Artio

[mothwench]

Does anyone know anything about Artio besides the statue found in Switzerland and one inscription at Trier?

I'm looking for information and finding nothing much. :sadman: Does Tacitus mention her, maybe?

Failing that, can anyone give me a rough date for the statue? _catroll_

[Philosophia]

From http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/A/AN/ANIMAL.htm
The bear is traditionally associated with Bern in Switzerland, and in 1832 a statue of Artio, a bear goddess, was dug up there.

From http://www.pantheon.org/articles/a/artio.html
Artio
Artio of Muri, usually depicted in the form of a bear, she was the continental Celtic goddess of the bear cult. Known from inscriptions in the Bern region of Switzerland.

From http://www.joellessacredgrove.com/Celtic/deitiesa.html
ARTIO
(Continental, Anglo-Celtic) A bear Goddess of abundance, strength and the harvest. This bear Goddess was the consort of Essus. A shrine to her once stood in what is now Berne, Switzerland. Like Eostre, she was probably once a Teutonic deity. She is depicted as being surrounded by full baskets and animals, therefore it can be surmised that she was a fertility and harvest Goddess, and a Goddess of wildlife.

From http://groups.msn.com/InannasPlace/conceptsofthegoddess.msnw
The Celts embraced the Great Goddess thru the Greeks, Etruscans & Romans. Artio (Celtic Goddess) is the Mediterranean Goddess Artemis; her symbols are the bear and the symbols of the Mother. She is assoc. with Cernounnous, Artemis was assoc. with Dionysus. Her title was Artemis- Kalliste. Artos means bear; Arctus is the same in Latin - 233 a.d. to 304 a.d. Hence her assoc. with the bee & honey, w/ the name Melissa. She is the Goddess of Old Europe (non Greek & non Indo-European). Her other names were Enodia, Hecate, Diana, Diktynna, Calisto. Greek/Roman consorts were the deer and the dog. She was present at births, called the opener of the womb, Romans called her Diana. The Diana/Artemis assoc. as the Great Mother Goddess became linked to the moon. Hecate was Artemis on Earth & she ruled over the 3 great mysteries - birth, life & death. No one at this time knew the science of birth.

From http://www.druidry.org/obod/lore/animal/bear.html
France / Switzerland
Artaius and Artio
Artaius or Artio was the bear god in Gaul (France), particularly in present-day Switzerland. The Romans had identified Artaius with Mercury. Bern, the capital of Switzerland is named after the Bear.
According to one legend, Berthold V of Zähringen named Bern after the first animal killed during a hunt when the city was founded in 1191.
Some scholars believed that King Arthur (Arth is Welsh for Bear) may have originally been a god, and was derived from the Gallic god Artaius. Though, Artaius had also been identified with another Welsh figure, named Gwydion.
The female form of this deity was Artio or Dea Artio, the bear-goddess. There's a Roman statue of Artio, now housed in the Historisches Museum, in Bern. The statue depicts the goddess seated, facing a bear. Unless of course the bear is the goddess and the woman a supplicant.

From http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/ursula_bear_goddess.html
The bear goddess was known to the Greeks as Artemis (daughter of Zeus and Leto and the twin sister of Apollo) and in China as Matsu Po, Queen of Heaven and the Sea. According to one source, one of Artemis's frequent animal incarnations was the Great She-bear (constellation Ursa Major), ruler of the stars and protectress of the axis mundi, Pole of the World. The Helvetian (Swiss) tribes around what is now Berne, worshipped her as the She-Bear, and she is still their heraldic arms. Berne, in fact, means ‘She-bear’, just as Urus means ‘bear’. Sometimes the Helvetians called her Artio, shortened to ‘Art’ by the Celtic tribes who married her to the Bear-king, Arthur. As Artio's Lord of the Hunt, the medieval god of witches came to be called, ‘Robin son of Art’. In Irish, Art meant ‘God’, but its earlier meaning was ‘Goddess' – more specifically the Bear-goddess.

