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Orcia
A Gaulish Goddess: Salmon Goddess
Orcia is a Gaulish mother goddess known from a single inscription found at Zmov, Serbia. She may also be the tutelary goddess of the Orcia river and valley in Tuscany. She seems to be a iver deity, the embodiment of the divine salmon. |
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Gaul: Salmon Goddess
Orcia is a goddess known from a single inscription found at Zmov, Serbia. Though the name of the goddess may also survive in the name of the river Orcia and its valley, the Val d'Orcia in Tuscany, Italy. This was a place where the Etruscan, Umbrian and Celtic peoples of northern Italy met and the sources of place names are ambiguous. However, the correspondence of the place names is striking, especially given the likely etymology of Orcia's name (see below).
Orcia's name can be derived from the reconstructed proto-Celtic word *ϕrko- (pig or salmon). As moccus is the normal Gaulish for pig the former meaning seems unlikely, which gives us 'salmon' as the meaning of the name along with the deific particle -i- and the feminine ending -a. Thus Orcia is the 'Salmon Goddess', which would be a fitting epithet for a river deity.
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