Bronze statuette of the Gaulish god Taranis, dating to the I century A.D., now in the National Archaeological Museum (Musée d'archéologie nationale), Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France.
The name Taranis derives from the root *taran-, “thunder”, and identifies the god as a personification of thunder, analogue to the Germanic Thor and identified by the Romans with Iuppiter. The lightning the statuette holds in his hand is an evident borrowing from Greco-Roman iconography and brings to light the god’s function as thrower of lightning and master of the thunderstorm. The wheel, on the other hand, could be a solar attribute, or reference to the passage of time, thus to the changing of the seasons, which produces the regeneration of vegetation and crops (Duval 1976).


[Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Taranis_Jupiter_with_wheel_and_ thunderbolt_Le_Chatelet_Gourzon_Haute_Marne.jpg]