Arcanua

Arcanua or Arkanva is the name of a Gallo-Roman , Celtic goddess who has been handed down in two new dedicatory inscriptions from the 2nd century from Born Bay in the Dutch province of Limburg .

Discovery and Inscriptions

At the beginning of the 1970s, in a corridor not far from the Julianakanal west of the settlement center of Buchte, which was named "De Apotheker" - after the fragments of well-known porcelain used for the production of medicines (crucibles etc.) - Roman period wall remains, building materials, Shards ( terra sigillata , small amphorae ) in a later Merovingian periodFrankish burial ground found. In an emergency excavation from 1976 onwards by local homeland researchers and archaeological laypeople under the technical guidance of the state monuments authority ("Rijksdienst voor het Oudheidkundig Bodemonderzoek") foundations and building materials were discovered that were addressed as temple construction. In the revelation, the inscribed dedications for the goddess were found. The votive offering by a Legion veteran in the form of a bronze rooster with an enamelled chest is of artistic and stylistic importance as a find object . The finds are in the "Provinciaal Depot van Bodemvondsten" of the Limburgs Museum in Venlo . The area of the former find area and the temple are now built over by industrial plants. The inscription with the name ARCANVE is attached to the round base of the 15 cm tall rooster:

"Deae Arcanu (a) e Ulpius Verinus veteranus leg (ionis) VI v (otum) s (olvit) l (ibens) m (erito)"

On a small (3.7 x 2.7 x 0.3 cm) sheet bronze tablet the inscription with the shape ARKANVAE is a mirror image on the back side in braille hallmarked:

"D (eae) / Arkanu / ae (!) M (arcus) / I (ulius?) Am () / l (ibens) m (erito)"

Name and interpretation

The basic "Arcanua" can be made from the two forms of the name. According to Lauran Toorians, this name can be clearly interpreted as Celtic. It represents the root word Ar-can- as a composition from Gaulish ar (e) + * canu- . For the reconstructed limb, he compares argan = "lament, lament" and arganu = "lament, lament" with the Middle Welsh evidence . There are also forms such as ar-a-cain = "someone sing a psalm" and a passive form arcanar a gloss for Latin cantatur = "singing". Torrians therefore states that in all forms there are compositions of the preposition ar- to Celtic are- = "before, at" from Indo-European * prH (i) (cf. Greek para- , par- ) and * kan-o = "Sing" from idg. * Kan = "sing". He emphasizes that the preposition ar- proves the name as clearly Celtic and compares it with the forms such as the name of the historical Gallic coastal province of Aremorica and in the Celtic Mercurius surname Arvernus (place of discovery Horn / Roermond). As a literal translation, he interprets the name as "cantor" as a formal name that shows a ritual meaning of the song as a recitation or as a "announcer" for example one day. Toorians suspects that the dedicants or admirers of the goddess are an ethnic group or a Celtic-speaking communication community that comes from the remaining populations of the Eburones (“Germani cisrhenani”).

literature

Willem JH Willems , JE Bogaers : Born bays: epigrafisch commentaar. In: Publications de la Société Historique et Archéologique dans le Limbourg, à Maestricht 119 (1983), pp. 253-254 ( full version ).
Ton Derks, B. de Fraiture (Ed.): Een Romeins heiligdom en een vroegmiddeleeuws grafveld bij bays (L). Verslag van een archeologically noodonderzoek (1976). Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed, Amersfoort 2015, ISBN 978-90-76046-66-2 ( full version ). In this:
- Ton Derks: Lokatie van de opgraving. P. 13 f.
- Ders .: Steenbouwsporen van een uit de Romeinse tijd daterend Heiligdom. Pp. 37-44.
- Ders .: Inscripties en graffiti. Pp. 148-155.
- Lauran Toorians: Naamkundige analysis van het theoniem Arcanua. Pp. 156-157.

Web links

Remarks

[1] AE 1983, 723

[2] AE 1983, 724

[3] CIL 13, 8709