The Muri statuette group is a group of six Gallo-Roman bronze figurines found in 1832 in Muri bei Bern, Switzerland. The group includes representations of the gods Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, Naria, Artio and of a Lar. The ensemble includes the only known representations of Artio and Naria, and is one of the more significant items in the collection of the Historical Museum of Bern.
The statues are believed to be the idols worshiped at the temple of the regio Arurensis – the religious association of the region of the river Aar – whose name is inscribed on the pedestal of the Naria statue. [1] The temple belonged to a large Roman estate. [2] At an unknown time, probably to protect them against some threat, the statues were removed from the temple, locked in a chest and brought to a nearby building in whose ruins they were found 1,500 years later, in May 1832. [3]
Together with a number of household effects from the Roman period, the statues were found during an excavation for a new garden for the parsonage of Muri. Part of the decorative fittings and the iron key of the chest were also unearthed, but the key was later lost. The find was reported, together with drawings of the statues, in the Hinkender Bote , the main regional periodical of the time. [4] The find soon drew a crowd of interested visitors, and the cantonal government dispatched one of its members, Regierungsrat Lohner, to inspect the find. After lengthy negotiations with the parson, the government acquired the statues after paying a finder's fee of 400 Berne franks. [5]
The group was put on display in various government rooms until it was acquired by the Historical Museum of Bern, where it is now exhibited. From 1905 on, a drawing of Artio and the bear by Rudolf Münger was pictured on the title sheet of the journal of the Bernese historical society, Blätter für bernische Geschichte, Kunst und Altertumskunde. This helped to establish Artio in the public consciousness as a particularly Bernese bear goddess, which fit with the tradition of the bear as Berne's heraldic animal and namesake. [6]
The deities belong to two different religious traditions, attesting to the fusion of Roman and Gallic practices of worship in Switzerland in the Roman era: Jupiter, Juno and Minerva, the Capitoline Triad, are Roman gods, as is the Lar, while Artio and Naria are romanized Celtic goddesses of regional significance. [2]
The matching style of the five main statues (Jupiter, Juno, Minerva , Naria and the human Artio) indicates that they were made by the same bronze caster, probably in the late second century AD somewhere in western Switzerland. The Lare appears to have been made in Italy in the first century AD. [2]
The two figures of Artio are the most famous bronzes of Roman Switzerland, and the only known representation of a Gallo-Roman deity in both human and animal form. [7]
The dominating element of the group is the she-bear, Artio in her animal form, 21 centimetres (8.3 in) long. The taut, muscular body and open mouth convey the great animal's tense attention, and the structure of her fur is realistically suggested by carefully engraved lines. The bear is accompanied by a bronze tree, highly stylized and botanically indeterminable. [8]
The human Artio was originally seated on a throne that is now lost. She wears a sleeved dress, a heavy mantle over her left shoulder, and a diadem in her wrapped hair. A high basket filled with fruit and grain, on a slender pillar, hides the wreath of fruits in her lap and the sacrificial bowl in her right hand from view. This, and also the lack of any accoutrements associated with a bear goddess, suggests that this figure was originally conceived as a solitary representation of a goddess of vegetation or agriculture, which was later repurposed – together with the bear – as a representation of Artio. [9]
The pedestal bears the inscription,
that is, "To the Goddess Artio, from Licinia Sabinilla." About the sponsor of the group nothing is known but her name, which is Italic in origin but was also widely used in Gaul. [7]
At the time of their discovery, the individual elements of the group – pedestal, bear, woman, tree and basket – were separated from each other, making their configuration a matter of conjecture. In the 19th century, the human Artio was displayed alone in the center of the pedestal, facing forward. J. J. Bachofen, examining the statues in 1860, first recognized the bear as female. Inspired by the Muri statuettes, his 1863 monograph about bears in ancient religion, Der Bär in den Religionen des Alterthums, postulated that the apparently Celtic name Artio was related to the Greek word for bear, arktos, and that the two statues were related: the bear representing Dea Artio in her animal form. [11] [12]
