Tarvos Trigaranus or Taruos Trigaranos[1] is a divine figure who appears on a relief panel of the Pillar of the Boatmen as a bull with three cranes perched on his back. He stands under a tree, and on an adjacent panel, the god Esus is chopping down a tree, possibly a willow, with an axe.[2]
In the Gaulish language, tarvos means "bull,"[3] found in Old Irish as tarb and Welsh as tarw (compare "bull" in other Indo-European languages such as Latin taurus or Lithuanian taŭras). Garanus is the crane (garan in Welsh, Old Cornish and Breton; see also geranos, the ritual "crane dance" of ancient Greece).[4] Treis, or tri- in compound words, is the number three.[5]
A pillar from Trier shows a man with an axe cutting down a tree in which sit three birds and a bull's head. The juxtaposition of images has been compared to the Tarvos Trigaranus and Esus panels on the Boatmen monument.[6] It is possible that statues of a bull with three horns, such as the one from Autun (Bourgogne, France, ancient Augustodunum) are related to this deity.[7]
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