The Mystery of Lug

The mystery of Lug Phil NEWMAN Who was Lug ? The ancient name for Lyon is: Lugdunum. ‘Lug’ is an ancient Celtic god and ‘dunum’ is an old Celtic word which signifies a fort in an elevated place. But who exactly was Lug? All photographs by Philip Newman The Lugdunam myth: Two brothers, Mômoros and Atepomaros, following the instructions of an oracle, came to Fourviere to found a Roman sanctuary. Whilst they were digging the foundations a flock of crows arrived and so the brothers decided to name their site ‘Lougosdounos’. In their dialect, ‘Lougos’ meant ‘crow’ and ‘dounos’ meant prominent place’. Introduction Arriving as a newcomer to Lyon, in 2004, to teach English as foreign language, I naturally bought tourist guides to acquaint myself better with the city. Consequently, during our first few months here, my family and I slowly came to discover the city’s delights. Discovering that the old name for Lyon was ‘Lugdunum’, I queried its etymology and learnt that 'Lug' was a play on words between a Celtic god and a crow, and that 'dunum' meant an elevated fort. Hence arose the question of 'who was this Celtic god, Lug?' It was a question to which I received little reply, just the famous French shrug of the shoulders with palms raised. As for my English colleagues? Well, there were a few shots in the dark since the word 'lug' has many meanings in English, but generally they missed the target. Thus it was that Lyon’s bookshops were browsed to try and find a book which would answer my question. I was disappointed. English books upon Lyon’s historical origins are pretty non-existant and my French needed serious attention before I could tackle detailed guides in that language. I thus strode up Lyon’s Fourviere hill to visit the Gallo-Romain museum sure to find an answer. But no! As I chatted to museum staff all I heard was doubt that Lug ever existed in Lyon. Then, as I descended through the museums layers it was evident why, for there was a complete lack of any Lug images, inscriptions or statuettes amongst the exhibits. That did seem rather discouraging and I could easily have lost interest at that point. But as I later idly surfed the net, other interesting leads on the Lug trail surfaced to rekindle my interest. First, I found numerous websites dedicated to an Irish god named ‘Lugh’. Then I came across Alex Kondratiev’s article: ‘Lugus. The many gifted Lord’, which explained that both ‘Lugh’ and ‘Lugus’ (or ‘Lug’) were one and the same god. I thus dipped into Ron Hutton’s book, ‘The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles’, to find out more about this Irish Lugh existing across the seas from France. Thereby re-inspired, I next switched track and launched upon a new strategy: I decided to trace the word 'Lug' back to its Indoeuropean linguistic root, from where I could forward-track in time to Roman Lugdunum. Personally, undertaking that trip became a fascinating voyage of discovery, observing en route the Celtic emergence as a European super-power, before it finally bowed out to the mighty Roman Empire. Barry Cunliffe’s book (‘The Ancient Celts’), when published in 2006, stretched my understanding of this process even further, for in reading it I learnt that this ‘Celtic emergence’ was not an isolated event. Rather, it occurred within a complex web of interactions with other cultures such as Phoenician, Hittite, Thracian, Etruscan, Scythian, Dorian, Germanic, Greek, Roman...to name but a few. I also discovered that Lug was a ‘pan-European’ god who had existed across the Celtic Empire. Indeed, he was even represented within Greek and Roman mythologies as Hermes and Mercury. The picture began to look increasingly fascinating. That Celtic and Roman mythologies merged was largely due to translation demands: The Romans equated Celtic gods with their own gods in order to help their citizens at home better understand Gallic culture. That such a merging was possible indicates mythological similarities, with both Celtic and Roman myths holding concepts in common. In fact, we can extend this to the Greek myths, which greatly influenced the Roman myths, and even to Indoeuropean myths in general. Therein lies the nexus of this work, for it appeared to me that the fundamental cores of all these myths must have been in place before the Indoeuropean languages diverged in order for their common concepts to be so widely shared. Hence, in tracing Lug etymologically, a slice of how proto-Indoeuropeans conceived the world was sought. That Celtic mythology spread out across Europe through the Celtic diaspora and that Greek rationality provided the foundation stone of modern, philosophic thought is nothing new. But the possibility that they both began with some joint concept of 'Lug', I found intriguing. At a later point in time I wavered in supporting this conclusion. The reason being that though I read about commonalities between early Greek and Celtic philosophies, Lug (per se) was never