron is unlike any other artifact left by the ancient Celts.88 In fact, referring to the Gundestrup cauldron simply as a “Celtic” object may not even be accurate. It contains images of elephants and hyenas, animals that did not live in Europe when it was created, so whoever created it was clearly well-traveled and worldly.
In 2016 my wife and I saw the Gundestrup cauldron at the National Museum of Scotland. (The cauldron usually resides at the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen but was in the UK as part of a touring exhibit called The Celts. Before heading to Scotland, it was at the British Museum in London, and today again resides in Copenhagen.) The curators wisely placed the cauldron in the center of the exhibit, and as Ari and I walked through, we could feel the cauldron’s energy beckoning us to come closer. It took nearly all my willpower not to run straight toward it the moment I entered the exhibit.
Images of the Gundestrup cauldron do not do it justice. It’s far larger than most people imagine, a little over two feet across, and was designed to be taken apart. Instead of it looking like a solid bowl, the panels that make up the cauldron almost look like they are “clipped on” and ready to be disassembled again. (Upon its discovery, the cauldron was found intentionally taken apart.) It was most likely used for ceremonial or religious purposes, with only the very bottom of the bowl below its panels capable of holding liquid.
The cauldron is made almost entirely of silver, though there were once glass beads on the panels to serve as eyes for the figures on them. All of the images on the cauldron’s panels are also raised. This is easy enough to see in pictures of the Cauldron, but at the same time, those images do not convey its true 3-D nature.
Of the twelve surviving panels that make up the Gundestrup cauldron, the scene featuring Cernunnos is the most well-known, but the other images are equally striking. They are also in some ways more mysterious, and while they feature deities and scenes that most certainly look “Celtic,” no one is actually sure that the deities being represented are Celtic. Just what stories the cauldron is trying to tell have yet to be fully deciphered.
Despite what many people think, the panel of the Gundestrup cauldron featuring Cernunnos is not all that prominent (Figure 8). Instead of being featured on the outside of the cauldron, where it would most easily be seen, it’s an interior panel. Its placement means that to really see it, one must lean over and look into the cauldron. The image of Cernunnos is different from that of the other deities featured on the cauldron, too. The rest of the divine figures are depicted as having large heads and small bodies,while Cernunnos has the proportions of a normal-size man.
Figure 8: Cernunnos panel on the Gundestrup cauldron.
On the cauldron’s most famous panel, we see Cernunnos
surrounded by animals and a man riding a dolphin.
Much of what we believe we know about Cernunnos comes directly from the Gundestrup cauldron, so it’s worth going over what appears on his specific panel. In the image on the cauldron, Cernunnos is surrounded by a menagerie of animals. Just what species all the animals are in the image is a point of debate. The stag near Cernunnos, though, is crystal clear and shares his headwear (their antlers are the same). To the left of Cernunnos (your right in the image) are what appear to be dogs. Past the dogs there are some large cats, a
nd flanking both sides of the panel are some sort of horned animal, most likely a bull.89 (The most curious animal depicted is a dolphin who carries a human rider.)
The large number of animals surrounding Cernunnos in the image has led many to proclaim him the “Lord of the Animals,” but it’s really only on the Gundestrup cauldron that we see him in such a situation. In other images, he appears either mostly alone (not counting his serpents) or with other deities. Cernunnos surrounded by animals is the exception and not the rule. The proximity of the dogs to Cernunnos, as well as the nearby stag, supports the idea of Cernunnos as god of the hunt, but again, this is more of an outlier than a consistent characteristic in his iconography (though it shouldn’t be dismissed).
The meaning of the dolphin and rider image is rife for speculation, but the two figures are often overlooked or left out of many reproductions of the panel. Traditionally, water was a way to reach the Celtic Otherworld, a land of both deities and (most likely) the dead. The dolphin-rider could be an allusion to that idea, or something else entirely. The bovine figures, especially if they are cattle or bulls, could be a symbol of wealth, as livestock were important to the ancient Celts. If I’m correct in my assumptions about the dolphin/rider and the cattle, those ideas complement many of the other ideas represented by Cernunnos on the panel.
