The Gallic water goddesses:
Damona and Acionna
Goddess Damona - Bourbonne les Bains- France
The cult of water in Gaul was long-lived, as evidenced by the toponymy of many places, rivers or spa towns. It was particularly embodied through two goddesses with unknown names, but with traces still present.
The cult of water in Gaul was perennial, as evidenced by the toponymy of many places, rivers and spa towns. The goddess Divona, for example, venerated among other Gallic peoples by the Bituriges and the Cadurques, is at the origin of the name of Divonne-les-Bains (Ain). We can also cite Vesunna which gave Vésone, a district of Périgueux (Dordogne). The ending in – onna or – unna is typical and common to Gallo-Roman water deities and means “river” in the Celtic language. Other examples are better known, such as Icaunis (Yonne), Matrona (Marne), Sequana (Seine). The survival of the theme of water in toponymy can also be found later in Roman times, as with the cities bearing the name of "Aix" (Aquis, ablative of Aqua ). This article presents two goddesses associated with French localities: Damona and Acionna.
Damona (Bourbonne les Bains)
Damona
Damona is associated with Borvo, who is the Celtic equivalent of Apollo and patron of healing springs, whose name is at the origin of several water towns such as La Bourboule (Puy-de-Dôme), Bourbon-Lancy ( Saône-et-Loire), Bourbon-l'Archambault (Allier) and Bourbonne-les-Bains (Haute-Marne).
Damona, in Gallic mythology, is generally the consort of the god Borvo. The notion of consort designates an association between two deities, the consort often being secondary and inferior to the other, although possessing the same attributes. This term can also designate the spouse of a god, or his feminine form.
Borvo is a water healer while Damona is a goddess of springs and rivers. It is locally associated with the thermal spring of Bourbonne-les-Bains.
If Damona is most often associated with Borvo, she is sometimes represented in the company of other gods such as Moritasgus, Bormo, Albius and later with Apollo, which would give her a polyandrous character (ie a woman with multiple male spouses).
We find Damona represented alone on several occasions such as in Bourbonne-les-Bains and Rivières-en-Charente. Its representation is quite rare in the form of a statue.
Like the Celtic goddess Sirona, also associated with the symbolism of water and healing, she is often represented with an ear of wheat or even a braided crown of wheat ears, and a snake wrapped around her forearm. left, presumed symbols attached to fertility and healing.
For Albert Grenier, historian and archaeologist specializing in Gallo-Roman civilization, " these goddesses have little character of their own, they only seem to be the female personification of the divinity with which they are associated" .
Places dedicated to Damona are most often hot springs. The four Bourbon-Lancy inscriptions indicate that she has the ability to visit the pilgrim in a dream and heal him. But most often he is invited to bathe in the spring water.
His cult is attested in an area corresponding to present-day Burgundy as well as in Charente (lapidary inscription of Saintes), and even extends as far as Vienne (Isère). A statue of Damona was discovered in Bourbonne-les-Bains in 1977, during archaeological excavations carried out on the occasion of the destruction of the old thermal baths of the city. The current thermal baths of the Haut-Marne city have two gates, named Borvo and Damona. A chapel is present behind the baths with a virgin of the waters, an element which would suggest a continuity of the cult of Damona.
Acionna (Orléans and Essonne)
Acionna is a goddess whose Gallo-Roman cult is attested locally in the region of Orléans. The Essonne river, whose upper part, the Egg, has its source in the forest of Orléans, would take its name from this deity and we find derivatives like Axiona or Exona in medieval texts to designate it. We find elements of the name of the goddess in that of other rivers in this region such as the Esse, also from the forest of Orléans, and even the Egg. The name of the Egg would be derived from the name of Essonne, abbreviated EFF on old maps, taking into account that the letter S was noted as an F in the Middle Ages.
The name Acionna is Celtic but the meaning of the root aci is unknown.
Concerning the cult of the deity, surveys were carried out in 1822 by the civil engineer Jean-Baptiste Jollois on the site of an old spring, the Étuvée fountain. The site of the Étuvée fountain, 2.5 kilometers from Orléans, is on the territory of the Carnutes tribe, whose capital, located at the current site of Orléans, was the oppidum of Cenabum . Initially intended to find alternative sources of water supply for the city of Orléans, the surveys of Jollois revealed important ancient remains including wooden basins and a fragment of stone bearing an inscription in Latin:
The holy Aug(ustae) of Acionna, the hair of Illiomarus in the portico with his ornaments
(Consacred to Auguste Acionna, Hair, sob of Illiomarus)
This stele indicates the presence at this site of a portico dedicated to the divinity and erected by Capillus, son of Illiomarus, in gratitude for the granting of a wish. Jean-Baptiste Jollois estimated that the stele must date from the 1st century AD.
