Nehalennia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Altar for Nehalennia in Domburg, Zeeland, the Netherlands.
Altar for Nehalennia in Domburg, Zeeland, the Netherlands.

Nehalennia (spelled variously) is an ancient goddess known around what is now called the province of Zeeland, The Netherlands, where the Rhine River flowed into the North Sea, whose worship dates back at least to the 2nd century BCE,[1] and who flourished in the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE.[1]

She was possibly a regional goddess, Celtic or pre-Germanic; sources differ on the culture that first believed in her. During the Roman Era, her main function appeared to be the protection of travelers, especially seagoing travelers crossing the North Sea. Most of what is known about her comes from the remains of over 160 carved stone offerings (votives) which have been dredged up from the Oosterschelde since 1970. Two more Nehalennia offering stones have also been found in Cologne, Germany.[1]

Contents

[hide]

[edit] Description

Her cult was at its peak in the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE, at which time there were at least two and possibly three temples located in the area of what is now Zeeland. At the time this region on the sea coast was an important link for the trade between the Rhine area and Britain. It is known that the tribe of the Morini, who lived in what is now the Netherlands, bordering the North Sea coast, worshipped Nehalennia.[2] Visitors came to worship from as far away as Besançon and Trier.[2] Nehalennia had two sanctuaries or shrines, embellished with numerous altars: one at Domburg on the island of Walcheren, and another at Colijnsplaat on the shore of the Oosterschelde.[2] Both are now submerged beneath the North Sea due to the floods and changing seas in Southern Netherlands.

Nehalennia is almost always depicted with marine symbols and a large, benign-looking dog at her feet.[2][3] The votive stones found depict her sitting down with a basket of apples, the dog at her side, and sometimes with a scepter in her hands. In some depictions she rests her foot on a ship, or holds a ship's oar. Several of the offerings have inscriptions thanking her for safe passage across the North Sea.[1] Hilda Davidson describes the votives:

"Nehalennia, a Germanic goddess worshipped at the point where travellers crossed the North Sea from the Netherlands, is shown on many carved stones holding loaves and apples like a Mother Goddess, sometimes with a prow of a ship beside her, but also frequently with an attendant dog which sits looking up at her (Plate 5). He was on thirteen of the twenty-one altars recorded by Ada Hondius-Crone (1955: 103), who describes him as a kind of greyhound."[4]

Most of the votive stones dredged from the coastal waters around Walcheren were offered to the goddess by merchants returning from a trip to Britain. Some contained the Latin inscription "VSLM", meaning "Votum Solvit Libens Merito" ("the promise fulfilled, with pleasure and reason"), meaning the completion of a vow, possibly one made in return for a safe passage across the seas.[5]

In August 2005, a replica of the Nehalennia temple near the lost town of Ganuenta was opened in Colijnsplaat[6]

[edit] Cultural origins

The original tribe or nation that believed in Nehalennia is unknown. The inscriptions on the votives are in Latin learned during the Roman Era. The Roman Era historian Tacitus identified the indigenous people in the Rhine region rather generally as either Celtic or German culture in the 1st century CE, regarding the Rhine River as a natural division between the two. However modern archeological study revealed Celtic cultural findings on sites where Romans described people to be Germanic, and vice versa. Today it's understood that Celtic and Germanic tribes shared a common heritage in language as well as ancient religion and were culturally intertwined to a degree.

Some scholars note that because protected ships and had symbols of ships, Nehalennia might be the same goddess as Nerthus that Tacitus had described in the 1st century.[7]

[edit] Etymology

The name "Nehalennia" was a Latin transcription of an unwritten foreign language, and thus the real name would probably have lost much of its local vocalization. According to some theorists, because the name Nehalennia is not known to be either a Celtic or Germanic name, it must be quite old, at least from the 2nd century BCE.[1]

In phonetic comparisons with other names in the region, Jacob Grimm discussed how "Neha-" is also used as suffix for plural females (i.e., -nehis, -nehabus), possibly meaning something like "nymphs" or "mothers".[8]

[edit] Language root theories

The name can be split up in several short syllable combinations to correspond with some recognizable roots and stems from Proto-Indo-European ("PIE") languages: Proposable are the PIE roots *nek (death, to bring) or *nebh (sky/cloud), leaving suffix "-ennia" open to investigation.

