„A közelharc fő fegyvere a keresztvassal felszerelt hosszú, viszonylag karcsú kétélű kard (hossza 100 cm körüli, a penge szélessége 4-5 cm). Jelentőségét illusztrálja a »Hadisten (Mars) kardja« motívum. A kelet-európai puszták szinte valamennyi 5. századi leletében utal valami – pengetöredék, veret – kard egykori jelenlétére, a Duna-vidékről jó állapotban megmaradt kardokat idézhetünk: Pannonhalma, Szirmabesenyő, Bátaszék, Lengyeltóti, Wien-Leopoldan stb. Az Azovi-tenger vidékén csoportosulnak azok a rekeszes díszű keresztvassal ellátott példányok – Pokrovsk-Voshod, Taman’ (Oroszország), Dmitrievka (Ukrajna) –, amelyek a kaukázusi alán és nyugati-germán kardok előzményének tekinthetők, és amelyekhez a pannonhalmi díszkard is tartozik. Az előkelők kardhüvelyét (ritkábban a markolatot) aranylemezek díszítették. A felerősítés nemegyszer féldrágakő kardfüggesztővel (Altlussheim, Pokrovsk-Voshod) vagy veretes tartófülekkel – (Novogrigor’evka, Ukrajna), VIII. kurgán – történt.”
Ezt egyébként arra válaszul idéztem korábban, hogy egy Ftonyo nevű hozzászóló a Kik voltak a pannonszlávok topikban (1101. hsz.) kijelentette: „A hunok kardja biz RÖVID volt...”
Azóta már feltehetően visszavett az arcából, mindenesetre az említett agymenés azután következett be nála, hogy a pannonszláv topikban B. Szabó Jánost is bátorkodtam megszólaltatni (1092. hsz.): „...például a hunok saját koruk egyik leghosszabb kardtípusával rendelkeztek, de ezért még nem szokták megkérdőjelezni haderejük könnyűlovas jellegét...”
Mindenesetre az Arszakida-dinasztia bukása (228) és a hunok európai feltűnése között másfél évszázad sem telt el, és tudjuk jól, hogy a Turkesztánba visszahúzódott parthusokat a hunok a IV. század első felében, tehát mindössze néhány évtizeddel a Kaukázus előterében való megjelenésük előtt gyűrték le vagy kényszerítették szövetségre. Okkal feltételezhető, hogy Balamir hunjai már jelentős avar tömegeket sodortak magukkal Európába. Ettől függetlenül persze a hosszú kard nem feltétlenül parthus találmány, csupán annyi látszik bizonyosnak egyelőre, hogy ez a fegyvertípus a 370-es években a kunokkal jelent meg a kontinens nyugati felén.
Var-khun egyenes kard és csillag alakú keresztvassal ellátott markolatának nagyított képe
Még a 670-es években felbukkanó "griffes-indás" szablyák között is akadnak rendkívül hosszúak, például egy 106 cm-es a dunapentelei 7. sírból (Garam Éva: A tiszakécske-óbögi avar kori sírok – Adatok az avar kori szablyákhoz és kétélű kardokhoz; in: Communicationes Archaeologicae Hungariae 1991, 142.)
Tehát valami arra késztetné ezeket a derék indogermán nyelveket, hogy a hangok képzési helye náluk folyamatosan előbbre tolódjon... (A kentum nyelvek őrizték volna meg az eredeti állapotot.) Na de vajon mi kényszerítené őket erre? Vagy inkább kicsoda? Wotan isten személyesen? :D
Aquae Arnemetiae; Buxton, Derbyshire - "The Spa-Town of the Sacred Groves."
Nemetostatio; North Tawton, Devon - "The Outpost of the Sacred Groves."
Vernemetum; Willoughby, Nottinghamshire - "The Sacred Grove of Spring."
Medionemeton; "The Central Grove", perhaps referring to Barr Hill or Croy Hill on the Antonine Wall in Strathclyde (Ravenna Cosmography; R&C#196).
European "Nemeton" Names:
Augustonemeton; Clermont-Ferrand in the Auvergne region of Central France, on the northern edge of the Massif Central in the ancient lands of the Arverni, a tribe of the Roman province of Aquitania.
Drunemeton; A grove of sacred oak trees named by Strabo as the meeting-place of the Galatian tribes of Asia Minor. The name is easily translated 'The Sacred Grove of the Druids'. The site is thought to lie near Ancyra in central Turkey.
Nemausus; Nîmes in the western Languedoc near the mouth of the Rhone; in the ancient territories of the Arecomici tribe of southern Gallia Narbonensis.
