the need to overcome internal crises that result from urbanisation processes. In most examples from Britain and Gaul, it seems that values are at stake that concern the whole community, e.g. the development of the Iron Age ‘oppidum culture’ in Southern Gaul and the processes of state formation in early encounters with Rome). Heroes often seem to have evolved in periods of extreme social upheaval (e.g. The worship of a hero seems to be at the centre of numerous ‘public’ cults, both in Iron Age Southern Gaul and in Roman Britain. Many cases across the ‘Keltiké’ suggest that certain individuals acquired heroic status and continued to be venerated as patron or protective ‘deities’ of the community for many generations. Was hero worship part of "Celtic religions" from the Iron Age to the Middle Ages? This paper explores the role of hero-ancestor worship as an integral part of the native religions of Gaul and Britain. KEYWORDS Roman period, Celeia, Noricum, Savus and Adsalluta, Magna Mater (Cybele). Reminiscences of the worship of Cybele have survived from antiquity and can be identified in the custom of the ‘pinewood marriage’ during the Carnival time at Ptuj (Roman Poetovio). The evidence shows that cult of the Great Mother soon also became popular in the Celtic provinces, and that its popularity could in some cases have eventually outshone various local Celtic goddesses. From the unexpected Magna Mater dedication it could be inferred that the Great Mother was also worshipped at this sacred place alongside the water divinities, or that the worship of the latter was later replaced by that of the Magna Mater, or else that an additional small sanctuary was erected to her. Rescue excavations, during which an altar to the Magna Mater was discovered, were carried out in 1994 in the sanctuary area. Until recently, nine altars dedicated to Savus and/or Adsalluta were known from their (?) sanctuary at the hamlet of Sava near Podkraj opposite Hrastnik (the territory of Celeia in Noricum, present-day Celje in Slovenia), situated above the river Savus (the Sava), by a section of dangerous rapids and waterfalls.
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