Iouga

Iouga is a suggested reconstruction of the name of a Romano-British goddess known from a single fragmentary inscription on an altar-stone at York. The name appears as Ioug[...] or Iou[...] on the damaged stone, which reads:

NVMINIB AVG ET DEAE IOV[...]
SIVS AEDEM PRO PARTE D[...][1][2]
To the numina of the Emperor(s) and to the goddess Iou[..], [..]sius (built/restored) a (half?) part of a temple.

Reading the fragmentary name as Ioug[...], Roger Wright proposed the reconstructed form Iouga, which he linked with the Proto-Celtic *jugā meaning 'yoke'. However, Theresia Pantzer, reviewing the stone, suggests that what Wright had perceived as traces of a letter g was merely "damage to the stone rather than part of a letter".[2] The goddess is otherwise unknown.[3]

References
  1. RIB 656. The stone is now at the Yorkshire Museum.
  2. Theresia Pantzer (2008). "RIB 656".
  3. Colin Smith. "Vulgar Latin in Roman Britain". In Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, II.29.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.