These Pagan Portals are all current works in progress, serialised here on the Pagan Collective blog with each chapter being open for comment. In due course the entire script will be published as a Pagan Portal book.

This month, we continue exploring aspects of the Iberian goddess Ataegina.

– Ataegina Feroniae.

The relationship between Ataegina and Feronia should not surprise us, as they have quite a few things in common; hence, the syncretization between the two was relatively easy, according to Abascal Palazon’s conclusions. The encounter between the goddesses occurred in the colony of Augusta Emerita, with the arrival of the Romans from Italica. The goddess Feronia was associated with the wild, forests, and animals, with the fertility and abundance of forests, but also with health. Feronia is also considered a “virgin” goddess, a goddess who was not forced to marry; she is a Virgo Sacra, as were Diana, the Greek Artemis or the Thracian Goddess Bendis, who shares many other attributes with them. It should be noted that despite arriving with the Romans, the goddess Feronia had older roots found among the Etruscan peoples. However, she was assimilated by the Romans, perhaps due to her closeness to the goddess Diana. Feronia, like Ataecina, prefers sanctuaries in nature over urban sanctuaries, and we find proof of this in a mythical forest that was supposedly located near the settlement in Augusta Emerita, the Lucus Feronia. Not far from the place where we find Ataegina’s most important sanctuary. We also see in this Augusta Emerita, an ancient cult of waters, undoubtedly related to the ancient cult of the Guadiana. A cult that the Romans maintained over their control of the area. We can relate this cult of the waters to the deities, to the aquatic aspect of the goddess Ataegina and the goddess Feronia. As an extension of that relationship with the waters, we also find attributes of the goddesses associated with health and well-being.

– Ataegina and Astarte.

At this point, it is undeniable that the arrival of the goddess Astarte to the Iberian Peninsula marks a before and after in the local religious landscape. Astarte becomes the goddess of the legendary people of Tartessos. Still, her cult extends further inland, both from the coast at the Levant and the oriental shores of the peninsula, moving beyond those first coastal sanctuaries founded by the first Phoenicians that arrived in Iberia. Other Iberian peoples adopt her under their name, as we find at the Cancho Ruano site in Badajoz, or as the discovery in the region of Huescar, in the province of Granada, of a figure representing Astarte, baptised as the Lady of the Galley, might indicate. The goddess Astarte arrives on the Iberian Peninsula to stay, merging with local deities. The goddess Ataegina, who has come down to us, is an amalgamation of local cults of the Celtic peoples of the Iberian Peninsula and the aspects of Astarte that coincided with those of the local cult. Ataegina would therefore be a fusion of both goddesses, as Almagro-Gorbea, Ocharan Ibarra, and Iborra Pellín share in their paper, “The Eyes of the Goddess, A Long-Term Mother Goddess: From the Eye Goddess to Astart and Ataecina”, where they state: “Her complex attributes passed from the Phoenicians to the Tartessians and Iberians, and even to the Ataecina of the Celts in the first millennium BC.”

In previous posts, we explored aspects and domains and her relationship with agriculture, the underworld, beasts, and animals. Although in their paper, the scholars also indicate other important points of connection concerning their link with the underworld and caves as places of worship. This data reinforces my hypothesis about the connection of Ataecina to the Cave and Sanctuary of La Lobera, also mentioned by them in the paper.

– Ataegina Proserpine.

The relationship between Ataegina and the goddess Proserpina stems from the Romans’ attempt at syncretisation of both goddesses. As was their custom, they sometimes adopted local deities, pairing them with their deities with whom they shared qualities. It is not difficult to understand why Proserpina was chosen to be syncretised with Ataegina, as both were goddesses of fertility, the underworld, and resurrection. Proof of this is the inscription of the Proserpina Swamp near Merida and other inscriptions where we see the names of the two goddesses together. However, this attempt at syncretization never quite came to fruition, since these inscriptions, when they are together, are relatively few. Yet, we find abundant individual inscriptions for Ataegina and Proserpina in different parts of the Iberian Peninsula. This, in some way, clearly tells us that despite the goddesses being so similar in so many ways, Proserpina could not assimilate the local deity, due to her importance and the deep-rootedness of her cult among the local population and later among the Romans themselves, who would end up embracing her independently of Proserpina.

– Ataegina, Diana and Hekate.