The biggest difference between Cernunnos on the Gundestrup cauldron and Cernunnos at Val Camonica is his sitting posture. There are several different theories that might possibly explain why Cernunnos is often depicted sitting with his legs crossed. The easiest one is that the Celts simply sat on the ground a lot. Instead of lounging in chairs or couches, the Celts of Gaul were more likely to sit with their legs crossed on the ground.90 Cernunnos sitting in a similar fashion might mean that he’s simply accessible to those who worship him. Sitting cross-legged on the ground is also a posture a Celtic hunter likely used when at rest.91
The most common explanation for the sitting posture of Cernunnos is that his pose is related to Asian or Indian practices. The speculation here is that Cernunnos is meditating; and considering the worldly nature of the Gundestrup cauldron, the idea can’t be dismissed out of hand. Most frequently, Cernunnos is compared to an image found on a seal discovered in the Indus River Valley (in modern-day Pakistan) dating from about 2000 BCE .92 Most commonly known as the Pashupati Seal, the seal is thought by some to depict an early image of the god we know today as Shiva (or Siva).
There are certainly similarities between Cernunnos and the figure on the seal, but there are differences too. While the figure from the Indus River Valley seems to be wearing horns, a closer look reveals that the horns look as if they are part of a helmet, and not a naturally occurring feature. They also look far more like “horns” than like the antlers of Cernunnos. The figure on the Pashupati Seal might also be female, while the Cernunnos on the Gundestrup cauldron is obviously male.93
Could the two figures be related? Most certainly. The Celts and the inhabitants of the early Indus River Valley civilization share common ancestors. Both groups are “Indo-European” (which is a language grouping more than a racial one), which means their individual languages came from the same origin point. The deities among Indo-European groups also seem to have evolved from the same rootstock. So it’s possible that Cernunnos and proto-Shiva have a common ancestor. However, the large gap of time between the creation of the Pashupati Seal and the first images of Cernunnos (1,600 years!) is quite large. The gap in time between the creation of the seal and the Gundestrup cauldron is even greater, with most scholars believing the cauldron was created between 150 and 50 BCE. 94
Along with torcs and the sitting position, the ram-headed serpent is one of the defining characteristics of a Cernunnos image. Unlike our culture’s rather problematic relationship with snakes, to the ancient Celts, serpents were positive and generally represented abundance and fertility.95 The Celts also believed that snakes guarded buried treasure, associating Cernunnos with wealth, much like the torcs he wears and holds. Rams were sacrificial animals in the world of the Celts, making it likely that the ram’s head on the serpent’s body represents sacrifice or death.96 As the homes of snakes are generally underground, the serpent might also be another link to Cernunnos and the Underworld.
Some scholars see the ram-headed serpent as a symbol of chaos or disorder, but that seems unlikely to me since Cernunnos seems to be in charge of the creatures when they are with him.97 That serpent more likely represents the balance between life and death, since the ram and the serpent together seem to inhabit those two paradigms.
Like the Cernunnos carving at Val Camonica, the god’s arms are once more in the orans position, indicating prayer. Even while holding a torc and a serpent, Cernunnos appears serene, perhaps even meditative. For those looking to bolster the god’s connection to India or Eastern meditative practices, Cernunnos’s expression on the Gundestrup cauldron gives the theory a bit more credence.
The most ambiguous of the signs on the Cernunnos panels might be the vegetative-looking ornamentation that appears between the various figures on the cauldron. I’ve always felt that the ornamentation looks like flowers, but no one really knows for sure what its meant to represent. What might be most interesting, though, is how the ornamentation is woven between the antlers of Cernunnos and that of the stag to his right. It’s by far the largest patch of ornamentation on the cauldron and might suggest some sort of metaphysical link between Cernunnos and the stag.
