Cernunnos is said to be one of the most enigmatic of the Celtic deities. He is a semi-zoomorphic horned deity with a torque worn high on his right arm. Cernunnos' horns may be ram horns or stag antlers, the latter symbolizing the value of deer for a forest-dwelling people. Cernunnos' animals are the stag and the bull. He is generally associated with fertility, and some associate him with night, death, and evil. Bober says the association between Dis Pater and Cernunnos comes from Julius Caesar's statement about Celts believing themselves descended from that god.
For more on the changing representations of the god Cernunnos, see the following references:
- "Cernunnos: Origin and Transformation of a Celtic Divinity," by Phyllis Fray Bober; American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 55, No. 1 (Jan., 1951), pp. 13-51.
- "Creolizing the Roman Provinces," by Jane Webster; American Journal of Archaeology Vol. 105, No. 2 (Apr., 2001), pp. 209-225.
- "Gallo-Roman Religious Sculpture," by A. N. Newell; Greece & Rome, Vol. 3, No. 8 (Feb., 1934), pp. 74-84.
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