Nemetacum or Nemetocerna Atrebatum; Arras in the Artois region of Northern France; the ancient capital of the Gaulish Atrebates tribe. Mentioned in Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars, where it is named Nemetocenna (viii.46, 52).
Nemetobriga Nemetatarum; a city of the Bracaraugustanus district of Hispania Tarraconensis, the largest town in the territories of the Nemetatae, a minor-tribe mentioned by Ptolemy. Now Val de Nebro in Northern Spain.
Nemetodurum; Nanterre in the Vallée de la Seine, north-west of Paris.
Nemetes; a people of Germania Superior who inhabited the upper Rhine valley. Their principal city was known as Noviomagus Germanis Superioris, less frequently referred to as Noviomagus Nemetum; nowadays Speyer near Heidelberg in West Germany. Julius Caesar twice mentions the tribe in his Gallic Wars (i.51, vi.25). Nemossus; Nemours on the Plaine de la Beauce, south-west of Paris. Vernemetum; Vernantes on the Loire, in the Anjou region of Western France; in the lands of the Armorican tribe, the Andecavi.
Mars Loucetius ('Brilliant Mars') and Nemetona occur together also on an altar from Mainz in Germany. Another example of a Celtic 'marriage' are altars to Mercury and Rosmerta ('The Good Purveyor'), in both these cases (and many others) the male partner is Roman with a celtic suffix, while their female counterpart is of wholly Celtic origin. Nemetona is also recorded separately on an altar from Eltripp, near Speyer (or Spire, or Spier) in West Germany.
Altar to Nemetona and Mars Loucetius from Aquae Sulis (Bath, Avon): PEREGRINVS SECVNDI FIL CIVIS TREVER LOVCETIO MARTI ET NEMETONA VSLM ’ Peregrinus, son of Secundus, citizen of the Treveri,¹ for Loucetius Mars and Nemetona, willingly and deservedly fulfilled his vow.” (RIB 140; altarstone)
1 An ancient Gaulish tribe centred on Augusta Treverorum, modern Trier on the Moselle, in the Rheinland-Pfalz region of West Germany.
Altar to Mars Rigonemetis from Lincoln: DEO MARTI RIGO NEMETI ET NVMINIBVS AVGVSTORVM Q NERAT PROXSIMVS ARCVM DE SVO DONAVIT 'For the god Mars Rigonemetis¹ and the divine spirits of the Augusti,² Quintus Neratius Proximus (dedicated this altar) as a gift out of his own coffers.’ (RIB 245.b; JRS lii /1962/, 192, no. 8)
1 Literally, 'Mars, King of the Sacred Grove'. The title is purely native in origin; from the Celtic words rigon 'king', and nemeton 'sacred grove'.
2 Evidently there were two (or more) Caesars at the time the dedication was made.
The Celtic word for a grove of trees was llannerch, from which interestingly, the late-Celtic word llann 'church' is derived. Another word, perhaps reserved for their most sacred groves, was nemeton. The Irish equivalent for nemeton, and obviously linguisticly related, is fid-nemed 'Sacred Grove of Trees', which occurs in the Senchus Mor, an ancient code of Irish law.
Lucan refers to a Nemeton near the ancient Greek colony of Massilia, now Marseilles en Provence in South France, wherein were several simulacra or 'graven images of the gods' (Pharsalia III.412). The only 'concrete' mention of a British nemeton occurs on an altar to Mars Rigonemetis, or 'Mars, the King of the Sacred Grove', from Nettleham near Lincoln (RIB 245.b), the text of which is reproduced below:
"When we turn to open sanctuaries or sacral enclosures we encounter a complex and most intriguing series of sites. These must belong to the same early religious tradition that in Greece gave rise to the concept of the temenos, literally a 'cut' or share of land, here apportioned to the god, a 'consecrated and enclosed area surrounding the god's altar, which was the centre of worship and the only indispensable cult structure', and in the Roman world the same idea expressed in the original sense of the words fanum and templum. Whether the Celtic sanctuary-word nemeton, ... included such precincts as well as natural woodland clearings is uncertain, but it could have done ... "There is a Gallo-Brittonic word nemeton which is used for a shrine or sanctuary in a sense that implies a sacred grove or clearing in a wood. The word is cognate with the Latin nemus, the primary sense of which (like that of lucus) is not so much a wood as a wood with a clearing in it, or the clearing itself within a grove. The most famous nemus was that of Diana at Aricia, where
The priest who slew the slayer And shall himself be slain
held, uneasily, the title of Rex Nemorensis. Strabo records the name of the meeting-place of the council of the Galatians in Asia Minor as Drunemeton, the sacred oak-grove, and Fortunatus writes in the sixth century A.D. of a place Vernemet[on] 'which in the Gaulish language means the great shrine' (using here the word fanum). Many nemeton place-names existed in the Celtic world, from Medionemeton in Southern Scotland, Vernemeton itself between Lincoln and Leicester and in Gaul, Nemetodurum, the modern Nanterre, to Nemetobriga in Spain. Aquae Arnemetiae, the modern Buxton, appears to show how the thermal springs there were associated with a sacred grove. In the eighth century 'forest sanctuaries which they call nimidae' are listed as heathen abominations, and in the eleventh, a Breton 'wood called Nemet' is recorded. The word and the idea came through into Old Irish as nemed, a sanctuary, and fidnemed, a forest shrine or sacred grove."