mentioned. Nevertheless, I had found that 'Lug' was a very common prefix in place names wherever Celtic culture had reached. In France alone, more than thirty towns are named after Lug. Hence, in response to this universality, I strove (perhaps too blindly) to find a common thread origin. It was at this point that I discovered the delightful works of cognitive archaologists David Lewis-Williams and David Pearce (‘The Mind in the Cave’ & ‘The Neolithic Mind’) which explores the development of ‘Mind’ within both paleolithic and neolithic societies. I also came across a series of informative lectures on the internet by the reknowned archaelogist ‘Professor Colin Renfrew’. In addition, I ordered on-line an older, classic text by R.B.Onians dealing with: ‘The Origins of European Thought’; I found a copy of Miranda Green’s ‘The Gods of the Celts’ sitting on my bookshelf, and I dug out various anthropology books kept over from my student days. Undoubtedly, these works all influenced my reflections during the writing of this text. Concurrently, I also began making some headway towards having a picture of life in 'Lugdunum' under Roman control. Partly this was through internet sites, but I also began struggling with books in French borrowed from the local library, finding the works of André Pelletier (‘Lugdunum’ & ‘Histoire Archaeologie de la France Ancienne’) particularly illuminating. Then, Lyons’ Gallo-Romain museum displayed it’s ‘Par Teutatis’ exhibition, accompanied by the release of ‘Religion and Société in Gaule’ (by Messieurs Godineau and Vernier. 2006) and this further rounded my knowledge. Basically, I learnt that Lugdunum was an advanced, cosmopolitan, multi-cultural society that had developed well beyond its pre-historical origins through the arrival of peoples from far afield: Celts, Greeks, Phoenicians, Egyptians... and finally Romans. Mercantile, political, or pure survival forces had led them here and they brought with them their individual cultural baggage which they blended together. Of all these peoples, the Celts were often considered the barbarians, particularly by Greek or Roman historians. Unfortunatley, there were no Celtic historians to present an alternative image. The Romans, we know, culturally mimicked the Greeks by copying their gods and applying their rationality systematically to governance and jurisdiction. In Lugdunam, as in Gaul, they dominated Celtic culture. Partly this was an imposed domination involving the enslavement of the Celtic peoples. Partly it was voluntarily accepted, for the Gauls well appreciated the commercial benefits that would arrive in the Roman’s wake. Thus, as the Gallo-Roman landscape of Lugdunum began to take form, a picture of Lug slowly began to emerge. But it was a vague picture, one that transcended straightforward definition and forever seemed just beyond my grasp. Rash speculation was a danger to which I occassionally succumbed, despite generally managing to later extract myself with a quick click on the ‘delete’ key before making any really wild statements: Writing with computers has distinct advanges over paper and pen. Nevertheless, the borderline separating fact and conjecture occassionally appeared rather grey and I leave it to readers to decide whether my creative speculations ever went too far. In sum, to answer the original question, I took three approaches: Part 1. An examination of the genesis of Celtic religious beliefs. Beginning at the dawn of humanity, humankind’s awakening consciousness and spirituality is traced from its roots (chapter one). The proto-Indoeuropean speaking peoples are then examined as a pool from which the Celts, Italics, Greeks, Germanics, Indo-Aryans and Hittites emerged (chapter two). Underlying this examination is the search for cultural commonalities, which hopefully sets the scene for an exploration of the ‘etymology of Lug’ (chapter three). Finally, there is a brief discussion upon hermeneutic issues (chapter four) considering that Lug, as with religion in general, was involved in the Celtic construction of ‘Meaning’. Part 2. An examination of Celtic growth, including the Gauls under Roman domination. This is an historical account of the emergence of the Celtic Empire ranging from its proto- Indoeuropean origins, to being a highly creative culture undergoing war-mongering migrations across Europe, to its decline at the hands of the Romans (chapter 5). The account moves the discussion from the Celts as a generality, to the Celts in Gaul, to the Celts in Lugdunum. In so doing the Ligures are examined (chapter 6) followed by the Segosiaves (chapter seven); one of the more important Celtic tribes based in the Rhône-Alpes region. Gaul, as a political, administrative unit is next defined (chapter eight) and then Lugdunum myth is re-stated and explained in full (chapter nine). Finally, the story of the Romans in Gaul, and Lugdunum, is told as concisely as possible (chapter 10).

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