entities: ENT_DAC_DERZELAS

The core table — every entity in the database, spanning gods, angels, demons, aeons, prophets, saints, heroes, spirits, monsters, personified abstractions, cosmological realms, and ritual categories. Use category to filter by functional type (146 values: Underworld Deity, Hero, Adversarial Being, Revealer Figure, etc.). Use tradition to filter by tradition. The short_note column contains a scholarly description with source citations.

Data license: MIT · Data source: jebboone/deitydb

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entity_id canonical_name greek_name tradition entity_type category primary_domains tags cult_scope primary_period evidence_confidence review_status inclusion_basis earth_association_score chthonic_flag serpent_flag short_note entity_class
ENT_DAC_DERZELAS Derzelas   Dacian Chthonic deity / deity of vital abundance deity abundance; health; vital force; chthonic; Dacian/Thracian; civic cult; Odessos       B           Derzelas (Δέρζαλας, also Darzalas, Δαρζαλάς) is a Dacian or Thracian-Dacian chthonic deity of vital force, health, and abundance, attested primarily through numismatic evidence from the city of Odessos (modern Varna, Bulgaria) on the Black Sea coast. Coins struck at Odessos from the 3rd to 2nd centuries BCE depict a mature male figure interpreted as the local Great God (Μέγας Θεός) of Odessos, widely identified in modern scholarship as Derzelas on the basis of dedicatory inscriptions from the same region. The name Derzelas may derive from a Thracian root related to vigor or vital force (compare Thracian personal names with the element Derz-/Darz- connoting "brave, strong"). He occupies a central role in the religious life of Odessos, functioning simultaneously as a civic protector and as a chthonic deity associated with the realm of the dead and with the renewal of vitality — a combination characteristic of the broader Thracian-Dacian religious complex. His cult shows Greek influence in iconography (he is depicted in Hellenistic style), while his name and functional domain are distinctly indigenous Thracian-Dacian. Unlike Zalmoxis (the great Dacian prophet-deity of immortality among the Getae) or Gebeleizis (the storm deity), Derzelas is primarily civic and chthonic rather than soteriological. Fol, A. and Marazov, I. (1977), Thrace and the Thracians (London); Popov, D. (1989), "Der thrakische Gott Darzalas," Klio 71.2: 373-391. deity

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