Caledonian Settlement - Attuaca?

Hey - probably one for Ranika. I think i asked you this before but I must have forgotten to check what your answer was.

What is your source for the name Attuaca?

Where about in scotland is it?

What archaeological site is it based on?

Why did you decide to pick this as the main Caledonian settlement?

Cheers! ~:)

It was something recommended to me. After I asked how it was come by, I mostly got a series of the same thing; everyone heard it from some one else. So, for the time being, consider it a placeholder.

As for the name itself, it seems to just be a form of a word for a swamp or marsh based fortress (kind of like Cashel in Ireland is just the word for...a cashel; a Gaelic hill fort/oppida-kind of mixed fortress).

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Originally Posted by Ranika

It was something recommended to me. After I asked how it was come by, I mostly got a series of the same thing; everyone heard it from some one else. So, for the time being, consider it a placeholder.

As for the name itself, it seems to just be a form of a word for a swamp or marsh based fortress (kind of like Cashel in Ireland is just the word for...a cashel; a Gaelic hill fort/oppida-kind of mixed fortress).

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Glad to hear that you're using it as a placeholder. I personally have never heard the term, and i've done a fair bit on iron age and early historic scotland in the past.

I just feel that it would be slightly dodgy for a mod like EB to be using a settlement that didn't exist or didn't correlate with an actual archaeological site.

As I've said before (i think) I realise it is very difficult to do this because of the nature of the game - i mean trying to get a central place or 'capital' for 3rd century BC scotland is always going to be anachronistic.

I would suggest that in terms of actual remains and sites, it may be easiest to go for one of the southern or east coast sites - perhaps Traprain Law, Eildon Hill North, the Brown or White Catherthuns or Tap o north. That means that you would actually be using a real site.

The name would obviously continue to cause a problem - you could go with a Brythonic-type translation of one of the above names, make-up a general celtic name based on its location or simply 'settlement of the Caledonni' or use the modern name? I don't know what EB's full policy is on settlement names.

The naming convention seems to be 'what is appropriate in the region'. If some reasonable facsimile of a Celtic name can be determined, we use it, if it's more of a 'place of X tribe' thing, we use that.

I believe we were once using Traprain Law, but can't recall why it was changed. In any event, even if it, or any others would be used, it would not be under a modern designation, but under a name appropriate, perhaps based upon region (describing nearby features, like the ancient Irish city 'Tuathorhnagatabasbhe'; 'Family overlooking the Dead River', though, something not so long, of course.

The word Attuaca itself appears related to 'Attosca' or 'Androssa'/'Andros', a fortress.

was attuaca not a Belgae city from de bello gallico, somwhere in what now is called Wallony (Belgium)? Or was that something similar?

EDIT: owkay so it was a roman camp:

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Originally Posted by http://www.hhhh.org/perseant/libellus/commentaries/holmes/holmesgi.html

Atuatuca was the place where Titurius Sabinus and Auruncoleius Cotta encamped in the autumn of 54 B.C., and close to which their army was destroyed by Ambiorix, one of the two kings of the Eburones (v, 24, §4; 26 - 37; vi, 32, §§3 - 4).