The discovery of several soldering joints on the pedestal by Paul Vionnet in 1899 confirmed that the bear had indeed been affixed to the pedestal, and allowed a reconstruction of what are now believed to be the two configurations in which the bronze elements were originally displayed. [12] It appears that Artio's bear form was initially alone on the left side of the pedestal, facing the tree at the right end, while an unknown object was placed on the semicircular protrusion on the left side of the pedestal. At some later time, the tree was moved to that protrusion behind the bear, making room for the newly added statue of the human Artio, her basket and her now missing throne. This was probably done at the behest of the statue's sponsor, Licinia Sabinilla, and the pedestal also probably received its inscription at that time, because it is unlikely that the bear alone would have been titulated as Dea Artio. The bronzes have since been displayed in this final position. [8]
The Artio group (Inv. no. 16170/16210) weighs 5,308 grams (11.702 lb). The pedestal is 28.6 centimetres (11.3 in) long and the tree is 19 centimetres (7.5 in) high. The body of the bear, the pedestal, and the human body up to the shoulders are hollow. [7]
Diana is a goddess in Roman and Hellenistic religion, primarily considered a patroness of the countryside and nature, hunters, wildlife, childbirth, crossroads, the night, and the Moon. She is equated with the Greek goddess Artemis, and absorbed much of Artemis' mythology early in Roman history, including a birth on the island of Delos to parents Jupiter and Latona, and a twin brother, Apollo, though she had an independent origin in Italy.
Hercules is the Roman equivalent of the Greek divine hero Heracles, son of Jupiter and the mortal Alcmena. In classical mythology, Hercules is famous for his strength and for his numerous far-ranging adventures.
Minerva is the Roman goddess of wisdom, justice, law, victory, and the sponsor of arts, trade, and strategy. She is also a goddess of warfare, though with a focus on strategic warfare, rather than the violence of gods such as Mars. Beginning in the second century BC, the Romans equated her with the Greek goddess Athena. Minerva is one of the three Roman deities in the Capitoline Triad, along with Jupiter and Juno.
Venus is a Roman goddess whose functions encompass love, beauty, desire, sex, fertility, prosperity, and victory. In Roman mythology, she was the ancestor of the Roman people through her son, Aeneas, who survived the fall of Troy and fled to Italy. Julius Caesar claimed her as his ancestor. Venus was central to many religious festivals, and was revered in Roman religion under numerous cult titles.
In Sabine and ancient Roman religion and myth, Luna is the divine embodiment of the Moon. She is often presented as the female complement of the Sun, Sol, conceived of as a god. Luna is also sometimes represented as an aspect of the Roman triple goddess, along with Diana and either Proserpina or Hecate. Luna is not always a distinct goddess, but sometimes rather an epithet that specializes a goddess, since both Diana and Juno are identified as moon goddesses.
Bona Dea was a goddess in ancient Roman religion. She was associated with chastity and fertility among married Roman women, healing, and the protection of the state and people of Rome. According to Roman literary sources, she was brought from Magna Graecia at some time during the early or middle Republic, and was given her own state cult on the Aventine Hill.
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.
In ancient Roman religion, Roma was a female deity who personified the city of Rome and, more broadly, the Roman state. She was created and promoted to represent and propagate certain of Rome's ideas about itself, and to justify its rule. She was portrayed on coins, sculptures, architectural designs, and at official games and festivals. Images of Roma had elements in common with other goddesses, such as Rome's Minerva, her Greek equivalent Athena and various manifestations of Greek Tyche, who protected Greek city-states; among these, Roma stands dominant, over piled weapons that represent her conquests, and promising protection to the obedient. Her "Amazonian" iconography shows her "manly virtue" (virtus) as fierce mother of a warrior race, augmenting rather than replacing local goddesses. On some coinage of the Roman Imperial era, she is shown as a serene advisor, partner and protector of ruling emperors. In Rome, the Emperor Hadrian built and dedicated a gigantic temple to her as Roma Aeterna, and to Venus Felix, emphasising the sacred, universal and eternal nature of the empire.