"Ha a törzs neve tényleg a vélhető korábbi keleti szállásterületük Nyeman folyóből származik"
As a deity, Nemetona is known directly from inscriptions found at Klein Winternheim, Altripp (where she is invoked with Mercury), Trier (where she is invoked with Mercury) and Eisenberg (where she is invoked with Mars Loucetious), all in Germany. She is also invoked at Bath, Avon with this inscription: PEREGRINVS SECVNDI FIL CIVIS TREVER LOVCETIO MARTI ET NEMETONA VSLM (Eregrinus, son of Secundus, citizen of the Treveri, for Loucetius Mars and Nemetona, willingly and deservedly fulfilled his vow) which would indicate that this goddess was also known in the Moselle valley in Gaul, where the Treveri originated.
The goddess' name is also found in the tribal name of the Celto-Germanic tribe, the Nemetes (people of the Sacred Grove). Though whether they considered Nemetona their tutelary goddess or whether they were related to the sacred grove in general may never be known.
Though inscriptions to Nemetona herself are rare, Nemeton (sacred groves) are known throughout the Celtic world. Lucan refers to a Nemeton near the ancient Greek colony of Massilia, now Marseilles en Provence in South France, wherein were several simulacra or 'graven images of the gods' (Pharsalia III.412). Other Gaulish Nemeton being: Augustonemeton, Clermont-Ferrand in the Auvergne region of Central France; Nemetacum or Nemetocerna Atrebatum, Arras in the Artois region of Northern France; Nemetobriga Nemetatarum a city of the Bracaraugustanus district of Hispania Tarraconensis; Nemetodurum modern-day Nanterre in the Vallée de la Seine; Nemossus modern-day Nemours on the Plaine de la Beauce and Vernemetum, modern Vernantes on the Loire. The name is also preserved in the name of the Nemetatae, a tribe from the modern Val de Nebro in Northern Spain, mentioned by Ptolemy.
In Britain, Nemeton place names occurred at: Nemetostatio, North Tawton, Devon; Vernemetum, Willoughby, Nottinghamshire and Medionemeton, a location on the Antonine Wall in Strathclyde described in the Ravenna Cosmography (which may be Bar Hill or Croy Hill). There are other 'nemeton' groves both in Britain and Gaul but these are linked to their own specific deities and are described separately on this website.
The significance of the association of Mars with Nemetona also requires some consideration. In this respect it should be noted that Celtic Mars is a deity of agriculture, protection and healing as well as being a god of war. Though he may just as easily be invoked as the martial protector of the sacred grove. She is also invoked with Loucetious the Celtic lightning god equated with Mars. This association may have to do with the association of lightning with sacred trees, particularly oak. Thus Loucetious may be particularly associated with the drunemeton (sacred oak grove).
The root of the goddess' name, the reconstructed proto-Celtic lexeme *nemeto- (sacred place, sanctuary) survives in the Old Irish Nemed, the eponymous leader of the Nemedians, the third mythic invaders of early Ireland, supposedly originating in Scythia. They settled northern Ireland and thus began the difference between the north and the south. The Old Cymric equivalent, Nyfed (sacred grove) has fallen out of usage an the modern Cymric form is Llannerch (wooded enclosure) from which the name for a church enclosure Llan (found as the root of many Cymric place names) is derived. Thus each church enclosure is related to the ancient woodland enclosure of the druids and to the goddess Nemetona, their protector.
Var-khun egyenes kard és csillag alakú keresztvassal ellátott markolatának nagyított képe
Hunugur övkészlet sárgaréz alkatrészei Karintiából