From http://www.amazonation.com/ArtemisIII.html
Artio: Helvetian name of Artemis

Other links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artio
http://realmagick.com/articles/89/889.html
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/ref/artio
http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Artio
http://www.khandro.net/animal_bear.htm
http://www.timelessmyths.com/arthurian/arthur.html

[Meadhbh]

Artio is the Continental Celtic Goddess of fertility and wild animals, especially bears, and in fact that is exactly what Her name means, "Bear". The female bear usually conceives in the autumn and spends Her hibernation time pregnant. Bears are associated with shamanism, as the hibernation period in winter symbolizes the journey into darkness and their emergence in spring with cubs the return to the light bearing the wisdom gained on the journey. The constellations of Ursa Minor and Ursa Major are behind Her; the pole star of Ursa Minor represents the center that is the shamaness's destination.

[mothwench]

thanks meadhbh. :kooky: that's an interesting point you made about shamanism and hibernation. worth a ponder. :hmmmmm:

and thank you, too minerva for posting all those links. :cutie: i've found similar information before but none of it seems to be referenced, unfortunately.

[Nantonos]

Does anyone know anything about Artio besides the statue found in Switzerland and one inscription at Trier?

There isn't much to know. I rewrote the wikipedia article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artio
to trim out the unreferenced nonsense and leave just the historical information. What remains is fully referenced.

I'm looking for information and finding nothing much. :sadman: Does Tacitus mention her, maybe?
Nope.

Failing that, can anyone give me a rough date for the statue? _catroll_
I would say second century CE based on the clothing and hairstyle. I'll see what Deyts says. Do you have pictures of the statue?

[Nantonos]

On a related topic, a collection of ancient bear representations
http://www.beastcoins.com/Topical/Animals-Ancient/Bear/Bear.htm

[mothwench]

thanks for the bear link, nantonos. _pounce_ yes i do have a picture of the statue, but i have no idea if it's a picture of the original, a replica, or even just a modern statue inspired by the original. hence me asking about its date... i think it looks strangly modern.

:hmmmmm: which i uploaded, but it won't show in my post. odd. well, if you do an image search for artio on google, it's the first image on the page. http://images.google.de/images?q=artio&svnum=10&hl=de&lr=&start=0&sa=N

[Nantonos]

thanks for the bear link, nantonos. _pounce_ yes i do have a picture of the statue, but i have no idea if it's a picture of the original, a replica, or even just a modern statue inspired by the original. hence me asking about its date... i think it looks strangly modern.

:hmmmmm: which i uploaded, but it won't show in my post. odd. well, if you do an image search for artio on google, it's the first image on the page. http://images.google.de/images?q=artio&svnum=10&hl=de&lr=&start=0&sa=N

Its not a great picture but yes, that's it. Here is a better one try searching on Artioni too.
http://www.edimuster.ch/baernduetsch/wappen/deaartio.jpg

Also came across photos of the Trier inscription
http://www.irrel.de/tourismus/sehenswert/s_artioni.htm
http://home.freiepresse.de/uwdel/teufelsschlucht.html

Lastly, I found two more inscriptions; one from Stockstadt

CIL 13, 11789
[Deae A]rtioni s[acr(um)] / [3]s Sexti(us) S[3] / [3 d]e su[o pos(uit)]

the other from Heddernheim / Nida
CIL 13, 07375
[I]n h(onorem) d(omus) d(ivinae) / [deae Ar]tioni(?) / [

[mothwench]

awesome, thanks! the inscription at stockstadt, what does [3]s Sexti(us) S[3] / [3 d]e su[o pos(uit) mean?

i'm assuming the letters in the round brackets are missing or unreadable, what do the square brackets mean?

and what does the three in the square brackets mean?


edited to add: one more question, can you find out which stockstadt? cause there are two: one on the river rhine, and one on the river main.

