Gobannus

A number of statues dedicated to him are preserved, found together with a bronze cauldron dedicated to Deus Cobannos, in the late 1980s and illegally exported to the United States, now in the Getty Museum in the Getty Center, in California. He is mentioned in an inscription found in the 1970s in Fontenay-près-Vézelay, reading AVG(VSTO) SAC(RVM) [DE]O COBANNO, i.e. dedicated to Augustus and Deus Cobannus.

Etymology

The theonym Gobannos, attested as Deo Cobanno on inscriptions, is derived from the Proto-Celtic stem *goben-, meaning 'smith' (cf. Old Irish gobae, Middle Welsh gof, Middle Breton gof(f), Old Cornish gof 'smith'; cf. also Gaulish gobedbi 'with the smiths' < *goben-bi or *gob-et-bi-). The same stem can be found in the Irish deity Goibniu (< *Gobeniū or *Gobanniō), and in Govannon (< *Gobannonos), the son of the goddess Dôn in Welsh mythology, which may suggest a common origin of the name in Proto-Celtic legends. It is also attested in various personal names, such as the Gaulish Gobannitio, Gobannicnus, or Gobano, the Old Irish Gobain (Lat. Gobanus), the Old Breton Ran Gof, as well as in the toponyms Gobannium (now Abergavenny) and Sanctus Gobanus (Saint-Gobain).

A Proto-Indo-European (PIE) origin of the stem *goben- is controversial, and some scholars have proposed that it is restricted to Celtic. It could be connected to Latin faber ('craftsman'), via PIE *g^(w)hob^h-, although the former is generally derived from *d^hHb^h-ro- (cf. Armenian darbin). Patrizia de Bernardo Stempel has also proposed to derive it from PIE *g(h)eubh- ('curve, bend'), because bronze was hammered and bended, contrary to iron that was melted, and Václav Blažek has suggested a relation with the Lithuanian goddess of fire Gabija.