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The sky father was the chief god of the steppe people that lived north of the Black and Caspian Seas during the Neolithic into the Bronze Age, so 'Jupiter' as s

The sky father was the chief god of the steppe people that lived north of the Black and Caspian Seas during the Neolithic into the Bronze Age, so 'Jupiter' as such was worshiped for 2000 years before the Greek speakers called him that. As these people (according to all the currently most accepted archaeological and linguistic evidence) are the ancestral culture of most of Europe, Iran, and India (with the exception of the native Dravidians), it makes sense the Greeks as well as most of the religions of Europe and southwest Asia also worshipped him.

ducktective 5y ago
I think by steppe people, you are referring to Indo-Europeans (Aryans). There is also a sky-god in Tengrism (Mongols, Turks). But are either of those actually referring to the planet Jupiter?
- sillyquiet 5y ago
  Nah, the naming of the planet came much later, I don't think the planet itself was ever worshipped. And the Proto-Indo-Europeans are not the Aryans - the Aryans were a much later daughter culture in Western Afghanistan, Northern Iran and India, and probably the folks that had the beliefs outlined in the first pages of the Rig Veda. The steppe people I am referring to are the people of the Yamnaya culture and related peoples within their horizon. The Mongols and Turks were relative late comers to the western steppes.
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    Pretty sure "Aryans" is a 19th and 20th century term used for the Indo-Europeans (or roughly approximating "Indo-Europeans"), hence the association of "Aryan" and 20th century race ideology (e.g., theories of an "Aryan homeland" was in Germany, that the Germans were a pure Aryan race, etc).
    - sillyquiet 5y ago
      The racialists of the late 19th Century and early 20th co-opted the term, but there was a real peoples that really called themselves 'Aryans'. They weren't blue eyed blonde-haired, that's for sure, and the weren't at the root of Europe either. Like I said, they were a central Asian daughter culture. They probably spoke Indo-Iranian and their beliefs were later written down in the Riga Veda as well as being a component of Iranian Zoroastrianism. ('Aryan' is cognate with the proto-Indo-European 'h₂éyos')
      - fsckboy 5y ago
        > They weren't blue eyed blonde-haired, that's for sure ok but the world-wide "suppress melanin/blue eyes" gene emerged in that same part of the world (north of the Black Sea) some 10,000 years ago, so it seems that the Aryans could have been as blue eyed as anybody. https://web.archive.org/web/20091101055254/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/3323607/Blue-eyes-result-of-ancient-genetic-mutation.html https://web.archive.org/web/20091101055254/http://www.telegr...
        sillyquiet 5y ago
        well, possibly, but as they are probably the ancestors of many North Indian, Iranian, and Afghanistani peoples that gene didn't stay dominant for their line. (Though I guess it shows up in that region now and again). And they certainly weren't the 'Aryan ideal' as pictured in racist propaganda.
      - throwaway894345 5y ago
        I agree, I wasn't disputing that there were real people who self-identified with the term, I was contesting your correction that "Aryan" solely refers to these people. You might counter that the overloaded meaning is invalid for whatever reason, but (1) meanings of the propriety of words are boring and subjective and (2) I'm only saying there exists an overloaded meaning, not that everyone will find it valid nor that it excludes the validity of other meanings. As an aside, I recently discovered (from my new Iranian neighbors) that the term "Aryan" is cognate with "Iran" the country. "Iran" in Persian means something like "Land of the Aryans", and that in 1935 the government of Iran asked its diplomatic partners to refer to it as Iran instead of Persia because of the popularity of Aryan racial ideologies.
throwaway894345 5y ago
The etymology of Jupiter is also fascinating. https://www.etymonline.com/word/jupiter https://www.etymonline.com/word/jupiter > also Juppiter, c. 1200, "supreme deity of the ancient Romans," from Latin Iupeter, Iupiter, Iuppiter, "Jove, god of the sky and chief of the gods," from PIE dyeu-peter- "god-father" (originally vocative, "the name naturally occurring most frequently in invocations" [Tucker]), from deiw-os "god" (from root *dyeu- "to shine," in derivatives "sky, heaven, god") + peter "father" in the sense of "male head of a household" (see father (n.)). Greek and Sanskrit also had similar deities: > Compare Greek Zeu pater, vocative of Zeus pater "Father Zeus;" Sanskrit Dyaus pitar "heavenly father." Basically the Greeks dropped the `-pater` bit and `Zeus` remained. Whether or not these deities were similarly associated with the planet Jupiter is a different question though.
- sillyquiet 5y ago
  > Whether or not these deities were similarly associated with the planet Jupiter is a different question though. Very doubtful, those names are modern applications to the planet. Although, there is zero doubt they were aware of and cognizant of the visible planets and their motions and no doubt had important names for them, it wasn't what western astronomers called them, almost certainly. Also Dyaus Pater was a god of the daylight sky for the most part, which in the steppes, as you can imagine, made him pretty important and omnipresent.
- scns 5y ago
  Hm, Jove and Yahwe are pretty close i'd say.
  - ithkuil 5y ago
    We have no idea how the Hebrew tetragrammaton YHWH is supposed to be pronounced. And there are no etymological common roots between this semitic root and the attested Indo-European origin of Iove. It's possible that the Yahweh vocalization has been influenced by the Roman Catholic church in order to "romanize" christianity
pigscantfly 5y ago
I've been researching these cultural echoes of the Proto Indo-Europeans online for some time now; it's fascinating that over a billion people (Catholics, etc.) use roughly the same term 'Deus Pater' to describe their supreme deity up through the modern day without full cognizance of the concept's historical roots. Sky father worship may be the most highly conserved human cultural idea of all time. Do you have any suggestions for reading material (ideally academic in book form) that covers the archaeological and/or linguistic reconstruction research in depth?
- sillyquiet 5y ago
  The best accessible archaeology reference I can recommend is "The Horse, the Wheel, and Language", and that book can guide you to many other resources.(https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691148182/the-horse-the-wheel-and-language https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691148182/th...) Though the research is a tad dated since we have more genetic evidence since it was written, and there are many disputes about the author's assertions about the timing of the advent of horse riding, it still stands up very well. AFAIK the genetic research made since the book's publication has only strengthened his archaeological and linguistic arguments.
  - pigscantfly 5y ago
    Thank you very much! I will order it.
- jsjohnst 5y ago
  Doesn't exactly fit your request, but maybe consider reading the book Suns of God too: https://www.amazon.com/Suns-God-Krishna-Buddha-Unveiled/dp/1931882312/ https://www.amazon.com/Suns-God-Krishna-Buddha-Unveiled/dp/1...

