Bears as Benefactors? Bear Veneration as Apicultural Risk Management in Roman Spain
- 14 December 2020
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Equinox Publishing in Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture
- Vol. 14 (3), 324-350
- https://doi.org/10.1558/jsrnc.38579
Abstract
Worship of bear deities in pre-Roman and Roman Spain seems to have occurred for rather pragmatic reasons having more to do with the activities of bears rather than bears themselves. I show that this reverence originated in an important mode of subsistence in Iron Age and Roman central Spain, beekeeping, upon which the predatory habits of the bear, common in the Peninsula until recent centuries, came increasingly to encroach. I demonstrate that Latin votive dedications made to a Celtiberian deity named Arco in the region of Segovia during the early Principate should ultimately be considered as a remection of the importance of indigenous honey production. By conceptualizing Arco, whose name in Celtiberian meant ‘bear’, as a rationalization of apicultural risk, we gain a powerful new tool in understanding both the importance of beekeeping in the Iberian Peninsula and how intimately connected in some areas it was with bears.Keywords
This publication has 15 references indexed in Scilit:
- Birders of AfricaPublished by Yale University Press ,2016
- Traditional Craft Techniques of Esparto Grass (Stipa tenacissima L.) in Spain1Economic Botany, 2015
- Pro & contra. Erfüllte und unerfüllte Gelübde in lateinischen InschriftenHistorische Zeitschrift, 2013
- Una nueva tésera de hospitalidad en territorio cántabro: el oso del castro de Las Rabas (Cervatos, Cantabria)Archivo Español de Arqueología, 2011
- Birds in the Ancient World from A to ZPublished by Taylor & Francis Ltd ,2007
- Berserks in History and LegendRussian History, 2005
- Zur sprachlichen Einordnung des LepontischenPublished by Walter de Gruyter GmbH ,1999
- The Archaeology of Beekeeping in Pre-Roman IberiaJournal of Mediterranean Archaeology, 1997
- Pliny the ProcuratorHarvard Studies in Classical Philology, 1969
- The Honey-guidesBulletin of the United States National Museum, 1955