Onomastics

Synopsis

Most of the linguistic traces of the Basque heritage of antiquity so far found in the area marked by the rivers Adour, Aragón, Ebro and Barbadun are  names of gods and goddesses. Up to now a total of seventeen inscriptions have been described, yielding nine such theonyms. Compared to all the evidence that exists in the Hautes-Pyrénées and Haute-Garonne regions, this small series is insignificant; however, as examples of proper names of people are even rarer, clearly theonyms are the primary source of research into the early Basque language.

The aim of this piece is to describe the proto-Basque language of antiquity by analysing the names of local gods and goddesses, while attempting to determine as far as possible the territory covered by ancient Vasconia.