Ataegina

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File:Ataecina. Mármol del artista Pedro Roque DSC 0572r1.jpg
Ataegina. Marble, 210x93x72 cm, by the artist Pedro Roque Hidalgo, 2008. Museum of Marble, Vila Viçosa, Portugal

Ataegina (Template:Langx; Template:Langx)<ref>Vasconcellos, José Leite de. Religiões da Lusitania na parte que principalmente se refere a Portugal. Lisboa: Imprensa nacional, 1897. p. 146.</ref> 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,<ref>Lopes, Cristina Maria Grilo. "Ataegina uma divindade Paleohispânica". In: Revista Santuários. Lisboa, 2014. Vol. 1, n.1 (Jan./Jun. 2014), p. 97.</ref> among other spellings.<ref>Martínez, Eugenio Ramón Luján. "La diosa Ataecina y el nombre de la noche en antiguo irlandés". In: Emerita: Revista de lingüística y filología clásica Vol. 66, Nº 2, 1998, pp. 293-294. Template:ISSN.</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Her name appears in conjunction to a place named Turibriga or Turobriga (see below).<ref>Template:Cite journal.</ref>

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).<ref>Vasconcellos, José Leite de. Religiões da Lusitania na parte que principalmente se refere a Portugal. Lisboa: Imprensa nacional, 1897. pp. 161-162.</ref><ref name="hdl.handle.net">Lopes, Cristina Maria Grilo. "Ataegina uma divindade Paleohispânica". In: Revista Santuários. Lisboa, 2014. Vol. 1, n.1 (Jan./Jun. 2014), p. 98.</ref><ref name="Los dioses de la hispania céltica">Olivares Pedreño, Juan Carlos. Los dioses de la hispania céltica. Universitat d´Alacant / Universidad de Alicante, Servicio de Publicaciones: Real Academia de la Historia. 2002. p. 247. Template:ISBN.</ref>

Others propose a connection to the domain of nocturnal or underworld deities: Template:Ill tentatively saw a connection with Irish adaig 'night', which may indicate a relation to the underworld.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Similarly, in a 1998 article, Eugenio Luján, based on the epigraphic evidence available until then, supposed that Adaecina is the original spelling of her name, and related it to Irish adaig,Template:Efn and both deriving from a Proto-Celtic *adakī. This form would account for both words, but Luján refrained from offering a definitive etymology.<ref>Martínez, Eugenio Ramón Luján. "La diosa Ataecina y el nombre de la noche en antiguo irlandés". In: Emerita: Revista de lingüística y filología clásica Vol. 66, Nº 2, 1998, pp. 301-302. Template:ISSN.</ref> Wolfgang Meid raises the possibility that Old Irish adaig may be a borrowing of Welsh adeg "time, occasion, period, season", whose native Irish cognate is athach "interval, space (of time)", derived from Proto-Celtic *atikā, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂et-i-keh₂, from *h₂et- (“to go”), making a connection between these words and Ataegina unlikely. <ref>Meid, Wolfgang, Die Romanze von Froech und Findabair, Institut für Sprachen und Literaturen der Universität Innsbruck, 2009, p. 106</ref><ref>Thomas, R. J., Bevan, G. A., Donovan, P. J., Hawke, A. et al., editors (1950–present), “adeg”, in Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru Online (in Welsh), University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh & Celtic Studies</ref><ref>Hamp, Eric P. (1977) “Some Italic and Celtic Correspondences”, in Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung, volume 91, number 2, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, page 240.</ref>

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".<ref>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.</ref> In a later article, she describes Ataecina as "the goddess of the nighttime", and derives her name from *Atakī-nā 'the divine (night)time'.<ref>"... 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</ref>

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.<ref>Lopes, Cristina Maria Grilo. "Ataegina uma divindade Paleohispânica". In: Revista Santuários. Lisboa, 2014. Vol. 1, n.1 (Jan./Jun. 2014), pp. 97-103.</ref>

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.<ref>Vasconcellos, José Leite de. Religiões da Lusitania na parte que principalmente se refere a Portugal. Lisboa: Imprensa nacional, 1897. p. 173.</ref> Spanish historian Template:Ill 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".<ref>Blázquez, José Mª. Arte Y Religión En El Mediterráneo Antiguo. Ediciones Cátedra, 2008. pp. 141-142.</ref>

Centers of worship

Ataegina was worshipped in Lusitania and Betica; there were also sanctuaries dedicated to Ataegina in Elvas (Portugal), and Mérida and Cáceres in Spain, along with other places, especially near the Guadiana river. She was one of the goddesses worshipped in Myrtilis (today's Mértola, Portugal), Pax Julia (Beja, Portugal). A bronze plaque from Malpartida de Cáceres suggests associations with the goat as a sacred animal.<ref name="Abascal" /><ref name="Los dioses de la hispania céltica"/><ref>Diáz, Alonso Rodríguez; Navascués, Juan Javier Enríquez. Extremadura tartésica: arqueología de un proceso periférico. Barcelona: Bellaterra, 2001. p. 259. Template:ISBN.</ref>

Turibriga or Turobriga

Her name appears with adjective Turobrigensis, which seems to indicate a place called Turibriga or Turobriga.<ref>"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</ref><ref name="Frías 2005. p. 356">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.</ref> Similar epigraphic attestations read Turibrige, [T]urubricae and Turibri, which led professor Amílcar Guerra to indicate a form *Turibris.<ref>Template:Cite journal.</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal.</ref>

This place is interpreted by scholarship to mean the main center of her cult,<ref>Vasconcellos, José Leite de. Religiões da Lusitania na parte que principalmente se refere a Portugal. Lisboa: Imprensa nacional, 1897. pp. 158-159.</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal.</ref> but its precise location is unknown. Classical author Pliny indicated it belonged to Celtic Beturia.<ref name="Frías 2005. p. 356"/>

Functions

Epigraphs from the Badajoz region associate the goddess with the Roman Proserpina (analogous to Greek Persephone),<ref name="hdl.handle.net"/><ref>Ehmig, Ulrike. “Proserpina: Wandlerin Zwischen Den Welten”. In: Zeitschrift Für Papyrologie Und Epigraphik 200 (2016): 307–308. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26603891.</ref> which would make her a goddess presiding over spring and seasonality, echoing the "reborn" derivation of the name,<ref name="Abascal">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)</ref><ref name="Los dioses de la hispania céltica"/> or connect her to the Underworld.<ref>Martínez, Eugenio Ramón Luján. "La diosa Ataecina y el nombre de la noche en antiguo irlandés". In: Emerita: Revista de lingüística y filología clásica Vol. 66, Nº 2, 1998, p. 292. Template:ISSN.</ref> 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.<ref>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</ref>

See also

Footnotes

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References

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Bibliography

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Further reading

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  • Abascal Palazón, Juan Manuel. "Ataecina". In: Luís Raposo (coord.). Religiões da Lusitania. Loquuntur saxa. Lisboa, Museu Nacional de Arqueologia: Ministério da Cultura, Instituto Português de Museus, 2002. pp. 53–60.
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  • Hernando, Domingo Portela. "El culto a Ataecina en la Península Ibérica". In: Homenaje de Talavera y sus tierras a Don Fernando Jiménez de Gregorio: Talavera, 1998. Coord. por César Pacheco Jiménez, 1998, pp. 121–130. Template:ISBN.
  • Jordan, Michael. Encyclopedia of Gods, Kyle Cathie Limited, 2002.
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Epigraphy
On the location of Turibriga

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