Vulcan (mythology) - Hypothetical Origins of Vulcan

Hypothetical Origins of Vulcan

The origin of the Roman god of fire Vulcan has been traced back to the Cretan god Velchanos by Gérard Capdeville, primarily under the suggestion of the close similarity of their names. Cretan Velchanos is a young god of Mediterrenean or Near Eastern origin who has mastership on fire and is the companion of the Great Goddess. These traits are preserved in Latium only in his sons Cacus, Caeculus, Romulus and Servius Tullius. At Praeneste the uncles of Caeculus are known as Digiti, noun that connects them to the Cretan Dactyloi.

His theology would be reflected in the Greek myths of Theseus and the Minotaur and in those concerning the childhood of Zeus on Mount Ida. The Mediterranean Pregreek conception is apparent in the depiction of Velchanos as a young man sitting upon a fork of a tree on coins from Phaistos dating from 322- 300 BC, denoting he is a god of vegetation and springtime: the tree is the symbol of the union of Heaven and Earth and of their generative power, i. e. the site of the union of the god and the goddess. Otherwise Earth would be symbolised in the tree and Heaven in the double axe of the god. Later Velchanos was depicted as a bull as testified in the myths of Pasiphae and Europa. The Greeks misunderstood the meaning of the bull as for them the symbol of Zeus was a bird, either the cock, the coockoo or the eagle. Theseus brought to Delos the dance named géranos (literally the dance of the crane) which Capdeville connects with Garanos, a variant of the Recaranus of Italic myths. Sergent remarks such an inquiry needs to include the Tarvos Trigaranos (the bull of the three horns) of Gaul.

In Crete Velchanos was the god of initiatory practises of youngsters.

Another reflection of the tradition of the Cretan Velchanos-Zeus would be found in Argolid in the mysteries of Zeus Lykaios, which contemplated anthropophagy and may have inspired the Italic Lupercalia.

The theological profile of Velchanos is identical to that of Iuppiter Dolichenus, god of primarily Hittite ascendence in his identification with the bull, having Sumero-Accadic, Aramaic and Hittito-Hurrite featurers as a god of tempest, according to the researches conducted in Syria by French scholar Paul Merlat. His cult enjoyed a period of popularity in the Roman Empire during the II and III centuries and the god had a temple in Rome on the Aventine.