Ataegina

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Ataegina. Marble, 210x93x72 cm, by the artist Pedro Roque Hidalgo, 2008. Museum of Marble, Vila Viçosa, Portugal

Ataegina (Spanish: Ataecina; Portuguese: Atégina)[1] was a goddess worshipped by the ancient Iberians, Lusitanians, and Celtiberians of the Iberian Peninsula. She is believed to have ruled the underworld.

Names

The deity's name is variously attested as Ataegina, Ataecina, Adaecina and Adaegina,[2] among other spellings.[3][4] Her name appears in conjunction to a place named Turibriga or Turobriga (see below).[5]

Etymology

Celtic hypothesis

The name Ataegina is most commonly derived from a Celtic source: according to Cristina Maria Grilo Lopes and Juan Olivares Pedreño, French scholar D'Arbois de Jubainville and Portuguese scholar José Leite de Vasconcelos interpreted her name as a compound from *ate- 'repetition, re-' *-genos '(to be) born'. Thus, her name would mean 'The Reborn One' ("renascida", in the original).[6][7][8]

Others propose a connection to the domain of nocturnal or underworld deities:

Proto-Celtic *adakī. This form would account for both words, but Luján refrained from offering a definitive etymology.[12]

Italian linguist Patrizia de Bernardo Stempel argues for a Celtic etymology, from *atakī ('night'), from an earlier *at-ak-ī ('interval'). Thus, de Bernardo proposes, her name means "the one of the night".[13] In a later article, she describes Ataecina as "the goddess of the nighttime", and derives her name from *Atakī-nā 'the divine (night)time'.[14]

Other hypotheses

That said, her presence in decidedly non-Indo-European Iberian regions suggest that she may have an older, indigenous origin, in which case her name's etymology is more likely Iberian, Aquitanian or Tartessian.[15]

In his late 19th-century study, José Leite de Vasconcelos, while proposing a Celtic reading of her name, also supposed her origins as a Celticized indigenous deity.[16] Spanish historian José María Blázquez Martínez [es] supported the idea of Ataegina's indigenous character, while remarking that a Celtic interpretation of her name as 'reborn' is "inviable", and that her connection to Irish 'night' is "difficult".[17]

Centers of worship

Ataegina was worshipped in

Beja, Portugal). A bronze plaque from Malpartida de Cáceres suggests associations with the goat as a sacred animal.[18][8][19]

Turibriga or Turobriga

Her name appears with adjective Turobrigensis, which seems to indicate a place called Turibriga or Turobriga.[20][21] Similar epigraphic attestations read Turibrige, [T]urubricae and Turibri, which led professor Amílcar Guerra to indicate a form *Turibris.[22][23]

This place is interpreted by scholarship to mean the main center of her cult,[24][25][26] but its precise location is unknown. Classical author Pliny indicated it belonged to Celtic Beturia.[21]

Functions

Epigraphs from the Badajoz region associate the goddess with the Roman Proserpina (analogous to Greek Persephone),[7][27] which would make her a goddess presiding over spring and seasonality, echoing the "reborn" derivation of the name,[18][8] or connect her to the Underworld.[28] In that regard, a dedication etched in marble was found in Augusta Emérita: the propitiator prays to Dea Ataecina Turibrig(ensis) Proserpina for her to avenge the theft of some pieces of clothing.[29]

See also

  • Ataecina (dwarf planet)

Footnotes

  1. ^ Other Celtic cognates include Irish athach, later athaig,[10] and Welsh adeg.[11]

