Nemetona
{{Short description|Celtic goddess}}
File:Altrip Rhein Sueden.jpg in the former territory of the Nemetes, where an inscription to Nemetona was found.]]
Nemetona, or 'she of the sacred grove', is a Celtic goddess with roots in northeastern Gaul. She is thought to have been the eponymous deity of the Germano-Celtic people known as the Nemetes;Beck, pp. 237-238. evidence of her veneration is found in their former territory along the Middle RhineCIL 13, 6131. as well in the Altbachtal sanctuary in present-day Trier, Germany.Powers Coe, p. 1351.Finke 324. She is also attested in Bath, England, where an altar to her was dedicated by a man of the Gallic Treveri people.RIB 140.
Etymology
Nemetona's name is derived from the Celtic root nemeto-, referring to consecrated religious spaces, particularly sacred groves. She has been considered a guardian goddess of open-air places of worship.{{cite web|url=http://www.britannia.com/celtic/gods/nemetona.html |title=Britannia Celtic Gods: Nemetona, Goddess of the Sacred Grove |access-date=2015-04-23 |date=1999 |website=Britannia: America's Gateway to the British Isles since 1996}} The same root is found in the names of the Romano-British goddess Arnemetia and the Matres Nemetiales (known from an inscription in Grenoble).
Inscriptions
Surviving inscriptions often associate Nemetona with Mars (sometimes given the Celtic name Loucetius). She is paired with "Loucetius Mars" in the inscription at Bath, and with "Mars" at Trier and Altrip. Separate inscriptions to Nemetona and to Loucetius have been recovered from the same site in Klein-Winternheim near Mainz.Jufer & Luginbühl, pp. 14, 39.CIL 13, 7253 (the inscription to Nemetona on bronze). The Altrip site was further notable for yielding a terra cotta depiction of the goddess.
One inscription from Eisenberg appears to identify Nemetona with Victoria:AE 2007, 1044.
:[In h(onorem) d(omus)] d(ivinae) Marti Lou/[cetio et] Victoriae Neme/[tonae] M(arcus) A(urelius) Senillus Seve/[rus b(ene)f(iciarius) l]egati urnam cum / [sortib]us et phiala(m) ex / [vo]to posuit l(ibens) l(aetus) m(erito) / [Grat]o et Seleuco co(n)s(ulibus) / X Kal(endas) Maias
:"In honour of the divine house, to Mars Loucetius and Victoria Nemetona, Marcus Aurelius Senillus Severus, a protégé of the general, set up an urn with its lots and serving-dish in free, cheerful, and well-deserved fulfilment of his vow on the tenth day before the Kalends of May in the consulship of Gratus and Seleucus (22 April 221)."
Noémie Beck considers the identification of Nemetona with Nemain to be "inaccurate and irrelevant".Beck, p. 251, fn. 1321.
Notes
{{reflist|2}}
References
- {{cite thesis |last=Beck |first=Noémie |date=2009-12-04 |title=Goddesses in Celtic Religion, Cult and Mythology: A Comparative Study of Ancient Ireland, Britain and Gaul |publisher=Université Lumière Lyon 2, University College of Dublin |type=Ph.D.}}
- H. Finke (1927), "Neue Inschriften", Berichte der Römisch-Germanischen Kommission 17, 1-107 and 198–231.
- {{cite book |last1= Jufer |first1=Nicole |last2=Luginbühl |first2=Thierry |title=Les dieux gaulois : répertoire des noms de divinités celtiques connus par l'épigraphie, les textes antiques et la toponymie| publisher= Editions Errance|year= 2001}}
- Paula Powers Coe, "Nemetona", p. 1351 in {{cite book |last= Koch|first= John T.|title= Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia| publisher= ABC-CLIO|year= 2006}}
External links
- {{cite web|url=http://www.druidry.org/library/gods-goddesses/nemetona |author=Joanna Van Der Hoeven |title=Nemetona |access-date=2016-10-19 |website=OBOD website }}
{{Celtic mythology (ancient)}}