In Celtic mythology, Arduinna was the eponymous goddess of the Ardennes forest. Her cult thus originated in the Ardennes, which derived its name from her. She was assimilated to the Roman Diana. Celtic mythology is the mythology of Celtic polytheism, the apparent religion of the Iron Age Celts. ... Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture A goddess is a female deity, in contrast with a male deity known as a god. A great many cultures have goddesses, sometimes alone, but more often as part of a larger pantheon that includes both of the conventional genders and in some cases... The Ardennes is a region of extensive forests and rolling hill country, primarily in Belgium and Luxembourg, but stretching into France (lending its name to the Ardennes département and the Champagne-Ardenne région). ... Diana was the equivalent in Roman mythology of the Greek Artemis (see Roman/Greek equivalency in mythology for more details). ...

Statues

Green (1986, p.180) states that some depictions of Arduinna show her riding a boar. However, Deyts (1992, pp.46-47) notes that the bronze Gallo-Roman statue of a woman in a short belted tunic, riding a boar sidesaddle and holding a knife (Boucher fig.292), bears no inscription, and was simply assumed to be Arduinna by the 19th century antiquarian who discovered it - perhaps because the modern symbol of the Ardennes region is also a boar.

Inscriptions

Arduinna is known from two inscriptions:

• Düren, Germany deae Arduinnae (CIL XIII 07848)
• Rome, Italy Arduinne (CIL VI, 00046)

Etymology

The name Arduinna is derived from the Gaulish arduo- meaning height (Delamarre p.51). It is also found in several placenames, such as the Ardennes woods (Arduenna silva), the personal names Arduunus and Arda — the latter from coinage of the Treveri, (RIG-4, 36-43) — and the Galatian Αρδή. The name Arduenna silva for "wooded heights" was applied to several forested mountains, not just the modern Ardennes: it is found in the départements of Alleuze, Haute-Loire and Puy-du-Dôme (Delamarre pp.51-52). Gaulish is the name given to the Celtic language that was spoken in Gaul before the Vulgar Latin of the late Roman Empire became dominant in Roman Gaul. ... The Treveri tribe of Gaul inhabited the lower valley of the Moselle, within the southern fringes of the vast Arduenna Silva (Ardennes Forest). ...

Later survivals

In 565, St. Walfroy (Wulfilaïc) preached to the local population of Villers-devant-Orval to persuade them to abandon worship of Arduinna.

References

• Boucher, S. (1976) Recherches sur les bronzes figurés de Gaule pré-romaine et romaine. Paris, Ecole Français de Rome.
• Colbert de Beaulieu, Jean-Baptiste and Fischer, Brigitte (1998) Receuil des Inscriptions gauloises (RIG) 4: les légendes monétaires. Paris, Editions du CNRS
• Delamarre, X. (2003). Dictionaire de la Langue Gauloise. 2nd edition. Paris, Editions Errance. ISBN 2-87772-237-6
• Deyts, S. (1992) Images des Dieux de la Gaule. Paris Editions Errance. ISBN 2-877-72067-5
• Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL), volume 6, Italia
• Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL), volume 13, Tres Galliae
• Green, M. (1986) The Gods of the Celts. Stroud, Sutton Publishing. ISBN 0-7509-1581-1

External links

• http://www.expansions.be/texte.mv?id=137
• http://www.chez.com/ortenpopan/cantons/patreligieux.html

Sources of the St. Walfroy link (in French)