 View of the Meuse in the French Ardennes.
Green states that some depictions of Arduinna show her riding a boar (Green 1986, p.180). However, Deyts notes that the bronze Gallo-Roman statue of a woman in a short belted tunic, riding a boar sidesaddle and holding a knife (Boucher fig.292, or here), bears no inscription, and was simply assumed to be Arduinna by the 19th century antiquarian who discovered it - perhaps because the modern symbol of the Ardennes region is also a boar (Deyts 1992, pp.46-47). The name Arduinna is derived from the Gaulish arduo- meaning height (Delamarre p.51). It is also found in several placenames, such as the Ardennes  Woods (Arduenna silva), in personal names Arduunus and Arda - the latter from coinage of the Treveri, (RIG-4, 36-43) - and the Galatian Αρδή. The name Arduenna silva for "wooded heights" was applied to several forested mountains, not just the modern Ardennes: it is found in the départements of Alleuze, Haute-Loire and Puy-du-Dôme (Delamarre pp.51-52). In 565, St. Walfroy (Wulfilaïc) preached to the local population of Villers-devant-Orval to persuade them to abandon worship of Arduinna. References - Boucher, S. (1976) Recherches sur les bronzes figurés de Gaule pré-romaine et romaine. Paris, Ecole Français de Rome. (...Figures of Gaul, Pre-Roman and Roman)
- Colbert de Beaulieu, Jean-Baptiste and Fischer, Brigitte (1998) Receuil des Inscriptions gauloises (RIG) 4: les légendes monétaires. Paris, Editions du CNRS
- Delamarre, X. (2003). Dictionaire de la Langue Gauloise. 2nd edition. Paris, Editions Errance. ISBN 2-87772-237-6
- Deyts, S. (1992) Images des Dieux de la Gaule. Paris Editions Errance. ISBN 2-87772-067-5
- Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL), volume 6, Italia
- Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL), volume 13, Tres Galliae
- Green, M. (1986) The Gods of the Celts. Stroud, Sutton Publishing. ISBN 0-7509-1581-1
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