Senuna was a Celtic goddess

Celtic polytheism

Celtic polytheism, commonly known as Celtic paganism, refers to the religious beliefs and practices adhered to by the Iron Age peoples of Western Europe now known as the Celts, roughly between 500 BCE and 500 CE, spanning the La Tène period and the Roman era, and in the case of the Insular Celts...

 worshipped in Roman Britain

Roman Britain

Roman Britain was the part of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire from AD 43 until ca. AD 410.The Romans referred to the imperial province as Britannia, which eventually comprised all of the island of Great Britain south of the fluid frontier with Caledonia...

, whose name was at first read incorrectly as Senua. She was unknown until a cache of 26 votive offerings to her were discovered in 2002 in an undisclosed field at Ashwell

Ashwell, Hertfordshire

Ashwell is a village and civil parish situated about four miles north of Baldock in Hertfordshire.It has a wealth of architecture spanning several centuries. The dates almost entirely from the 14th century and is renowned for its ornate church tower which stands at , and is crowned by an...

 End in Hertfordshire

Hertfordshire

Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...

 by metal detectorist Alan Meek (photgraphed here). Her imagery shows evidence of syncretism between a pre-Roman goddess with the Roman Minerva

Minerva

Minerva was the Roman goddess whom Romans from the 2nd century BC onwards equated with the Greek goddess Athena. She was the virgin goddess of poetry, medicine, wisdom, commerce, weaving, crafts, magic...

 (for a parallel, cf. Sulis Minerva

Sulis

In localised Celtic polytheism practised in Britain, Sulis was a deity worshipped at the thermal spring of Bath . She was worshipped by the Romano-British as Sulis Minerva, whose votive objects and inscribed lead tablets suggest that she was conceived of both as a nourishing, life-giving mother...

, the Romano-British goddess worshipped at Bath).

Senuna's shrine consisted of a ritual midden, onto which offerings were thrown, surrounded by a complex of buildings including workshops and accommodation for pilgrims. It was certainly no humble crossroads shrine. The dedicatory artefacts kept in the shrine were subsequently buried together on the edge of the midden, perhaps intended for temporary safe-keeping, in the late 3rd or 4th century CE.

Offerings to Senuna

The offerings to Senuna include silver plaques with gold highlights, seven gold plaques and a superb set of jewellery, including a brooch and cloak clasps. The plaques still have the metal tabs which allowed them to be set upright, and are so thin that they would then have shivered and glittered in any draught. Some votive plaques were punched out in tiny holes, some incised. The jewellery incorporated older gems and glass beads, including a superb carved cameo of a lion trampling an ox skull which was already old and worn before it was set into the brooch. All of the jewellery shared intricate decoration in minutely coiled wire, and the set may have been specially made as an offering. An exhibit of offerings to Senua may be seen in Room 49 of the British Museum, labelled "Near Baldock Hoard".

As well as the jewellery, there were deposits of Celtic coins, mostly several centuries old at the time of deposition, and of Bronze Age metalwork, perhaps collected from local round barrows. There were also food offerings of piglets and small quantities of cremated human bone.

Inscriptions

The Senuna hoard includes at least five inscriptions. One example reads,

DEAE SENVA[...../ FIRMANVS[...../ V[SLM]

"To the goddess Senua[.....] Firmanus [.....] willingly fulfilled his vow."

Another inscription found on a votive offering of jewellery was left by a man named Servandus of Spain:

"Servandus Hispani willingly fulfilled his vow to the goddess".

Iconography

The silver figurine portrays Senuna as a graceful woman with hair coiled in a bun. The breast, arms and face of the goddess rotted away in the soil centuries ago.

At least twelve of the votive plaques show classical images of Minerva

Minerva

Minerva was the Roman goddess whom Romans from the 2nd century BC onwards equated with the Greek goddess Athena. She was the virgin goddess of poetry, medicine, wisdom, commerce, weaving, crafts, magic...

, with spear, shield and owl; the five of these that carried an inscription were dedicated to Senua rather than Minerva.

Name and etymology

Senuna's name appears in various forms on the votive plaques, namely Senuna, Sena, and Senua. Conceivably it might be related to the Proto-Celtic

Proto-Celtic language

The Proto-Celtic language, also called Common Celtic, is the reconstructed ancestor language of all the known Celtic languages. Its lexis can be confidently reconstructed on the basis of the comparative method of historical linguistics...

 *seno- 'old'.

Some commentators have drawn a parallel between the goddess's name and that of the river Senua mentioned in the Ravenna Cosmography

Ravenna Cosmography

The Ravenna Cosmography was compiled by an anonymous cleric in Ravenna around AD 700. It consists of a list of place-names covering the world from India to Ireland. Textual evidence indicates that the author frequently used maps as his source....

. This river was located somewhere in southern Britain. Thomas G. Ikins suggests an identification with the River Alde

River Alde

The River Alde is a river in Suffolk, England, with a source near Laxfield in the same area as the River Blyth. Initially a stream, it becomes tidal and widens considerably when it reaches Snape. It meanders east past Aldeburgh, after which this part of the river was named...

, speculating that the river-name *sen- might have been translated to Anglo-Saxon

Old English language

Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...

 ald.

Modern worship

The discovery of offerings to Senuna has inspired various practitioners of modern Neopaganism

Neopaganism

Neopaganism is an umbrella term used to identify a wide variety of modern religious movements, particularly those influenced by or claiming to be derived from the various pagan beliefs of pre-modern Europe...

in the United States and Britain.

External links

• Senua.info includes photographs, an article by Alan Meek, historical background, and modern Neopagan rituals.