Proto-Indo-European mythology

Proto-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.

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