ducktective 5y ago

I think by steppe people, you are referring to Indo-Europeans (Aryans). There is also a sky-god in Tengrism (Mongols, Turks). But are either of those actually referring to the planet Jupiter?

sillyquiet 5y ago
Nah, the naming of the planet came much later, I don't think the planet itself was ever worshipped. And the Proto-Indo-Europeans are not the Aryans - the Aryans were a much later daughter culture in Western Afghanistan, Northern Iran and India, and probably the folks that had the beliefs outlined in the first pages of the Rig Veda. The steppe people I am referring to are the people of the Yamnaya culture and related peoples within their horizon. The Mongols and Turks were relative late comers to the western steppes.
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  Pretty sure "Aryans" is a 19th and 20th century term used for the Indo-Europeans (or roughly approximating "Indo-Europeans"), hence the association of "Aryan" and 20th century race ideology (e.g., theories of an "Aryan homeland" was in Germany, that the Germans were a pure Aryan race, etc).
  - sillyquiet 5y ago
    The racialists of the late 19th Century and early 20th co-opted the term, but there was a real peoples that really called themselves 'Aryans'. They weren't blue eyed blonde-haired, that's for sure, and the weren't at the root of Europe either. Like I said, they were a central Asian daughter culture. They probably spoke Indo-Iranian and their beliefs were later written down in the Riga Veda as well as being a component of Iranian Zoroastrianism. ('Aryan' is cognate with the proto-Indo-European 'h₂éyos')
    - fsckboy 5y ago
      > They weren't blue eyed blonde-haired, that's for sure ok but the world-wide "suppress melanin/blue eyes" gene emerged in that same part of the world (north of the Black Sea) some 10,000 years ago, so it seems that the Aryans could have been as blue eyed as anybody. https://web.archive.org/web/20091101055254/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/3323607/Blue-eyes-result-of-ancient-genetic-mutation.html https://web.archive.org/web/20091101055254/http://www.telegr...
      - sillyquiet 5y ago
        well, possibly, but as they are probably the ancestors of many North Indian, Iranian, and Afghanistani peoples that gene didn't stay dominant for their line. (Though I guess it shows up in that region now and again). And they certainly weren't the 'Aryan ideal' as pictured in racist propaganda.
    - throwaway894345 5y ago
      I agree, I wasn't disputing that there were real people who self-identified with the term, I was contesting your correction that "Aryan" solely refers to these people. You might counter that the overloaded meaning is invalid for whatever reason, but (1) meanings of the propriety of words are boring and subjective and (2) I'm only saying there exists an overloaded meaning, not that everyone will find it valid nor that it excludes the validity of other meanings. As an aside, I recently discovered (from my new Iranian neighbors) that the term "Aryan" is cognate with "Iran" the country. "Iran" in Persian means something like "Land of the Aryans", and that in 1935 the government of Iran asked its diplomatic partners to refer to it as Iran instead of Persia because of the popularity of Aryan racial ideologies.

