d'ar gêr ! ***** à la maison ! ***** back home !

Noms de lieux Noms de personnes

England

Bro-Saoz

blason ou logo en attente

Cornwall

Kernev-Veur

Lizard

Dumnoniorum / Ocrinum Promontarium

page ouverte en 2004 forum de discussion

* forum du site Marikavel : Academia Celtica 

dernière mise à jour 01/07/2009 14:03:04

Définition : Cap de l'extrémité sud-ouest du Cornwall, en Grande Bretagne.

 

Extrait de la carte Ordnance Survey : Map of Roman Britain.

Histoire

Visité par Pythéas lors de ses voyages dans la partie nord de l'Océan, à partir des Colonnes d'Hercules / Détroit de Gibraltar.

S'il est probable qu'il ait été dépendant de populations successives, étant situé à l'extrémité sud-ouest de la (G)Bretagne, il fait donc partie du territoire des Dumnonii dès l'implantation de ceux-ci, vers 300 avant J.C, et le restera durant toute la période de l'empire romain. 

Ce n'est qu'avec la chute de la cité des Dumnonii face aux West-saxons, et au démembrement de celle-ci, que le cap Land's End re^^présente la cap extrême sud-ouest du Cornwall (Cerniu o Wealas), partie restant aux Bretons. 

Étymologie

 

* Rivet & Smith; p. 344 :

SOURCES 

- Ptolemy, II,3,2; Damnonion to kai Okrinun akron (= Damnoniorum Sive Ocrinum Promontorium)

- Marcian, II,45 : "... to Damnion akron (= Damnium cape) to kai Okrion kaloumenon (=wich is also called Ocrium). Marcian's form has lost a syllable through miscopying".

* Rivet & Smith; p. 429 : 

SOURCES

- Ptolemy II, 3, 2 : Damnonion to kai Okrinon akron ( = DAMNONIUM SIVE OCRINUM PROMONTORIUM), var. Okrion (= OCRIUM, preferred by Millier); again in II, 3, 3

- Marcian II, 45 : Damnion akron (= DAMNIUM cape) to kai Okrion kaloumenon (= which is also called OCRIUM)

DERIVATION. Ptolemy here (as for other principal capes which mark the 'corners' of the island) gives alternative names, each of the pairs containing - as argued in Chapter III (p. 115) - an archaic and a more modem name. Ocrinum is the more archaic of the present pair, and had probably been preserved in the tradition stemming from Pytheas. The name does not appear elsewhere. It may be an ancient Celtic or even pre-Indo-European name based on a root related to Greek Okris 'rugged point, prominence ', or it may be that Pytheas first named it with a form actually derived from the Greek word, which would then have had no currency in Britain. Remote but possible analogues are provided by Interocrium > Antrodoco (Rieti, Italy), and by Okra (= Ocra), a peak in the Julian Alps mentioned by Ptolemy II, 12, I and III, I, I, in whose area Pliny NH III, 133, locates a Subocrini people.

IDENTIFICATION. The reference is clearly to the Lizard peninsula, Cornwall, but whether to Lizard Point itself is not so certain. Professer C. Thomas has drawn our attention to the fact that what strikes the seafarer is not the headland but the hazardous reef called The Manacles, off the eastern side of the peninsula, which would fit the Greek word admirably. This would be especially true for someone approaching from the east, as Hawkes (Pytheas : Europe and the Greek Explorers, Oxford, 1977) argues that Pytheas did on his return journey; and this in turn would also explain why at this corner of the British triangle the names of two headlands (Belerium and Ocrinum) were preserved in the record.

Sources :

* Ordnance Survey : Map of roman Britain.

* ALF Rivet & Colin Smith : The Place-Names of Roman Britain. Batsford Ltd. London. 1979. 

* Ferdinand Lallemand : Pythéas le Massaliote.

* forum du site Marikavel : Academia Celtica 

hast buan, ma mignonig vas vite, mon petit ami

go fast, my little friend

Retour en tête de page