At first glance, it may be challenging to establish the connections between Ataecina and Hekate. To begin with, both share the same chthonic character; both are linked to the underworld; both also share a connection with the waters, and both goddesses are associated with healing, oracles, and the magical arts. It is not difficult to find references to Ataecina as a demonic goddess, although this qualification is incorrect. We also find Hekate linked to the devil and witches in medieval grimoires. Ataegina is a funerary goddess of the otherworld, a psychopomp who guides souls in the underworld, just as Hekate does with her torches, and guides Persephone to the surface. However, Ataegina is also a goddess of life. As a chthonic goddess, she is responsible for everything that sleeps underground, including the seeds that sow life in the fields above ground. She also governs health, thus ruling over life and illness, and her name, translated, would mean something like “she who is reborn.” Something that has always fascinated me about Ataegina and all her qualities is that we find the Eleusinian Triad of Goddesses: Hecate, Persephone, and Demeter fused into a single goddess. We have previously explored the relationship between Ataegina and Proserpina, the Roman Persephone, and also with Feronia, and it is with the latter that we find another connection between Hekate and Diana.

At some point in history and in the territory, we can see how the cult of Hekate is very localised in a specific area, and while other gods travel, Hekate does not travel much beyond Greece toward the west, at least under her name. However, Hekate could have been assimilated with Diana-Artemis, sharing with her the epithet Trivia, which is very present in the western part of the empire, sometimes with attributes that remind us of Hekate. In Iberia, we find numerous sanctuaries to Diana, whom we have also already related to Feronia, with whom we see a clear connection with Ataegina. The connection between Hekate and Ataegina may be subtle at first, but it is as deep as the caves of the underworld in the world of the important ones.

I will share a personal experience where the goddesses guided me to a specific place, Alcaraz, in Albacete.  I couldn’t understand why Hekate and Ataegina wanted me to go there until I paid more attention. The landscape that surrounded me, a crossroads between peoples throughout history, close to the Anibal Route, an important ancient commercial road crossing Albacete West to East on the way to the coast. There was also the mention of a Roman sanctuary for Goddess Diana, which was close to the modern sanctuary of the Vigen de Cortes in the mountains close to the city. There is also the closeness to the settlement of Libisosa, one of the most important archaeological sites of Albacetel. Alcaraz is one of the “gates” to the Sierra de Alcaraz and Sierra de Segura, filled with wild forest. Alcaraz stands on a main route between Castilla and Andalucia and was also a passing point for cattle and shepherds. The city stands at the crossroads, on one side, fields of golden wheat: not far from the River Guadiana, on the other, forests teeming with wild animals, caves, and more sacred waters, the very spring of the River World. The city is not far from the Sanctuary of La Lobera either.  One last detail, given to me by Hekate made me finally understand why this was the place she was choosing for me: one of the city’s titles was The Key to Spain. Up until that find, I’d been groping in the dark, trying to figure out why the goddesses were determined to have me there, in that particular place, away from Granada, where I grew up, but Diana-Hekate and Ataegina had their motives clear, and I was finally able to put the pieces together. Years ago, I followed the guidance of the Gods all the way to Scotland, this time they guided me back to Spain to this place.

– The Goddess outside Iberia.

The presence of an inscription dedicated to Ataegina in Cagliari, on the island of Sardinia, which reads: D(ea) s(ancta) A(taecina) T(urobrigensis), is the only evidence we have so far of the continuation of her cult outside the Iberian Peninsula. Being a goddess as relevant as Ataegina, it is not surprising that people who worshipped her in Iberia would have taken her to other places, but to this day, we only have that particular inscription in Sardinia but who knows what will emerge from the land in the future. As with so many other deities, it is speculated that the cult of Ataegina arrived on the island via a soldier from Iberia, or with someone who after spending some time there, adopted the cult of the Iberian goddess. Given the importance of Ataegina on the peninsula and her association with healing, protection, and her many domains, it is not surprising that whoever commissioned the inscription wanted to remain under the protection and blessings of the goddess.

Another fact that I find interesting is that this inscription somehow brings together Ataegina and Astarte in Cagliari again outside the Iberian Peninsula, since the island of Sardinia was also a place of worship for the Phoenician goddess.

For more details: https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com/moon-books/authors/ness-bosch