Nehalennia (eBook)

Divine Lady of Prosperity, Trade and Safe Crossings

Gunivortus Goos (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024 | 1. Auflage
296 Seiten
Books on Demand (Verlag)
978-3-7597-4651-1 (ISBN)

Infos

The desire for prosperity and protection from the destructive forces of nature is of all times. Some two thousand years ago, on the North Sea coast in the south of what is now the Netherlands, a Goddess was worshiped who was held responsible for both of these desires. Nehalennia, or She, who lives on the coast, had her temples there, in which people of Germanic, Celtic and Roman origin promised to grant her an offering, if under her protection they had returned safely from the dangerous crossing to England, and, in most cases, had also done good business. A rich treasure trove of votive stones engraved with the donors' thanks to Nehalennia demonstrate this abundantly. This book shows and describes many of those altar stones and paints a picture of the practice in this frontier area of the Roman Empire.

Gunivortus Goos has published several books and articles, initially under the pseudonym GardenStone, which he abandoned a handfull of years ago. Born in the Dutch city of Groningen, he left his hometown several decades ago and moved to Germany, where he now lives in a small town in the beautiful Taunus Hills region in the state of Hesse. He is a computer geek, a lover of fantasy books, often listens to music ranging from classical to folk metal, blues, country, oldies and more, and enjoys a good beer or a glass of dry wine. The author's 'addiction' is researching historical topics of personal interest.

Textauszug

Introduction

This book is predominantly the English translation of the editions that were published earlier in German and Dutch. It is mainly based on the second (revised and edited) Dutch edition from 2016, but a few parts from the older German edition were also used. In addition, some things were changed or added that are not in the other editions.

Nehalennia is a Goddess whose cult—for several centuries after the beginning of the Common Era—thrived in a very limited area in what is today’s Dutch province of Zeeland. Therefore, it is actually amazing how present she still is today in a much wider area.

Apart from good contributions by professionals, a lot of wishful thinking is expressed in depictions of Nehalennia in books, magazines and electronic media. For example, Nehalennia is said to have been “Goddess of the Netherlands.” Such a statement is actually rather curious, because there is a thousand year gap between the heyday of the Nehalennia cult in the first centuries GE and the creation of the country of the Netherlands. Not only did today’s provincial and national borders not exist at that time, the shape and features of the area were radically different geographically.

The southern part of what today are the “low countries” belonged at that time to the Roman Empire, while the remaining habitable area was populated by different, mostly smaller, ethnic groups, which had their own gods. Even the name “Zeeland” for that province of the Netherlands, which is today associated with Nehalennia, did not exist at that time.

As a side note, it is unlikely and not provable that the Dutch of today are descended from the inhabitants of that time, although there may be exceptions.

Moreover, practically all persons who are reported to have donated a votive altar to the Goddess come from cities and areas that today belong to Germany, Belgium, France, Italy and Switzerland. The often-heard claim that Nehalennia was known practically only in Zeeland is disproved by the fact that altars dedicated to her were also found in the city district of Cologne-Deutz in Germany. Unfortunately, these have been lost because they were used as building material in the construction of the Deutz castle and therefore cannot be discussed here. However, since it is presumed that these altars were uncollected orders intended for one of the shrines on the North Sea coast, this is not a catastrophe either.

The many publications by scholars concerning the Nehalennia finds are, by today’s standards, not all contributions of high quality. On the one hand, new data have made several older scientific views obsolete. On the other hand, many representations by scholars (one may rightly ask whether these are historians or archaeologists), are not based on their own research, but are evidently copied, often even from semi-scientific sources. Other representations stem entirely from the world of fantasy and wishful thinking may also play a role.

The UPG (Unverified Personal Gnosis) associated with the religious views of Pagans today is to be excluded here, as most Pagans admit the difference between historical facts and theories and their personal religious practice.

Speaking of Pagans today, it should be stated clearly that this book does not present modern Pagan views concerning Nehalennia, it is not a work on a part of modern Pagan or Heathen religions. Rather, it is (except for a few sections in chapter 12) the result of historical research into the Goddess Nehalennia as worshiped in the first centuries CE.

