Icovellauna was a

Celtic goddess The gods and goddesses of the pre-Christian Celtic peoples are known from a variety of sources, including ancient places of worship, statues, engravings, cult objects, and place or personal names. The ancient Celts appear to have had a pantheon ...

worshiped in

Gaul Gaul () was a region of Western Europe first clearly described by the Roman people, Romans, encompassing present-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and parts of Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany, and Northern Italy. It covered an area of . Ac ...

. Her places of worship included an octagonal temple at Le Sablon in

Metz Metz ( , , , then ) is a city in northeast France located at the confluence of the Moselle (river), Moselle and the Seille (Moselle), Seille rivers. Metz is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Moselle (department), Moselle Departments ...

, originally built over a spring,Dyfed Lloyd Evans (2005). "" from , accessed 10 September 2006. from which five inscriptions dedicated to her have been recovered, and

Trier Trier ( , ; ), formerly and traditionally known in English as Trèves ( , ) and Triers (see also Names of Trier in different languages, names in other languages), is a city on the banks of the Moselle (river), Moselle in Germany. It lies in a v ...

, where Icovellauna was honored in an inscription in the Altbachtal temple complex. Both of these places lie in the valley of the river

Moselle The Moselle ( , ; ; ) is a river that rises in the Vosges mountains and flows through north-eastern France and Luxembourg to western Germany. It is a bank (geography), left bank tributary of the Rhine, which it joins at Koblenz. A sm ...

of eastern Gaul in what are now

Lorraine Lorraine, also , ; ; Lorrain: ''Louréne''; Lorraine Franconian: ''Lottringe''; ; ; is a cultural and historical region in Eastern France, now located in the administrative region of Grand Est. Its name stems from the medieval kingdom of ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

and

Rhineland-Palatinate Rhineland-Palatinate ( , ; ; ; ) is a western state of Germany. It covers and has about 4.05 million residents. It is the ninth largest and sixth most populous of the sixteen states. Mainz is the capital and largest city. Other cities are ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. One such inscription was, somewhat unusually, inscribed on a copper tablet in Roman cursive letters. At the temple in Metz, a spiral staircase led down to the water level, allowing worshipers to leave offerings in the spring and/or to take the waters. A statuette of a local Gaulish Mercury was among the ex-votos deposited at the shrine, which also included coins and ceramics dating from the 2nd to 4th centuries CE. Jeanne-Marie Demarolle states that Apollo was also associated with Icovellauna. Demarolle glosses the name Icovellauna as ''bonne fontaine'' or "good fountain". Miranda Green follows

Joseph Vendryes Joseph Vendryes or Vendryès (; 13 January 1875 – 30 January 1960) was a French Celtic linguist. After studying with Antoine Meillet, he was chairman of Celtic languages and literature at the École Pratique des Hautes Études. He founded the ...

in interpreting the

Gaulish Gaulish is an extinct Celtic languages, Celtic language spoken in parts of Continental Europe before and during the period of the Roman Empire. In the narrow sense, Gaulish was the language of the Celts of Gaul (now France, Luxembourg, Belgium, ...

root ''ico-'' as "water" and characterizes Icovellauna as a "water goddess" who "presided over the nymphaeum at Sablon in the

Basin, a thermal spring-site".Miranda Green (1986). ''The Gods of the Celts.'' Alan Sutton, Gloucs. . pp.85, 165.

Xavier Delamarre Xavier Delamarre (; born 5 June 1954) is a French linguist, lexicographer, and former diplomat. He is regarded as one of the world's foremost authorities on the Gaulish language. With linguist Romain Garnier, Delamarre is the co-publishing edi ...

, however, considers Vendryes' interpretation to be very improbable; on purely etymological grounds, he suggests that ''ico-'' might be the name of a bird, perhaps the woodpecker. The root ''uellauno-'' has been variously interpreted, though the interpretation "chief, commander" has recently found favor; see

Vellaunus Vellaunus is a Celtic god known from two inscriptions. He was equated to the Roman god Mercury. Epigraphy The deity Vellaunus is known from two inscriptions. The first, found at Caerwent, is the base of a state recording the dedication of t ...

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