Ardennes Forest -> Hercynian Forest

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

It seems like Hercynian Forest was the historical name for the area we now call Ardennes. The Ardennes Forest and Black Forests of today were once part of a much larger forest system in ancient times called Hercynian Forest. It was mentioned and described by many ancient authors, so it might be a nice nod to rename it.

 

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During the time of Julius Caesar, this forest blocked the advance of the Roman legions into Germania. His few statements are the most definitive. In De Bello Gallico[9] he says that the forest stretches along the Danube from the territory of the Helvetii (present-day Switzerland) to Dacia (present-day Romania). Its implied northern dimension is nine days' march. Its eastern dimension is indefinitely more than sixty days' march. The concept fascinated him, even the old tales of unicorns (which may have represented reindeer).[10] Caesar's references to moose and aurochs and of elk without joints which leaned against trees to sleep in the endless forests of Germania, were probably later interpolations in his Commentaries.[11] Caesar's name for the forest is the one most used: Hercynia Silva.

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Similarly, Edward Gibbon noted the presence of reindeer—pseudo-Caesar's bos cervi figura—and elk—pseudo-Caesar's alces—in the forest.[18] The wild bull which the Romans named the urus was present also, and the European bison and the now-extinct aurochs, Bos primigenius.[19]

 

Edited January 24, 2021 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[nifa]

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Relict tracts of this once-continuous forest exist with many local names: the Black Forest, the Ardennes, the Bavarian Forest, the Vosges, the Eifel, the Jura Mountains, the Swabian Jura, the Franconian Jura, the Polish Jura, the Palatinate Forest, the Teutoburg Forest, the Argonne Forest the Odenwald, the Spessart, the Rhön, the Thuringian Forest, the Harz, the Rauhe Alb, the Steigerwald, the Fichtelgebirge, the Erzgebirge, the Riesengebirge, the Bohemian Forest, and the forested Carpathians.^[2] The Mittelgebirge seem to correspond more or less to a stretch of the Hercynian mountains. Many present-day smaller forests were also included like the Bienwald and the Haguenau Forest. The Hercynian Forest probably extended to the Białowieża Forest.

Ardennes Forest is way more specific while Hercynian Forest is just everything north of the alps and up to the carpathians in the East.

It was all covered with coherent forests until the romans started the deforestation

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

10 hours ago, nifa said:

Ardennes Forest is way more specific

The name Ardennes Forest seems it might be a more recent moniker, once the deforestation started to break up the Hercynian. 

 

10 hours ago, nifa said:

Hercynian Forest is just everything north of the alps and up to the carpathians in the East.

It was all covered with coherent forests until the romans started the deforestation

 

Well, yeah, that's my point. It was all just 1 forest in ancient times, called Hercynian Forest.  

[Genava55]