Cel

Cel is the earth itself — cel is the Etruscan word for ground — and she is addressed as Ati Cel, Mother Cel. She holds a region on the Liver of Piacenza, which places her among the sixteen powers whose quarter of the sky a haruspex had to be able to name, and a month of the Etruscan year appears to carry her name. In art she is shown with a woman's body above the waist and vegetation below. A giant on one mirror is labelled celsclan, 'son of Cel', which is the one genealogical trace she has: the son is identified only by that patronymic, and is not an individually named figure in this registry.

Variant accounts

• Cel is compared with Gaia and Terra.Reference treatments give her Gaia as a Greek counterpart and Terra as a Roman one. The comparison is recorded, not encoded: no Gaia or Terra record is merged with this one, following the practice that keeps Tinia, Zeus and Jupiter apart.Reference article 'Cel (goddess)', giving Gaia and Terra as counterparts. (secondary)

Domains

• earth
• motherhood

Epithets

• AtiReference article 'Cel (goddess)', on Ati Cel. (secondary)

Sources

• Cel, called Ati Cel or 'Mother Cel', is the Etruscan earth goddess, named on the Liver of Piacenza; a giant on a mirror bears the patronymic celsclan, 'son of Cel'.: Liver of Piacenza (2nd-1st c. BCE), region 13. (archaeological); Reference article 'Cel (goddess)', on the earth-mother role, the Gaia and Terra counterparts and the iconography of a body vegetal below the waist. (secondary)