throwaway894345 5y ago

The etymology of Jupiter is also fascinating. https://www.etymonline.com/word/jupiter https://www.etymonline.com/word/jupiter > also Juppiter, c. 1200, "supreme deity of the ancient Romans," from Latin Iupeter, Iupiter, Iuppiter, "Jove, god of the sky and chief of the gods," from PIE dyeu-peter- "god-father" (originally vocative, "the name naturally occurring most frequently in invocations" [Tucker]), from deiw-os "god" (from root *dyeu- "to shine," in derivatives "sky, heaven, god") + peter "father" in the sense of "male head of a household" (see father (n.)). Greek and Sanskrit also had similar deities: > Compare Greek Zeu pater, vocative of Zeus pater "Father Zeus;" Sanskrit Dyaus pitar "heavenly father." Basically the Greeks dropped the `-pater` bit and `Zeus` remained. Whether or not these deities were similarly associated with the planet Jupiter is a different question though.

sillyquiet 5y ago
> Whether or not these deities were similarly associated with the planet Jupiter is a different question though. Very doubtful, those names are modern applications to the planet. Although, there is zero doubt they were aware of and cognizant of the visible planets and their motions and no doubt had important names for them, it wasn't what western astronomers called them, almost certainly. Also Dyaus Pater was a god of the daylight sky for the most part, which in the steppes, as you can imagine, made him pretty important and omnipresent.
scns 5y ago
Hm, Jove and Yahwe are pretty close i'd say.
- ithkuil 5y ago
  We have no idea how the Hebrew tetragrammaton YHWH is supposed to be pronounced. And there are no etymological common roots between this semitic root and the attested Indo-European origin of Iove. It's possible that the Yahweh vocalization has been influenced by the Roman Catholic church in order to "romanize" christianity

pigscantfly 5y ago

I've been researching these cultural echoes of the Proto Indo-Europeans online for some time now; it's fascinating that over a billion people (Catholics, etc.) use roughly the same term 'Deus Pater' to describe their supreme deity up through the modern day without full cognizance of the concept's historical roots. Sky father worship may be the most highly conserved human cultural idea of all time. Do you have any suggestions for reading material (ideally academic in book form) that covers the archaeological and/or linguistic reconstruction research in depth?

sillyquiet 5y ago
The best accessible archaeology reference I can recommend is "The Horse, the Wheel, and Language", and that book can guide you to many other resources.(https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691148182/the-horse-the-wheel-and-language https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691148182/th...) Though the research is a tad dated since we have more genetic evidence since it was written, and there are many disputes about the author's assertions about the timing of the advent of horse riding, it still stands up very well. AFAIK the genetic research made since the book's publication has only strengthened his archaeological and linguistic arguments.
- pigscantfly 5y ago
  Thank you very much! I will order it.
jsjohnst 5y ago
Doesn't exactly fit your request, but maybe consider reading the book Suns of God too: https://www.amazon.com/Suns-God-Krishna-Buddha-Unveiled/dp/1931882312/ https://www.amazon.com/Suns-God-Krishna-Buddha-Unveiled/dp/1...