Tanfana or Tamfana was a goddess of the Istvaeones

Istvaeones

The Istvaeones, also called Istaevones, Istriaones, Istriones, Sthraones, Thracones, Rhine Germans and Weser-Rhine Germans , were a West Germanic cultural group or proto-tribe...

 in ancient Germanic paganism

Germanic paganism

Germanic paganism refers to the theology and religious practices of the Germanic peoples of north-western Europe from the Iron Age until their Christianization during the Medieval period...

, the destruction of whose temple in the territory of the Marsi

Marsi (Germanic)

The Marsi were a small Germanic tribe settled between the Rhine, Rur and Lippe rivers in northwest Germany.Tacitus mentions them repeatedly, in particular in the context of the wars of Germanicus. They had been part of the tribal coalition of the Cheruscian war leader Arminius that in 9 AD...

 is mentioned in Tacitus

Tacitus

Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors...

' Annals

Annals (Tacitus)

The Annals by Tacitus is a history of the reigns of the four Roman Emperors succeeding Caesar Augustus. The surviving parts of the Annals extensively cover most of the reigns of Tiberius and Nero. The title Annals was probably not given by Tacitus, but derives from the fact that he treated this...

.

Literary mentions

In Annals Book 1, chapter 51, Tacitus records a massacre of people of the Cherusci

Cherusci

The Cherusci were a Germanic tribe that inhabited parts of the northern Rhine valley and the plains and forests of northwestern Germany, in the area between present-day Osnabrück and Hanover, during the 1st century BC and 1st century AD...

, Chatti

Chatti

The Chatti were an ancient Germanic tribe whose homeland was near the upper Weser. They settled in central and northern Hesse and southern Lower Saxony, along the upper reaches of the Weser River and in the valleys and mountains of the Eder, Fulda and Weser River regions, a district approximately...

 and Marsi and total destruction of the celeberrimum illis gentibus templum quod Tamfanæ vocabunt ("the temple . . . of Tamfana, as they called it, the special resort of all those tribes"). The previous chapter states that the location was in the territory of the Marsi.

There is no undisputed testimony of this goddess besides the passage in Tacitus. An inscription Tamfanae sacrum was found in Terni

Terni

Terni is a city in southern Umbria, central Italy, capital of the province of Terni, located in the plain of the Nera river. It is 104 km N of Rome, 36 km NW of Rieti, and 29 km S of Spoleto.-History:...

, but is considered a falsification

Literary forgery

Literary forgery refers to writing, such as a manuscript or a literary work either deliberately misattributed to a historical or invented author, or a purported memoir presented as genuine.- History :The common, or popularly known, instance of literary forgery may involve for example the work of a...

 by Pyrrhus Ligorius

Pyrrhus Ligorius

Pyrrhus Ligorius or Pyrro Ligorio was a Neapolitan painter and architect, employed by popes Paul III, Paul IV and Pius IV.Ligorius left a collection of ancient epigraphy, notorious for the numerous forgeries it contains. Many of Ligorius' falsifications persist in the literature of the 17th and...

. She is also mentioned, as Zamfana, in the supposed Old High German lullaby

Old High German lullaby

The discovery of an Old High German lullaby was announced in 1859 by Georg Zappert of Vienna, a private scholar and collector of medieval literature....

, which was accepted by Jacob Grimm

Jacob Grimm

Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm was a German philologist, jurist and mythologist. He is best known as the discoverer of Grimm's Law, the author of the monumental Deutsches Wörterbuch, the author of Deutsche Mythologie and, more popularly, as one of the Brothers Grimm, as the editor of Grimm's Fairy...

 but is now also considered a forgery.

Theories

Since fana is Latin for "temples," it has been suggested that it was a temple to a god Tan, shortened from the German word for a pine-tree, Tanne, or that the first element meant "collective." The division of the word was rejected by Grimm among others; he called the name "certainly German," the -ana ending being also found in Hludana, Bertana, Rapana, and Madana.

The passage is one of few to contradict Tacitus' own statement in Germania that the Germanic tribes did not have temples

Heathen hofs

Heathen hofs or Germanic pagan temples were the temple buildings of Germanic paganism; there are also a few built for use in modern Germanic neopaganism...

. Wilhelm Engelbert Giefers proposed that Tanfana derived from tanfo, cognate with Latin truncus, and referred to a grove on the site of the Eresburg, related to the Irminsul

Irminsul

An Irminsul was a kind of pillar which is attested as playing an important role in the Germanic paganism of the Saxon people. The oldest chronicle describing an Irminsul refers to it as a tree trunk erected in the open air...

.

Many suggestions have been made about the goddess' name and nature. Grimm was unable to interpret it, but suggested variously that it was connected to Stempe, a name of Berchte

Perchta

Perchta or Berchta , also commonly known as Percht and other variations, was once known as a goddess in Southern Germanic paganism in the Alpine countries...

, that she was named for an association with a sieve, and, based on the now discredited lullaby, that her name meant "bountiful, merciful." Based on folklore and toponymy

Toponymy

Toponymy is the scientific study of place names , their origins, meanings, use and typology. The word "toponymy" is derived from the Greek words tópos and ónoma . Toponymy is itself a branch of onomastics, the study of names of all kinds...

, Friedrich Woeste proposed that the name was cognate with German zimmern and meant "builder" or "nourisher"; based on the season at which the festival and the Roman attack took place, Karl Müllenhoff

Karl Mullenhoff

Karl Viktor Müllenhoff was a German philologist and a student of Teutonic antiquities.-Biography:...

 proposed she was a goddess of harvest plenty, properly *Tabana, cognate with Greek words for "expenditure" and (hypothetically) "unthrifty"; others added Icelandic and Norwegian words for "fullness, swelling," "to stuff," and "large meal." A. G. de Bruyn, a scholar of Oldenzaal folklore, returned to splitting the name into Tan and fana on toponymic grounds and because of a stamp dated 1336 found near Ommen

Ommen

Ommen is a municipality and a Hanseatic city in the Vecht valley of the Salland region, which is at the heart of the province of Overijssel in the eastern Netherlands. Historical records first name Ommen in the early 12th century and it was officially founded as a city in 1248...

 that shows a woman holding a fir tree flanked by a sun symbol and a catlike creature and a bird; he proposed that she was a moon or a mother goddess, perhaps related to the Carthaginian goddess Tanit

Tanit

Tanit was a Phoenician lunar goddess, worshipped as the patron goddess at Carthage. Tanit was worshiped in Punic contexts in the Western Mediterranean, from Malta to Gades into Hellenistic times. From the fifth century BCE onwards Tanit is associated with that of Baal Hammon...

. He and more recently Rudi Klijnstra relate Tanfana, or Tan, to legends surrounding de Groote Steen te Oldenzaal (the Big Stone at Oldenzaal) in the area of Overijssel

Overijssel

Overijssel is a province of the Netherlands in the central eastern part of the country. The region has a NUTS classification of NL21. The province's name means "Lands across river IJssel". The capital city of Overijssel is Zwolle and the largest city is Enschede...

; the stone was originally located on a hill called Tankenberg, the highest point in the area, but was later moved into the city.