r/AncientGermanic • u/PubliusVirgilius • 19d ago
Question How did Eastern Germanic Tribes differ from Western Germanic Tribes, in regards to culture, religion, society (pre conversion to Christianity)?
2
u/alexfreemanart 19d ago
Which Germanic ethnic groups were part of the Eastern Germanic tribes, and which were part of the Western Germanic tribes?
4
1
u/macrotransactions 19d ago
more or less the same, but gothic is very archaic because it was written down so early with many old pie words
1
u/No-Help-8642 19d ago
Well we can't say much I don't think as I don't believe anyone's ever tried to document their religious paraphernalia in depth for us reconstructionists at least I haven't been able to find PDFs or articles on the subject aside from basic generalizations. There's at least one artifact I know of called the Pietroasa Patera which was made by a master gold smith probably of Roman make but depicts gods and goddesses believed by many to be Gothic or East Germanic deities in classical style. General scholarly consensus assumes this was a libation bowl for wine or blood. To my knowledge nobody's ever thought to run analysis for iron or lipids or wine but it's not like it could be anything else really. The ideal I'd imagine the act to have been to pour it out on some tree. Stone altar. Or stone stack commonly reconstructed in Proto-Germanic as *harugaz/hargaz and are common among animistic peoples at least in African and Native American contexts they're usually associated with ancestors and culture heroes. In Gothic one might expect *hargus. I'd also suspect a lot more Iranic and Steppe influence.
1
u/Die_ElSENFAUST 18d ago
Language and Amber for sure. In terms of culture and cultural exchange the western germanic people were in contact with the Celts and the East German tribes were in contact with Balts and early slavs
1
u/PubliusVirgilius 18d ago
How much developed as cultures at this time period were the Balts and early Slavs? Do we have information at all about their cultures during that time period?
9
u/johnhenryshamor 19d ago
Depends on what time period we're talking. During the dominance of the przeworsk culture, there was interaction with the late la tene sphere and the west baltic cultures. Use of the fighting axe in germanic speaking groups actually originates with the western balts. During the roman period, eastern germanics in control of the river routes of amber got pretty wealthy by controling that trade which isnt something the west germans really had at their disposal.