What, for example, is not historical is the connection of Nerthus and Nehalennia. To some Pagans, the names sound quite similar. Yet, except for the two letters at the beginning, there is no homonym similarity. They also see Nehalennia as Nerthus because the aedicula or niche at many votive altars in which the Goddess stands or sits would be reminiscent of the sacred grove of Nerthus located on an island, where a consecrated chariot stands covered with a garment under which Nerthus would reside. However, many votive altar stones from Roman times have such niches, just think of the many Matronae depicted in niches on such votive stones. Hence, this kind of comparative suggestion is at best a nice fantasy, more likely wishful thinking, and certainly not a scientific argument for a Nerthus-Nehalennia identification. But if it is meant as UPG, then it is okay because that then is religion and not science.

In this context, a small matter concerning the spelling of some words may need to be clarified. Very often the word Christian, in all its forms, is written with a capital, as is the related word God. To show the same respect to other religions, words used here such as Pagan and Goddess are also written with capital letters.

The many more adventurous claims related to Nehalennia led the author of this book, for whom research is a heartfelt desire, to delve into the rich informational sources and views that research has yielded and to conduct in-depth research himself. The main goal was to be able to distinguish between fantasy-based wishful thinking and historical possibilities and probabilities.

Nehalennia statue, formed from three fragments found near Colijnsplaat, National Museum of Antiquities, Leiden, the Netherlands

This became an intensive, multi- year project, in which many surprises came to light. The present book concludes this study. The book has at least one thing in common with many of the scholarly sources used. It is full of expressions such as “might,” “possibly,” “probably,” “if this, then that” and the like. This means that those looking for hard facts or proofs will find few. However, there are many probabilities, possibilities, suggestions, lines of thought and considerations, all of which try to bring the time of the Nehalennia veneration to life. There exist, of course, several different perspectives and interpretations concerning the historical references to and artifacts that depict this Goddess. Therefore, critical reading, reflection and constantly questioning are recommended, as well as to be prepared for a conscious change of perspective.

Shortly before the start of writing the first editions of the (German and Dutch) books, the author had the honor of talking with a historian who has a great deal of knowledge about some of the various themes that also interest the author. When they discussed one of the many considerations about the possible origin of Nehalennia, he remarked—and his comment was certainly meant to be positively critical:

Well, it is not impossible, but what does that mean? Surely it only means that one cannot prove the opposite of your consideration, because this is rather speculative. Hypotheses—it doesn’t matter in which direction—in this case are nothing more than speculation. And I do not like to participate in such things, because I can very well live with it, not striving to know or wanting to investigate everything.

As for the latter, sure, the author of this book can also live with that uncertainty and he will have to. However, when one is interested—for whatever reason—in Nehalennia and wants to know more about her, why not also draw up reasonable considerations and possible conclusions? When no one does such a thing, most research loses its appeal. A lot of archaeological and historical research began with: “when this ... then ...” - and these were not even hypotheses at the beginning, but only ideas and speculations. Such an approach is also often the only way to get at least partially satisfactory answers. Without such answers the author can indeed live just fine, but isn’t speculation one of the spices of life which make it palatable? The author affirms this, and so he ponders, speculates, thinks of possibilities, makes considerations and follows lines of thought on subjects that interest him. These add many colors to his life!

And then he also happily brings that to the eyes of interested readers, in the hope that they also like to season their lives that way.

All the facts, hypotheses, considerations and possible conclusions presented should together take Nehalennia out of the sphere of fantasy and wishful thinking. One of the goals of this work is to inspire the reader to delve further into Nehalennia themselves and formulate their own hypotheses and conclusions based on archaeological, historical and linguistic clues and indications. Nothing more should be demanded, because before and during the time when the Romans controlled large parts of central and western Europe, these areas were home to a rich mixture of ethnicities and languages and great cultural diversity in smaller and larger aspects. Because we do not have detailed information about this, and the few sources we have about that time are ambiguous, research conclusions and reflections on the same topic often diverge widely. The objective lack of knowledge and subjective prejudices in many cases allow no more than inferred considerations and conclusions, which at best are based only on acceptable clues.

However, that's still better than—inspired by the book by the grandiose fantasy writer Marion Zimmer-Bradley “The Mists of Avalon”—to openly claim, purely instinctively, that Nehalennia is the Goddess Morgaine who returned from the island of Avalon, as a Belgian witches’ group spread as ‘fact’ in 2007.

The many, often daring deductions in this book thus hardly offer facts, nor truths, they can provoke a nod of agreement as well as disgust. In both cases, this arises from the...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 26.7.2024
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung
• ISBN-10: 3-7597-4651-9 / 3759746519
• ISBN-13: 978-3-7597-4651-1 / 9783759746511