Leaving its first two syllables together, the composite Nehal could yield both a Germanic and a Celtic explanation:

[edit] Proto-Germanic theory

A Proto-Germanic etymology towards Nehal could be proposed departing from stem *nihw-ela- (*nigw-ela-), meaning "to destroy." In modern Dutch for instance this stem survives in “vernielen,” meaning the same. This explanation would fit the funerary motives and symbols on the altar and offers identification with the female triple-goddesses of Indo-European tradition (see also Moirae and Norns) or, more precisely, to the incarnation of the future like the Nordic Skuld, as Valkyrie the only Norn dedicated to recruiting fallen heroes on Hellhound back for the future battle of Ragnarok.

[edit] Proto-Celtic theory

Searching for possible Proto-Celtic origins, names of divinities derived from the PIE root *nebh- (sky/cloud) were popular in Celtic culture, like Abnoba, a local female deity whose worship was within the Black Forest and dedicated to a river and forests; It originates from a Celtic dialect containing root *nob (wetness), derived directly from the PIE root. There was a wider development of this PIE root towards occurrences in known Celtic languages meaning Sky (being "nem" in Old Irish; "nef" in Welsh, Cornish and Bretons) and “Cloud” (Old Irish: nēl, gen. niuil m ; Welsh niwl, nifwl; Cornish niul). Notable is the typical Celtic evolution of strong dentals towards aspired consonants. “Nehal” then would correspond neatly to modern Dutch “nevel”, Latin "nebula" etc., thus sharing words having high international cultural significance and a notable IE history. Compare also mythological names derived from the same PIE root, like Niflheim, the vaguely defined but widely renowned Nibelungen, and the Dutch river Nabalia mentioned by Tacitus as the location for signing the peace between Batavians and Romans after finishing the Batavian rebellion. Consider that rivers in general relate to the cult of river-goddesses in most of Europe.

If the name stemmed from *nebh, Nehal- had a second association in pagan cultures to destructive forces: In Latin, some of this heritage could have been preserved in the duality between the words “nebula” (mist, fog, vapor) and “nebulo” (scoundrel, villain, roughneck). If the local Celtic dialect would have retained a negative synonym, the previous explanation of “Nehal” from Proto-Germanic *nihw-ela- (to destroy) would have a Celtic equivalent. If a Proto-Germanic equivalent did not exist, this stem could have been adopted directly into the Germanic world from Celtic, thus yielding a similar Celtic etymology with a notion that Nehalennia figured as an incarnation of fertility (goddess of water and fruits) as well as a divinity of death (Valkyr).

[edit] Matrone suffix

The -ennia suffix is like the suffix of most contemproary matrones deified as triple goddesses in the Rhineland, such as the Matronea Veteranehae, etymologically related to the Brythonic god Veteris, where the suffix could tentatively be reconstructed from an intensifier *an(n) identified in proto-Celtic. Other Rhineland matrones suffixes suggest a different etymology, such as Matronae Alhiahenae, Matronae Audrinehae, Matronae Aufaniae, Matronae Axsinginehae, Matronae Fernovinehae, Matronae Udravarinehae, Matronae Vacallinehae, Matronae Vallabneihae. Possibly the suffix is Latin.

[edit] Epyonyms

Asteroid 2462, or 6578 P-L, is named Nehalennia after the goddess.

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e Lendering, 2006.
  2. ^ a b c d Green 1998:200-201.
  3. ^ Green 1992:5
  4. ^ Davidson 1998:112 & Plate 5.
  5. ^ Reginheim 2002.
  6. ^ Van der Velde 2005:8–9.
  7. ^ Reginheim 2002.
  8. ^ Grimm 1888:13:3.

[edit] References

  • Davidson Hilda Roderick Ellis (1998). Roles of the Northern Goddesses.
  • Green, Miranda (1992). Symbol and Image in Celtic Religious Art. p. 5
  • Green, Miranda (1998). Animals in Celtic Life and Myth. London, UK: Routledge, 1998. p 200-201.
  • Grimm, Jacob (1835). Deutsche Mythologie (German Mythology); From English released version Grimm's Teutonic Mythology (1888); Available online by Northvegr 2004-2007:Chapter 13, page 3. File retrieved 09-24-2007.
  • Lendering, Jona, Nehalennia, July 2006. File retrieved 09-24-2007.
  • Reginheim, Forgotten Gods: Nehalennia, 2002. File retrieved 09-24-2007.
  • Van der Velde, Koert (August 13, 2005). Zeeuwse godin weer thuis. Trouw (Dutch newspaper), p. 8–9.

[edit] External links