Abnoba

Abnoba is a name with theological and geographical meanings: It is the name of a Gaulish goddess who was worshipped in the Black Forest and surrounding areas. It is also the name of a mountain or mountain range.

The etymology of the theonym is uncertain. It has been associated with the etymon *abo-s "water, river", found in e.g. Avon (*abonā). The second element has been connected to either a PIE *nogʷo-, either "naked, nude" or "tree", or with the verbal root *nebh- "burst out, be damp".

Abnoba has been interpreted to be a forest and river goddess, and is known from about nine epigraphic inscriptions. One altar at the Roman baths at Badenweiler, Germany, and another at identify her with Diana, the Roman goddess of the hunt.

Abnoba has been used to refer to a mountain range comprising the Odenwald, Spessart, and Baar mountains. This composite range extends from the Rhine to the Neckar, and is referred to by one of the various names listed depending on the region it is passing through.

According to Tacitus's Germania, Abnoba was the name of a mountain, from a grassy slope of which flows the source of the River Danube.

Pliny the Elder also gives us some statements about Abnoba (Natural History, 4.79). He says that it arises opposite the town of Rauricum in Gaul and flows from there beyond the Alps, implying that the river begins in the Alps, which it does not. If Rauricum is to be identified with the Roman settlement, Augusta Raurica, modern Augst in Basel-Landschaft canton of Switzerland, Pliny must be confusing the Rhine and its tributaries with the Danube.

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