Other excavations carried out between 1969 and 1992 confirmed the presence of Gallo-Roman basins and multiple canals that could be linked to a spring sanctuary as well as to an adduction network intended to supply water to the ancient city. of Orleans ( Cenabum) . The most recent excavations on the site, carried out by the National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP), prior to the development of the ZAC du Clos de la Fontaine, date from 2006-2008. They have brought to light a real cultural ensemble that evolved over several Roman eras, with a sanctuary dedicated to the worship of the deity.
The site was developed during the Roman conquest, in the 1st century, and the sanctuary was then probably built of wood. The water supply network seems to have been built during the 2nd and 3rd centuries , although the precise dating is not known, and could coincide with the reconstruction of the capital of the Carnutes by Emperor Aurelian in 273. It includes in particular three aqueducts, one of which had two masonry manholes 250 meters apart, certainly used for the maintenance of the structure. An aqueduct crossed the sanctuary from north to south to supply a paved and square basin which probably served as a swimming pool for the faithful.
The sanctuary includes a large courtyard with a portico surrounding a square temple, the fanum. This temple was built around a central part, called cella, representing the dwelling of the goddess Acionna, as well as a peripheral gallery, for the use of celebrants. The cult was also rendered in the courtyard, as evidenced by the discovery in this place of offerings such as coins and ex-votos in sheet bronze, representing stylized faces, offered to the divinity in thanks for healings. Finally, a small square building was discovered in the northern part of the courtyard, in which was buried a statuette of a mother goddess, a symbol of fertility and maternity, probably placed for the needs of the cult on a pedestal. These two elements, in addition to the stele, attest to the existence of the cult of Acionna, linked to the presence of water.
The sanctuary was destroyed in the 4th century and graves were dug in its ruins. A first group of individuals is buried in what was the cella of the fanum , another tomb has been identified in the peripheral gallery and about fifteen graves are dug on the southern margin of the fanum . This arrangement would indicate that a privileged group of individuals reused the most sacred space of the temple to be buried and that, subsequently, other burials were established around this primitive nucleus.
Finally, other traces of the existence of this divinity were found in two fragments of stone reused in the ramparts and in a wall of the city, where inscriptions referring to Acionna were found.
Conclusion and connection with other mythologies
These two goddesses are examples of local Celtic deities linked to water, which translate in these regions the traditional symbolism associating the aquatic element with femininity. This symbolism is deeply dual, water representing as much a source of life, healing, fertility as a potential danger.
In Greek mythology, the creatures closest to Damona and Acionna are the naiads, nymphs of springs, streams and fountains. Mermaids, on the other hand, are sea creatures. In these two examples, water is a source of danger for men, the naiads thus holding back Hylas, and the sirens seducing the navigators with their songs in the Odyssey.
Arthurian legends present the lady of the lake (also called Viviane) as an important character, tutor of Lancelot du Lac and giving the sword Excalibur to Arthur.
The survival of the names of Damona and Acionna in French toponymy can be analyzed as evidence of the importance and vivacity of the cult that was given to them. More broadly, it is probably also a marker of the adaptation and heritage of Gallo-Roman cults, their deities having thus become, by syncretism, the Christian saints we know today.
Henri Réault – King Arthur Promotion
For further About Damona
• Troisgros (Henri), Bourbonne-les-Bains , capital of the divine Gallic couple Borvo and Damona , Association of Friends of Old Bourbonne, 2015 (BnF Tolbiac Rez-de-jardin, store no. 2016-118646).
• Excerpts from the Archaeological Review , January, February, March 1880 and May 1881, Anatole Chabouillet (BnF Tolbiac Ground floor, store no. 8-LJ20-303).
• Bourcelot (Henri), The Goddess Damona , Association of Friends of Old Bourbonne, 1972, (BnF Tolbiac Ground floor, store no. 8-LK7-58393).
About Acionna
• National Library of France – Gallica:
Bulletin of the Archaeological and Historical Society of Orleans (1874, 1877, 1959).
Memoirs of the Society of Agriculture, Sciences, Belles-Lettres and Arts of Orléans (1852).
Annals of the Royal Society of Sciences, Belles-Lettres and Arts of Orleans (1818, 1836).
• Dottin (Georges), The Religion of the Celts , 1904.
• Renel (Charles), The Religions of Gaul before Christianity , 1906.
• Goddesses in Celtic Religion Cult and Mythology: A Comparative Study of Ancient Ireland, Britain and Gaul , thesis defended by Noémie Beck, Université Lumière Lyon 2 (2009), in partnership with the Center for Analysis and Research on the English-speaking World.
• Christol (Michel), A provincial history – Narbonne Gaul from the end of the 2nd century BC to the 3rd century AD , Éditions de la Sorbonne, 2010. (Complete quote from the stele of 'Aciona).
• Memoirs and Dissertations on National and Foreign Antiquities , published by the Royal Society of Antiquaries of France, volume 11, 1835.
• Description of the site and the archaeological excavations carried out on the site of the Étuvée fountain – National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research.
institut-iliade/les-deesses-gauloises-des-eaux-damona-et-acionna
