Celtic Gods: The Gaulish God, Erriapus (Overlord)

Erriapus
A Gaulish God: Overlord

Erriapus is a Gaulish god known primarily from a dedicated stone found at Saint-Béat, France along with 22 additional inscriptions from the town. He seems to be one of the high gods of the Garonne and a protective deity of the marble workers of the area. He may have been the tutelary deity of the region.



Synonyms:
Gaul: Overlord

Erriapus is known from a dedicated stone (ILTG 20) found at Saint-Béat, Haut-Garonne, France. On this stone the god is shown as a human head emerging from the foliage of the crown of a tree.

The nature of his original cult is unknown, though it has been proposed that he was an arboreal deity, or somehow associated with trees (thoug this is simple speculation based on his iconography). I propose that the deity's name may be derived from from a rhi- stem word that in modern and old Cymric represents a king or lord or champion. The Er beginning of the name being an emphatic form that gives us something like Overlord. This would be compatible with another interpretatin of the iconography for it is suggestive of the mythology of a deity such as Lleu or Lugos who dwelt at the crown of a sacred oak tree. It is possible therefore that Erriapus might have been one of the 'high-gods' a deity deity who could have been amongst the leaders of the Gaulish pantheon.

Several votive fragments dedicated to Erriapus have been found in the marble quarries of the Garonne (21 in all: [AE 1949,113 to 127, inclusive; AE 1951, 233, 235, 236; AE 1965, 273; AE 1982, 700 and 701) and it seems that in Roman times, Erriapus became the protective deity of the marble-workers in the region and could well be the protective, tutelary, deity of the region as a whole.



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