Atuatuca is generally identified with Tongres, 12 miles NW.by N.of Liege The reasons are, first, that Tongres was undoubtedly the site of a Gallo-Roman fortress called Atuaca, which is mentioned in the Table of Peutinger (p.12, col.1) and which Ptolemy called >Atouatoukon; secondly, that this fort was situated, as the camp of Sabinus and Cotta probably was, at the junction of great roads; thirdly, that Atuatuca was in the kingdom of Ambiorix, which formed the western part of the territory of the Eburones, and which may have been separated from the kingdom of his colleague, Catuvolcus, by the Meuse; and lastly, that nobody has succeeded in finding another site which corresponds satisfactorily with Caesar's narrative. There are, however, strong arguments against identifying Atuatuca with Tongres. When Caesar said that Atuatuca `is nearly in the centre of the territory of the Eburones' (fere est in mediis Eburonum finibus [vi, 32, §4]), he could hardly have meant what his words appear, at first sight, to convey; for neither Tongres nor any other place which could reasonably be identified with Atuatuca is near the centre of that territory: probably he meant that Atuatuca was near the common frontier of the two kingdoms of which the whole territory was composed. But it is difficult to believe that he would have used the words in mediis Ebruronum finibus to indicate a site which lay 10 miles west of the Meuse and yet belonged to a people `the greater part of whose territory is between the Meuse and the Rhine' (v, 24, §4). There are several other passages which suggest that Atuatuca was between the two rivers. Ambiorix, in his interview with Gaius Arpineius and Quintus Junius, stated that a body of Germans, who were coming to the assistance of the Gallic rebels, had crossed the Rhine, and would arrive at Atuatuca in two days (v, 27, §8). Sabinus, in the council of war which immediately followed the interview, remarked that the Rhine was close by (subesse Rhenum [29, §3]), - a phrase which, one would think, he would hardly have used if the broad flood of the Meuse had intervened between the Rhine and Atuatuca. We are told that when the Sugambri invaded the country of the Eburones they crossed the Rhine (vi, 35, §6); but we are not told that, in order to reach Atuatuca, they crossed the Meuse. When they left Atuatuca `they recrossed the Rhine' (trans Rhenum sese receperunt [41, ]); and this phrase would be misleading if they had first had to cross so important a river as the Meuse. Furthermore, readers who have seen Tongres will not easily believe that Caesar would have described it as a naturally strong position. Except on the south and south-east, where it is approached by a very gentle ascent, it is naturally defenceless; and it was against this side that the first attack of the Sugambri would have been directed. How, then, could Caesar have said that `the strength of the position entrenchments forbade any attempt to enter elsewhere' (reliquos aditus locus ipse per se munitione defendit [37, §5])'? It has been argued that Caesar was thinking of marshes which protected the camp; but where could they have been except between the south-east and the south-west, where they may have been formed by the river Geer? And even they would not have extended up to the supposed site of the camp.

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Atuatuca and the Attuaca described here are, at the least, definitely seperate regions. However, the name, in either event, appears to be of continental Celtic type (and I reiterate, it appears to just be a word for 'fort', which means it's more of a generic term that really isn't fit for any settlement). Coincidentally, Atuatuca I believe we were using as a placeholder at one point as well, somewhere in Gaul.

To add to Ran...Aduatuca was the capital of the 'Aduatuci'.

The 'Aduatuci' were a group of Germano-Celts who were originally related to both the Cimbri and Helvetian Tigurini.
The 'Aduatuci' were part of the Cimbri / Teutone army at the battle of Battle of Arausio on October 6 105 BC. In that battle the Cimbri army slaughtered a huge Roman force, roughly 80,000 troops and 30,000 auxilaries and servants, but they then ran into the Arverni alliance (who at that time controlled much of Gaul) and were soundly defeated.

Recoiling, the huge Cimbri force then headed toward the Pyrenees, but a small portion (the 'Aduatuci') fled north and sought shelter amongst the Belgae conferation, settling on the river Sambre. They took their tribal name from the location, Aduatuca.

my2bob

Thx for the info guys!
But I'd tought to post that anyway, you never knew.

But then again a mortal like me should always trust the EB historians.

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Originally Posted by PSYCHO V

To add to Ran...Aduatuca was the capital of the 'Aduatuci'.

The 'Aduatuci' were a group of Germano-Celts who were originally related to both the Cimbri and Helvetian Tigurini.
The 'Aduatuci' were part of the Cimbri / Teutone army at the battle of Battle of Arausio on October 6 105 BC. In that battle the Cimbri army slaughtered a huge Roman force, roughly 80,000 troops and 30,000 auxilaries and servants, but they then ran into the Arverni alliance (who at that time controlled much of Gaul) and were soundly defeated.

Recoiling, the huge Cimbri force then headed toward the Pyrenees, but a small portion (the 'Aduatuci') fled north and sought shelter amongst the Belgae conferation, settling on the river Sambre. They took their tribal name from the location, Aduatuca.

my2bob

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You forgot to say that the Cimbri/ Teutone army was then destroyed by the Iberians after the Roman forces in the Peninsula were defeated. A fact that brought great shame upon the Roman Preator.