The Reims Stela
Outside of the Gundestrup cauldron, one of the most captivating images of Cernunnos appears on a stela found in the French town of Reims (Figure 9). Its similarity to the Cernunnos of the Pillar of the Boatmen suggests that it’s of a similar age to that of the monument, making it fifty to a hundred years younger than the Gundestrup cauldron. The Reims stela contains most of the symbolism we associate with Cernunnos, including antlers, sitting posture, a bull, and a stag, but there are other notable differences here as well.
The most obvious difference is that here, Cernunnos is flanked by two gods, Apollo on his right and Mercury to his left. If Cernunnos is connected to death, then his proximity to Mercury is appropriate. Mercury, after all, guided the souls of the dead into the Underworld. Mercury was also a god of commerce and money, and the idea of wealth is a frequent motif in Cernunnos art. Apollo’s appearance is a bit more problematic, but in his guise as a sun god, both Apollo and Cernunnos share an affinity with the natural world.
Figure 9: The Reims stela.
Here Cernunnos is flanked by two Roman gods,
Apollo to the left and Mercury (Hermes) to the right.
Instead of Cernunnos carrying a serpent or a torc (though he does wear a torc around his neck), there appears to be a large sack of coins on the god’s lap. In fact, the bag has so many coins that they are pouring out of his sack and onto the ground. The Reims stela is further indication that Cernunnos had something to do with money and wealth. The coins could also tie Cernunnos to the Underworld, as the metals used to make coinage are mined from the earth. Coins and metal were also associated with the Roman Pluto and Greek Hades, both deities of the Underworld. The fact that the coins fall between a stag and a bull should not be overlooked either. This could be another allusion to fertility, both in the wild and with domesticated animals. The stag might also once again tie Cernunnos to an activity like hunting.
An alternative explanation for the sack in Cernunnos’s lap is that it is a cornucopia, and that something other than gold is falling out of it, most likely grain. I don’t think this is likely, as those really do look like coins to me, but ancient art is open to a variety of interpretations. If it is a cornucopia, then Cernunnos could be feeding the stag and bull beneath him, suggesting dominion over domesticated animals.
Though sometimes depicted as whole in drawings of the Reims stela, Cernunnos’s antlers are broken in the original and appear as small bumps on the top of his head. The tines of
his antlers are present in the stela but appear above him, on the top of the temple that the three gods are standing in front of. It’s possible they were attached to his head once, or perhaps their broken nature is being used to indicate a time of year. Perhaps Cernunnos has shed his horns in the late winter and they are now being used as decoration to suggest either death or regeneration.
Also, at the top of the temple, between the possibly shed antlers, is a rat. The rat is not a typical companion of Cernunnos but might be here to suggest yet another association with death or the Underworld.98
The Goddess Cernunnos
Just like Pan, Cernunnos also has a female avatar. Though not an especially frequent figure in the archaeological record, she shares several attributes with Cernunnos, and her artifacts have been found in the same geographical area. One of the most interesting female Cernunnos images is a bronze statue from the Franche-Comté region of Eastern France, currently housed at the British Museum in London.
Sometimes interpreted as male, the figure has a clearly defined bosom and what appears to be a face with female features, though it should be noted that androgyny was not uncommon in the ancient world.99 This version of Cernunnos is depicted in a sitting position and partially resembles a stag. There are horns on top of this figure’s head, and I write “horns” here because they don’t quite resemble the antlers of a stag. The horns are far too thick to be antlers and lack the points that give antlers their distinct look.
Like similar statues that have been discovered over the years, this female Cernunnos seems to be carrying an offering bowl and a cornucopia on a pole. Her lap also looks like a welcome place for offerings, and on similar statues, offering bowls are often situated on the figure’s legs. The cornucopia could represent the abundance shared by the goddess Cernunnos, with the offering bowls serving as a reminder to present her with offerings as a means of thanks. Like most Cernunnos-related images, the cornucopia also suggests wealth.