Nethuns

{{Short description|Etruscan water god}}

In Etruscan mythology, NethunsThe transliteration "Nathuns" was used in the early twentieth century. was the god of wells, later expanded to all water, including the sea. The name "Nethuns" is likely cognate with that of the Celtic god Nechtan and the Persian and Vedic gods sharing the name Apam Napat, perhaps all based on the Proto-Indo-European word *népōts "nephew, grandson." In this case, Etruscan may have borrowed the Umbrian name *Nehtuns (Roman Neptune,Helmut Rix, "Etruscan," in The Ancient Languages of Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 163. who was originally a god of water).

Nethuns is mentioned on the Piacenza liver, a third-century BC bronze model of a sheep's liver used for divinatory rites called haruspicy, as Neθ, an abbreviation for his full name.L.B. van der Meer, The Bronze Liver of Piacenza: Analysis of a Polytheistic Structure (1987). As a patron god his profile, wearing a ketos (sea monster) headdress, appears on a coin of Vetulonia,One of the Etruscan dodecapolis, in northern Etruria. circa 215 – 211 BC; he is accompanied by his trident between two dolphins.[http://www.cngcoins.com/Coin.aspx?CoinID=78765 An illustrated example.]

NETHUNS is engraved on a bronze Etruscan mirror in the Museo Gregoriano in the Vatican.Noted by George Dennis, The Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria (London) 1848, a time when Nethuns and Neptune were not yet securely linked. ([https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/Europe/Italy/_Periods/Roman/Archaic/Etruscan/_Texts/DENETR*/Introduction/1.html On-line text])