Gobannus (or Gobannos, the Gaulish form, sometimes Cobannus) was a Gallo-Roman smithing god.
A number of statues dedicated to him are preserved, found together with a bronze cauldron dedicated to Deus Cobannos, [1] in the late 1980s and illegally[ failed verification ] exported to the United States, now in the Getty Museum in the Getty Center, in California. [2] He is mentioned in an inscription found in the 1970s in Fontenay-près-Vézelay, reading AVG(VSTO) SAC(RVM) [DE]O COBANNO, i.e. dedicated to Augustus and Deus Cobannus.
The theonym Gobannos, attested as Deo Cobanno on inscriptions, [3] is derived from the Proto-Celtic stem *goben-, meaning 'smith' (cf. Old Irish gobae, Middle Welsh gof, Middle Breton gof(f), Old Cornish gof 'smith'; cf. also Gaulish gobedbi 'with the smiths' < *goben-bi or *gob-et-bi-). The same stem can be found in the Irish deity Goibniu (< *Gobeniū or *Gobanniō), and in Govannon (< *Gobannonos), the son of the goddess Dôn in Welsh mythology, which may suggest a common origin of the name in Proto-Celtic legends. It is also attested in various personal names, such as the Gaulish Gobannitio, Gobannicnus, or Gobano, the Old Irish Gobain (Lat. Gobanus), the Old Breton Ran Gof, as well as in the toponyms Gobannium (now Abergavenny) and Sanctus Gobanus (Saint-Gobain). [4] [5] [6]
A Proto-Indo-European (PIE) origin of the stem *goben- is controversial, and some scholars have proposed that it is restricted to Celtic. [4] [5] It could be connected to Latin faber ('craftsman'), via PIE *g(w)hobh-, although the former is generally derived from *dhHbh-ro- (cf. Armenian darbin). [5] Patrizia de Bernardo Stempel has also proposed to derive it from PIE *g(h)eubh- ('curve, bend'), because bronze was hammered and bended, contrary to iron that was melted, [4] and Václav Blažek has suggested a relation with the Lithuanian goddess of fire Gabija . [7]
The best preserved dedication to Gobannus is found on the Bern zinc tablet, where his name is written ΓΟΒΑΝΟ (in the dative and in Greek letters). The tablet was found in the 1980s in Bern. It is inscribed with an apparently Gaulish inscription
Brenodor is probably a placename ( cf. Brennus); Nantaror may refer to the Aare valley (containing as first element nanto- "valley"; cf. Cornish nans, Welsh nant). Dobnoredo seems to be an epithet of Gobano, maybe composed of dubno- "world" (Old Irish dumh, c.f. Dumnorix, Donald, Devon) and rēdo- "travel" (Old Irish riad), or rēdā "chariot" i.e. "world-traveller" or "world-charioteer", so that the inscription may mean approximately "to Gobannus, the world-traveller, dedicated by the people of Brennoduron in the Arura valley".
Although called zinc, the tablet is made of an alloy that also contains lead and iron as well as traces of copper, tin and cadmium. [8] The zinc was possibly collected from a furnace, where the metal is known to aggregate, Strabo calling it pseudoarguros "mock silver". In 1546, Georg Agricola re-discovered that a white metal could be condensed and scraped off the walls of a furnace when zinc ores were smelted, but it is believed that it was usually thrown away as worthless. Since the tablet is dedicated to the god of the smiths it is not unlikely that zinc remnants scraped from a furnace were collected by smiths and considered particularly smithcraft-related.
Alaunus or Alaunius is a Gaulish god of healing and prophecy. His name is known from inscriptions found in Lurs, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence in Southern France and in Mannheim in western Germany. In the latter inscription, Alaunus is used as an epithet of Mercury. The feminine form Alauna is at the origin of many place-names and hydronyms across Europe, including the Roman-era names of Valognes in Normandy, Maryport and Watercrook in Cumbria, River Alyn in North Wales, Alcester in Warwickshire, Ardoch in Perthshire, and Learchild and the River Aln in Northumberland.
In Irish mythology, Goibniu was the metalsmith of the Tuatha Dé Danann. He is believed to have been a smithing god and is also associated with hospitality. His name is related to the Welsh Gofannon and the Gaulish Gobannus.
Artio is a Celtic bear goddess. Evidence of her worship has notably been found at Bern in Switzerland. Her name is derived from the Gaulish word for 'bear', artos.
Borvo or Bormo was an ancient Celtic god of healing springs worshipped in Gaul and Gallaecia. He was sometimes identified with the Graeco-Roman god Apollo, although his cult had preserved a high degree of autonomy during the Roman period.
In ancient Celtic religion, Ialonus Contrebis or Ialonus or Gontrebis was a god worshipped in what are now Lancashire and Provence. Ialonus is thought to be the god of clearings and/or meadows.
