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11. Statues of gods

Not all religions allow to picture God, gods, saint or heroes: judaism and islam forbid to do it, while Orthodox Church permits icons but not sculp-tures. In pagan religions, however, like for instance with Celts, images of deities appear regularly. Only Germanie peoples are sometimes claimed to have avoided picturing their gods (Stróm, 1975, p. 114), which is based on the words of Tacitus (Germania, 9) who stated that the Germans did not erect gods’ effigies. The same Tacitus (Germania, 40), however, mentioned an effigy of the goddess Nerthus. Some, although not abundant, informa-tion about statues of Germanie gods comes from early medieval sources (de Vries, 1956-1957, vol. 1, p. 385-389). Scandinavian records bring much morę ample data, some of which have been mentioned above in connection with temples. Many Scandinavian images of gods and heroes have been preserved until today, mainly in the form of reliefs on stone steles from Gothland (Nylen, Lamm 1991). Scarcer wooden relics, such as the famous boat from Oseberg, richly decorated with carvings, confirm the information contained in sagas, that in pagan Scandinavia valuable compositions were created also of wood (Piekarczyk, 1979, p. 105, 111, 112, 129).

The thesis that the old Balts did not erect effigies of gods, advanced by A. Bruckner (1984, p. 167), seems doubtful. The so-called Prussian baba--stones, known from the territory of Warmia and Mazury (north-eastem Poland), can be interpreted as Baltic idols. The view that they were images of the dead, prevailing until the recent time, was based mainly on their resemblance to the classical stone figures from the Euro-Asiatic steppe zonę (Demetrykiewicz 1910; La Baume, 1927; Łęga, 1929, p. 414-426; Daszkiewicz, Tryjarski 1982; SSS, vol. 1, p. 66-67). If, however, we assume the existence of the effigies of heroes (if the dead were represented in sculptures, they attained the status of heroes), we should also consider the presence of gods’ statues possible. Some Slavonic and Prussian sculptures show certain resemblances: there are striking analogies in the arrangement of hands and identical attributes - a drinking hom and a sword (SSS, vol. 4, p. 243). All Prussian óafoz-stones are one-headed and one-faced.

The stone figures of the Prussians and many Slavonic examples are impressively similar to the stone sculptures of Turkish steppe peoples, which have the form of characteristic one-headed statues of sandstone, limestone

Fig. 76. Celtic religious sculpture. Left: the wooden statuę from Montbouy (58 cm of height), right: the three-faced deity from Reims. After F. Schlette, 1976, p. 119, 136.

Fig. 77. Prussian fcofca-stones. A - Susz; B - Mozgowo. Granite. After: G. Leńczyk, 1964, p. 37.

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