Waluburg

Waluburg, 'magic staff protection' (Greek: Βαλουβουργ), was a second century Germanic seeress (sorceress, priestess) from the Semnonian tribe whose existence was revealed by the archaeological find of an ostracon, a pot shard of the type that was used by scribes to write receipts in Roman Egypt. The shard was discovered in the early twentieth century on the Egyptian island of Elephantine, near the First Cataract of the Nile.

Waluburg probably was taught her craft by a fellow tribeswoman, the seeress Ganna, who succeeded Veleda as a leader of the Germanic resistance against the Romans and who is known to have had an audience with emperor Domitian.

The reason how and why Waluburg ended up in southern Egypt at the First Cataract of the Nile is not known, but scholars speculate that she may have arrived while accompanying a warband of her own tribe in Roman service, that she was a war prisoner, or that she was a valuable hostage. Since Germanic sorceresses were known to make predictions of the future based on the movement of water, alternatively, she may have been hired by the Roman authorities to make predictions for them while studying the streams and currents of the First Cataract, hence the receipt of payment for services found with her name upon the shard found at Elephantine.