MORE ON THE ANDEMATUNNUM OF THE DRUMBURGH GARRISON

Drumburgh Castle

What follows is my question to Brythonic palce-name expert Alan James regarding the Gaulish Andematunnum, with his comprehensive response.  However, I have made a discovery that, as far as I'm concerned, assures us that the Lingones worshipped a bear god.  For that, kindly see the end of this post.

Me:

"As we have a god Matunus in Britain in the Roman period in the North (where the Lingones served), and a Matuna personal name at Caerleon, and as the Welsh may show a similar construction in Mathon-wy of the Mabinogion, it is at least possible that we have 'great [divine] bear' in the Andematunnum place-name in Gaul?"

Alan James:

"A. Falileyev, D Continental Celtic PNs 2010 s.n. Andematunnum says 'Possibly Celtic. If so probably contains mantu- (less likely mat(t)tu/i-), therefore ande-mantu- (unno?)'. Ande- is an intensive prefix, literally 'inner' (and nothing to do with 'divine'), manto/u- is 'path, trodden, treading'. Of the 'less likely' mat(t)u/i- he cites Graham Issac's PNs in Ptolemy's Geography 2004 (a CD-ROM, which I have got) saying 'on the evidence of OIrish, there were two words, 'good' i-stem and 'bear' u-stem, the latter probably being a taboo-motivated derivative of the former'.

So, in Falileyev's generally pretty authoritative view, the likeliest interpretation would be 'great path', less likely 'very good' (place?), less likely 'great bear' (place?). Admittedly, there does seem reasonable evidence that the cult of a bear-god Matunus was introduced in the Wall zone

I think Falileyev's scepticism is based on the lack of any parallels for this more or less hypothetical *mat(t)u- as a p-n element, whereas mantu- 'path' is quite common. But I agree, Andematunnum could possibly involve that word. The prefix ande- can be an intensive, so possibly 'great', the suffix ?-unnos isobscure but might possibly be toponymic, i.e. = 'place'. So it could be 'great bear place' - either the place or the bear being 'great', or the bear-god being named *Andematunnos.

According to Falileyev, you can also find discussion in Ellis Evans Gaulish Personal Ns 1967, K Schmidt Die Kompositieo im gallischen Personennamen in ZCP 26 1957, Delamarre's Dict de la langue gauloise 2003 and Wodtko Worterbuch der keltibirischen inschriften 2000.

It's worth noting that Ptolemy's form was apparently Andomatounon, ms. variants include Ando(u)ma(i)toun(n)o-. I don't think adding an affix to a divine name was (or is, e.g. in India) all that unusual in the IE world generally. I assume Anne Ross infers 'divine' from the suffix, presumably taken as long /u:/ and taking that to be a variant of /o:/ - Ptolemy's 'ou' probably implies /u:/ too. But I don't know enough about Continental Celtic suffixes to judge whether it is necessarily a deity-naming element."

THE LINGONES AT BREMENIUM

The bear god Matunus was worshipped at Bremenium or High Rochester.  We know that during the 2nd century that fort's garrison was the First Cohort of the Lingones.  It was the Second Cohort of the Lingones who garrisoned Drumburgh in the late period.

Given the presence of Lingones at Bremenium, where a bear called named Matunus was worshipped, I think a very good argument can be made for interpreting Andematunnum, ancient capital of the Lingones in Gaul, as either the Place of the Great Bear or, literally, the Great Divine Bear. 

Please see also the following related links:

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2019/04/a-northern-prototype-for-arthurian.html

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2019/04/a-note-on-recent-post-northern.html