Artio

Artio (Dea Artio in the Gallo-Roman religion) was a Celtic bear goddess. Evidence of her worship has notably been found at Bern. Her name is derived from the Celtic word for "bear", artos.[1]

Representations and inscriptions

A bronze sculpture from Muri, near Bern in Switzerland shows a large bear facing a woman seated in a chair, with a small tree behind the bear. The woman seems to hold fruit in her lap, perhaps feeding the bear. (Deyts p. 48, Green pp. 217–218). The sculpture has a large rectangular bronze base, which bears an inscription. (CIL 13, 05160)

Deae Artioni / Licinia Sabinilla

To the Goddess Artio (or Artionis), from Licinia Sabinilla. If the name is Gaulish but the syntax is Latin, a dative Artioni would give an i-stem nominative *Artionis or an n-stem nominative *Artio. That would perhap correspond to a Gaulish n-stem nominative *Artiu.

Other inscription to the goddess have been discovered in Daun (CIL 13, 4203), Weilerbach (CIL 13, 4113), Heddernheim (CIL 13, 7375 [4, p 125]), and Stockstadt (CIL 13, 11789).

Etymology

Her name is derived from the Gaulish word artos, bear (Delamarre 2003 p. 55-56), from Proto-Celtic *arto-, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ŕ̥tḱos, bear. A Celtic word may also be the source for the name Arthur.

Notes

  1. ↑ Adrian Room, Placenames of the World: Origins and Meanings of the Names for 6,600 Countries, Cities, Territories, Natural Features, and Historic Sites, McFarland, 2006, p. 57.

References

External links

Look up Artio in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Artio.

In popular culture

She is the main antagonist in volume 15 of the Japanese light novel "Campione"