Nehalennia

Nehalennia (spelled variously) is a goddess of unclear origin, perhaps Germanic or Celtic. She is attested on and depicted upon numerous votive altars discovered around what is now the province of Zeeland, the Netherlands, where the Schelde River flowed into the North Sea. Worship of Nehalennia dates back at least to the 2nd century BC, and veneration of the goddess continued to flourish in northern Europe in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD. While the meaning of the name Nehalennia remains disputed, linguists agree that its origin is not Latin. Given the locations where most references and artifacts have been found, her name is likely from either a Germanic or Celtic language. Gutenbrunner (1936) related it to Proto-Germanic *nehwa "close", but could not explain the rest of the name. Gysseling (1960) believed that the name was neither Celtic nor Germanic, rather stemming from the Proto-Indo-European root *neiH- "to lead". He could not trace the rest of the name. De Stempel (2004) links her name with Welsh halein "salt" and heli "sea", proposing a Celtic origin. She deconstructs the name as a combination of Celtic *halen– "sea" and *ne- "on, at". Finally, *-ja is a suffix forming a feminine noun. The meaning would be "she who is at the sea". Nehalennia is attested on 28 inscriptions discovered in 1645 in the Dutch town of Domburg on the Zeeland coast, when a storm eroded dunes. The remains of a temple were revealed that was devoted to the previously unattested goddess Nehalennia. Beginning in 1970, numerous altars, remains of female sculptures and related artifacts were found near in the town of Colijnsplaat, including roof tiles and remains of the temple devoted to Nehalennia that was in a former town, now lost. Two other temple remains have been found in the Cologne-Deutz area of what is now Cologne, Germany. Dutch archeologist J.E. Bogaers and Belgian linguist Maurits Gysseling, in their joint publication Over de naam van de godin Nehalennia ("On the name of the goddess Nehalennia"), listed several different forms of the name that appear in inscriptions.