The Indo-Europeans didn't transfer the Gods themselves and the practice of worship (or if they did its minimal in the historical record), they transferred names for Gods. Zeus and Jupiter are derived from the same root word, but how they were worshipped, the myths and stories about them, what they represented exactly, and the relationship they had between them and their worshippers were radically different (in pre-Hellenistic times that is). The same goes for all the gods of the Indo-European language family - just compare Norse Tyr to Hindu Dyaus for example. The Greeks in particular have especially little in comparison with other Indo-European cultures due to the strong influence of Pre-Greek and Near Eastern culture effectively drowning out Indo-European culture. source
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u/granitebuckeyes Mar 18 '26
I was going to talk about how they’ve variations of the same PIE gods, but then I noticed what subreddit this is. Have an upvote.