Juno was an ancient Roman goddess, the protector and special counsellor of the state. She was equated to Hera, queen of the gods in Greek mythology and a goddess of love and marriage. A daughter of Saturn and Ops, she was the sister and wife of Jupiter and the mother of Mars, Vulcan, Bellona, Lucina and Juventas. Like Hera, her sacred animal was the peacock. Her Etruscan counterpart was Uni, and she was said to also watch over the women of Rome. As the patron goddess of Rome and the Roman Empire, Juno was called Regina ("Queen") and was a member of the Capitoline Triad, centered on the Capitoline Hill in Rome, and also including Jupiter, and Minerva, goddess of wisdom.
Astarte is the Hellenized form of the Ancient Near Eastern goddess ʿAṯtart. ʿAṯtart was the Northwest Semitic equivalent of the East Semitic goddess Ishtar.
The Capitoline Triad was a group of three deities who were worshipped in ancient Roman religion in an elaborate temple on Rome's Capitoline Hill. It comprised Jupiter, Juno and Minerva. The triad held a central place in the public religion of Rome.
Tanit or Tinnit was a chief deity of Ancient Carthage; she derives from a local Berber deity and the consort of Baal Hammon. As Ammon is a local Libyan deity, so is Tannit, which she represents the matriarchal aspect of Numidian society, whom the Egyptians identify as Neith and the Greeks identify as Athena. She was the goddess of Wisdom, civilization and the crafts; she is the defender of towns and homes where she is worshipped. Ancient North Africans used to put her sign on tombstones and homes to ask for protection, her main temples in Thinissut, Cirta, Lambaesis and Theveste .. She had a yearly festival in Antiquity which persists to this day in many parts of North Africa but was banned by Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, who called it a pagan festival.
Senuna was a Celtic goddess worshipped in Roman Britain. She was unknown until a cache of 26 votive offerings to her were discovered in 2002 in an undisclosed field at Ashwell End in Hertfordshire by metal detectorist Alan Meek. Her imagery shows evidence of syncretism between a pre-Roman goddess with the Roman Minerva.
The Loggia dei Lanzi, also called the Loggia della Signoria, is a building on a corner of the Piazza della Signoria in Florence, Italy, adjoining the Uffizi Gallery. It consists of wide arches open to the street. The arches rest on clustered pilasters with Corinthian capitals. The wide arches appealed so much to the Florentines that Michelangelo proposed that they should be continued all around the Piazza della Signoria.
Gallo-Roman religion is a fusion of the traditional religious practices of the Gauls, who were originally Celtic speakers, and the Roman and Hellenistic religions introduced to the region under Roman Imperial rule. It was the result of selective acculturation.
According to classical sources, the ancient Celts were animists. They honoured the forces of nature, saw the world as inhabited by many spirits, and saw the Divine manifesting in aspects of the natural world.
Aquae Iasae was the Roman settlement and Roman bath in the area of present city Varaždinske Toplice, Croatia. Today it is the name of the archaeological site.
Naria was a goddess in Gallo-Roman religion who appears to have been venerated only in what is now the western part of Switzerland. She was only mentioned twice in a Gallo-Roman context, and her nature and responsibilities remain obscure.
A statue of Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom and strategic warfare, is installed in a roundabout fountain in Guadalajara, in the Mexican state of Jalisco. It is a bronze sculpture supported by a large pedestal that names 18 notable citizens of the city. The statue has indigenous facial features and holds a spear and a shield. The phrase "May justice, wisdom and strength, guard this loyal city" is engraved as well. Initially, the statue was criticized by the citizens, but since then it has become a symbol of the city.
