Voltumna

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In Etruscan mythology, Voltumna was the chthonic (earth) god; and, later to become the supreme god of the Etruscan pantheon. His cult was centered in Volsini (modernday Orvieto) a polis of the Etruscan Civilization of north west Italy.

The cult practiced by the twelve Etruscan populi at the Fanum Voltumnae near Volsinii (present day Bolsena), and five times mentioned by Livy (iv 23 and 25 and 61; v 17, vi 2). Here ludi were held, the precise nature of which, athletic and/or artistic, is unknown. The last ten pages of this paper contain a highly technical discussion of the identity of the Etruscan god Voltumna in relation to the Latin gods Vertumnus and Janus.

He was the equivalent of the Roman Vertumnus.


Dominique Briquel 2003 Le Fanum Voltumnae: remarques sur le culte fédéral des cités étrusques. In Dieux, fêtes, sacré dans la Grèce et la Rome antiques, edited by André Motte and Charles Ternes: 133-59. Brepols, Turnhout.

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