The bronze goats of the goddess Ataecina

Abstract

Study of thirty small bronze goat figurines. They appear in the southwest of Hispania, from Bajo Alemtejo to Alta Extremadura, in the southern territory of the Provincia Lusitania. Its dispersion coincides with epigraphs dedicated to the local Celtic goddess Ataecina, which confirms its relationship with the cult of this divinity, raised since 1885 when F. Fita interpreted the inscriptions on two of these bronze goats found in La Zafrilla, Cáceres.

Some of them offer a style of evident quality, although the majority are works of popular artisans. Although their archaeological context is unknown, their style date them from the III century BC. until the 2^nd or 3^rd century AD. They testify to a popular rite practiced for more than half a millennium related to the cult of Ataecina, documented by more than 30 inscriptions and these 30 goat bronze figurines, which should be considered a minimum sample of the testimonies in Antiquity. Therefore, it was a very popular and widespread cult, probably originating from an ancestral Mother Goddess, perhaps of megalithic origin, practiced by the Celtici, the Celtic people who inhabited those territories until its Christianization.