References

  1. ^ Vasconcellos, José Leite de. Religiões da Lusitania na parte que principalmente se refere a Portugal. Lisboa: Imprensa nacional, 1897. p. 146.
  2. ^ Lopes, Cristina Maria Grilo. "Ataegina uma divindade Paleohispânica". In: Revista Santuários. Lisboa, 2014. Vol. 1, n.1 (Jan./Jun. 2014), p. 97.
  3. ISSN 0013-6662
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  4. hdl:20.500.12657/56961
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  5. ISSN 0874-2782
    ..
  6. ^ Vasconcellos, José Leite de. Religiões da Lusitania na parte que principalmente se refere a Portugal. Lisboa: Imprensa nacional, 1897. pp. 161-162.
  7. ^ a b Lopes, Cristina Maria Grilo. "Ataegina uma divindade Paleohispânica". In: Revista Santuários. Lisboa, 2014. Vol. 1, n.1 (Jan./Jun. 2014), p. 98.
  8. ^
    ISBN 84-95983-00-1
    .
  9. ^ Sopeña, Gabriel (2005). "Celtiberian Ideologies and Religion". E-Keltoi: Journal of Interdisciplinary Celtic Studies. 6: 348. Retrieved 11 September 2020.
  10. ^ Bernardo Stempel, Patrizia de. Nominale Wortbildung des älteren Irischen: Stammbildung und Derivation. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2011 [1999]. p. 80. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110931556
  11. ^ "Book Reviews". In: Folia Linguistica Historica 46, no. Historica-vol-33 (2012): 221-222. https://doi.org/10.1515/flih.2012.008
  12. ISSN 0013-6662
    .
  13. ^ Bernardo Stempel, Patrizia de; Hainzmann, Manfred, and Mathieu, Nicolas. “Celtic and Other Indigenous Divine Names Found in the Italian Peninsula.” In: Théonymie Celtique, Cultes, Interpretatio - Keltische Theonymie, Kulte, Interpretatio. Edited by Patrizia de Bernardo Stempel and Andreas Hofeneder, 1st ed. Austrian Academy of Sciences Press, 2013. p. 80. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv8mdn28.8.
  14. ^ "... keltische Göttin der nächtlichen Zeit Ataecina..." Stempel, Patrizia de Bernardo. "Keltische Äquivalente klassischer Epitheta und andere sprachliche und nicht-sprachliche Phänomene im Rahmen der sogenannten ‚interpretatio Romana‘". In: Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie 61, no. 1 (2014): 34 and footnote nr. 109. https://doi.org/10.1515/zcph.2014.003
  15. ^ Lopes, Cristina Maria Grilo. "Ataegina uma divindade Paleohispânica". In: Revista Santuários. Lisboa, 2014. Vol. 1, n.1 (Jan./Jun. 2014), pp. 97-103.
  16. ^ Vasconcellos, José Leite de. Religiões da Lusitania na parte que principalmente se refere a Portugal. Lisboa: Imprensa nacional, 1897. p. 173.
  17. ^ Blázquez, José Mª. Arte Y Religión En El Mediterráneo Antiguo. Ediciones Cátedra, 2008. pp. 141-142.
  18. ^ a b Juan Manuel Abascal, Las inscripciones latinas de Santa Lucía del Trampal (Alcuéscar, Cáceres) y el culto de Ataecina en Hispania, Archivo Español de Arqueología 68: 31-105 (1995)
  19. ISBN 84-7290-174-2
    .
  20. ^ "Histoire et archéologie de la Péninsule ibérique antique, chronique VI: 1993-1997". In: Revue des Études Anciennes. Tome 102, 2000, n°1-2. pp. 186. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3406/rea.2000.4794; www.persee.fr/doc/rea_0035-2004_2000_num_102_1_4794
  21. ^ a b Frías, Manuel Salinas de; Cortés, Juana Rodríguez. "Ciudad y Cultos en Lusitania durante la época Antonina". In: Actas del II Congreso Internacional de Historia Antigua: la Hispania de los Antoninos (98-180). Valladolid, Spain: Universidad de Valladolid, Secretariado de Publicaciones e Intercambio Editorial, 2005. p. 356.
  22. ISSN 0874-2782
    ..
  23. ISSN 1578-5386.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of January 2024 (link
    ).
  24. ^ Vasconcellos, José Leite de. Religiões da Lusitania na parte que principalmente se refere a Portugal. Lisboa: Imprensa nacional, 1897. pp. 158-159.
  25. hdl:10810/35975
    .
  26. hdl:10810/36793. Con respecto a la diosa de Turobriga, sabemos presumir que el núcleo de su culto era la citada localidad, a partir de la cual se difundió hacia los lugares de los alrededores donde se han descubierto los testimonios.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of January 2024 (link
    ).
  27. ^ Ehmig, Ulrike. “Proserpina: Wandlerin Zwischen Den Welten”. In: Zeitschrift Für Papyrologie Und Epigraphik 200 (2016): 307–308. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26603891.
  28. ISSN 0013-6662
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  29. ^ Tomlin, Roger. "Cursing A Thief In Iberia And Britain". In: Magical Practice in the Latin West. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2013. pp. 247-249. doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/ej.9789004179042.i-676.55

Bibliography

Further reading

Epigraphy
On the location of Turibriga
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