Grannus was a Celtic deity of classical antiquity. He was regularly identified with Apollo as Apollo Grannus and frequently worshipped in conjunction with Sirona, and sometimes with Mars and other deities.
In Celtic mythology, Taranis is the god of thunder, who was worshipped primarily in Gaul, Hispania, Britain, and Ireland, but also in the Rhineland and Danube regions, amongst others. Taranis, along with Esus and Toutatis, was mentioned by the Roman poet Lucan in his epic poem Pharsalia as a Celtic deity to whom human sacrificial offerings were made. Taranis was associated, as was the Cyclops Brontes ("thunder") in Greek mythology, with the wheel.
The Volcae were a Gallic tribal confederation constituted before the raid of combined Gauls that invaded Macedonia c. 270 BC and fought the assembled Greeks at the Battle of Thermopylae in 279 BC. Tribes known by the name Volcae were found simultaneously in southern Gaul, Moravia, the Ebro valley of the Iberian Peninsula, and Galatia in Anatolia. The Volcae appear to have been part of the late La Tène material culture, and a Celtic identity has been attributed to the Volcae, based on mentions in Greek and Latin sources as well as onomastic evidence. Driven by highly mobile groups operating outside the tribal system and comprising diverse elements, the Volcae were one of the new ethnic entities formed during the Celtic military expansion at the beginning of the 3rd century BC. Collecting in the famous excursion into the Balkans, ostensibly, from the Greek point of view, to raid Delphi, a branch of the Volcae split from the main group on the way into the Balkans and joined two other tribes, the Tolistobogii and the Trocmi, to settle in central Anatolia and establish a new identity as the Galatians.
Celtiberian or Northeastern Hispano-Celtic is an extinct Indo-European language of the Celtic branch spoken by the Celtiberians in an area of the Iberian Peninsula between the headwaters of the Douro, Tagus, Júcar and Turia rivers and the Ebro river. This language is directly attested in nearly 200 inscriptions dated from the 2nd century BC to the 1st century AD, mainly in Celtiberian script, a direct adaptation of the northeastern Iberian script, but also in the Latin alphabet. The longest extant Celtiberian inscriptions are those on three Botorrita plaques, bronze plaques from Botorrita near Zaragoza, dating to the early 1st century BC, labeled Botorrita I, III and IV.
The Bern zinc tablet or Gobannus tablet is a metal sheet found in 1984 in Bern, Switzerland. As it was only analysed after the death of the workman who had found and removed the tablet from its site, its original archaeological context can no longer be precisely determined. According to the scant information available to archaeologist Rudolf Fellmann, it was found in Thormenboden forest within what appears to be a Gallo-Roman context, a layer dominated by Roman roof tiles at a depth of roughly 30 centimetres. It is inscribed with an apparently Gaulish inscription, consisting of four words, each on its own line, the letters formed by little dots impressed onto the metal:
The Petrocorii were a Gallic tribe dwelling in the present-day Périgord region, between the Dordogne and Vézère rivers, during the Iron Age and the Roman period.
Visucius was a Gallo-Roman god, usually identified with Mercury. He was worshipped primarily in the east of Gaul, around Trier and on the Rhine; his name is recorded on about ten dedicatory inscriptions. One such inscription has also been found in Bordeaux. Visucius is, along with Gebrinius and Cissonius, among the most common indigenous epithets of the Gaulish Mercury.
The Caletes or Caleti were a Belgic or Gallic tribe dwelling in Pays de Caux, in present-day Normandy, during the Iron Age and the Roman period.
Cicolluis or Cicoluis is a god in Celtic mythology worshiped by the ancient Gauls and having a parallel in Ireland.
Litavis is a Gallic deity whose cult is primarily attested in east-central Gaul during the Roman period. She was probably originally an earth-goddess. In medieval Celtic languages, various terms derived from *Litauia came to designate the Brittany Peninsula.
The Leucī were a Belgic tribe dwelling in the southern part of the modern Lorraine region during the Iron Age and the Roman period.
The Bituriges Vivisci were a Gallic tribe dwelling near modern-day Bordeaux during the Roman period. They had a homonym tribe, the Bituriges Cubi in the Berry region, which could indicate a common origin, although there is no direct of evidence of this.
The Veliocasses or Velocasses were a Belgic or Gallic tribe of the La Tène and Roman periods, dwelling in the south of modern Seine-Maritime and in the north of Eure.
The Chamalières tablet is a lead tablet, six by four centimeters, that was discovered in 1971 in Chamalières, France, at the Source des Roches excavation. The tablet is dated somewhere between 50 BC and 50 AD. The text is written in the Gaulish language, with cursive Latin letters. With 396 letters grouped in 47 words, it is the third-longest extant text in Gaulish, giving it great importance in the study of this language.
The Larzac tablet is a lead curse tablet found in 1983 in the commune of L'Hospitalet-du-Larzac, Aveyron, southern France. It is now kept in the museum of Millau. It bears one of the most important inscriptions in the Gaulish language.