[Nantonos]

awesome, thanks! the inscription at stockstadt, what does [3]s Sexti(us) S[3] / [3 d]e su[o pos(uit) mean?

i'm assuming the letters in the round brackets are missing or unreadable, what do the square brackets mean?

square brackets mean letters that are unclear, or that they are assumed to be there, but are missing/defaced/worn. If they know from spelling, grammar and context what the letters are they add them inside the square brackets; otherwise, just a count of how many letters spacing there is.

round brackets on the other hand are missing letters that were never on the stone, because he original text was abbreviated. Often, very much abreviated.

So, looking at what we have, [3]s means a probable I, three letters, s. Perhaps a name, Iulius ? Sextius is another name and so is the third one most likely, S-something split over two lines. So, the name of the dedicant. De suo posuit means 'at his own expense' and thus probably records something more costly than just a plain altar, maybe even the building or refurbishment of a temple.

The full translations are thus:

Sacred to the goddess Artion, Isomething Sextius Ssomething [I](gave this, implied) at his own expense.

In honor of the divine house (ie the family of the emperor) and to the goddess Artion, (something else, now lost)


edited to add: one more question, can you find out which stockstadt? cause there are two: one on the river rhine, and one on the river main.

Thats a pet peeve of mine, vageness in locations. I believe a lat/ling should always be recorded for this sort of material. In this case its recorded as Stockstadt, Hessen, Germany. Long: 8.4667 Lat: 49.8

[Alaiyo]

I thought that she was the patroness of King Arthur. I read that somewhere a long time ago.

[mothwench]

square brackets mean letters that are unclear, or that they are assumed to be there, but are missing/defaced/worn. If they know from spelling, grammar and context what the letters are they add them inside the square brackets; otherwise, just a count of how many letters spacing there is.

round brackets on the other hand are missing letters that were never on the stone, because he original text was abbreviated. Often, very much abreviated.

So, looking at what we have, [3]s means a probable I, three letters, s. Perhaps a name, Iulius ? Sextius is another name and so is the third one most likely, S-something split over two lines. So, the name of the dedicant. De suo posuit means 'at his own expense' and thus probably records something more costly than just a plain altar, maybe even the building or refurbishment of a temple.

The full translations are thus:

Sacred to the goddess Artion, Isomething Sextius Ssomething [I](gave this, implied) at his own expense.

In honor of the divine house (ie the family of the emperor) and to the goddess Artion, (something else, now lost)

aah, thanks. :graduate: i've always wondered about those brackets. and CIL with the numbers, is there a big list of all inscriptions ever made? if yes, what's it called?


Thats a pet peeve of mine, vageness in locations. I believe a lat/ling should always be recorded for this sort of material. In this case its recorded as Stockstadt, Hessen, Germany. Long: 8.4667 Lat: 49.8
that'll be the one on the rhine then. thanks very much! :abanana: it's quite near where i am, i might go to their museum one rainy day and ask them if they can tell me more about it.

[Nantonos]

aah, thanks. :graduate: i've always wondered about those brackets. and CIL with the numbers, is there a big list of all inscriptions ever made? if yes, what's it called?

Yes, there is a big list, in multiple volumes, continuously added to. Its called Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL). Volume 13 covers the Three Gauls and the Germanies. There is a list of the volumes, which each have multiple parts, here (http://www.princeton.edu/~rlindau/cil.htm)

that'll be the one on the rhine then. thanks very much! :abanana: it's quite near where i am, i might go to their museum one rainy day and ask them if they can tell me more about it.

It looks to be just south of Frankfurt. If you go, take pictures! And get the name of the conservator of Gallo-Roman antiquities :)

[Nantonos]

I thought that she was the patroness of King Arthur. I read that somewhere a long time ago.

That is fairly unlikely, given the big difference in time period and in geography. However, both the goddess name Artion and the personal name Arthur or Artorius derive from the word for Bear.