Three Ancient Gods: From Buddhist Taxila, from the United Kingdom and from Sweden

1) Ancient India/ Pakistan - 2) Ancient Yorkshire, UK - 3) Ancient Nordic

These are three ancient Gods with hammers. Two of them have high hats, one has a horned hat. Two of them have resembling shoes, on the God depiction from the Nordic the shoe tip is cut off. However, the Sami people of the Nordic areas have traditionally used similar shoes as can be seen on the other two Gods, both from Ancient India (present Taxila in Pakistan) and from the United Kingdom.

Photo by PHGCOM, 2005 Wikimedia GNU. Indo - Greek Buddhist Kanishka Casket detail. The Kanishka copper casket was found near Peshawar. This is ancient Indo-Greek art and the ancient God has a Greek (i.e. Hellenistic) costume according to the following site www.cemml.colostate.edu. The figures on the casket are holding a garland. This particular casket i likely the copy exhibited at the British Museum, the original is exhibited at the Museum of Peshawar. Dated to 127 CE (A.D.). Read more about the Kanishka Casket

Photo is used with permission by Carol Ross: Credits to Britain Express.
A carved depiction of the Archaic Roman God Mercury from the 2nd or 3rd century, it is on the north west wall of the Kirby Underdale All Saints Church in Yorkshire, United Kingdom.

Sören Hallgren SHM

This is a depiction of what likely is an ancient God found in Kungsängen, Uppland in Sweden. It can be compared to Hermes and Mercury because of the horns. See depiction of a horned Mercury in the previous blog post. Item 17520, Statens Historiska Museum, Stockholm. The bronze figure has a high horned hat, a hammer/weapon and crossed sticks. It is dated to the same time period as the other two gods, i.e. Nordic Iron Age. The Sami people of the Nordic are known to have used X-crosses when offering to the ancient Gods (ref. Knud Leem, in the 1720's in Porsanger Finnmark, Norway). There was a period in the Nordic called "Roman Iron Age".

Again: Pay attention to the body ideals of these archaic Gods, they are quite different from the body ideals of the later arriving Christian Romans in Western Europe.

Traditional Sami shoes and clothing from Sweden. Photo by John Boyd (taisau, 2004).