Arduinna

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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.

1 Statues
2 Inscriptions
3 Etymology
4 Later survivals
5 References
6 External links

[edit] 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.

[edit] Inscriptions

Arduinna is known from two inscriptions:

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

[edit] 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).

[edit] Later survivals

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

[edit] 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 2-87772-067-5
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