__NOTOC__ In ancient

Celtic polytheism Ancient Celtic religion, commonly known as Celtic paganism, was the religion of the ancient Celts, Celtic peoples of Europe. Because there are no extant native records of their beliefs, evidence about their religion is gleaned from archaeology, ...

, Latis is the name of two

Celtic deities The gods and goddesses of the pre-Christian Celtic peoples are known from a variety of sources, including ancient places of worship, statues, engravings, cult objects, and place or personal names. The ancient Celts appear to have had a panthe ...

worshipped in

Roman Britain Roman Britain was the territory that became the Roman province of ''Britannia'' after the Roman conquest of Britain, consisting of a large part of the island of Great Britain. The occupation lasted from AD 43 to AD 410. Julius Caes ...

. One is a goddess (Dea Latis), the other a god (Deus Latis), and they are both known from a single inscription each.

Dea Latis

The dedication to Dea Latis was found at Birdoswald Roman Fort in

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders the Scottish council areas of Dumfries and Galloway and Scottish Borders to the north, Northumberland and County Durham to the east, North Yorkshire to the south-east, Lancash ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

, in 1873. It reads simply: The E is written as a , , . The stone is now in the Carlisle Museum. She may have been associated with the nearby rivers.

Deus Latis

The dedication to Deus Latis, recovered on an altar-stone at the Roman fort of

Aballava Aballava or Aballaba (with the modern name of Burgh by Sands) was a Roman fort on Hadrian's Wall, between Petriana ( Stanwix) to the east and Coggabata ( Drumburgh) to the west. It is about one and a half miles south of the Solway Firth, and ...

Burgh-by-Sands Burgh by Sands () is a village and civil parish in the Cumberland unitary authority area of Cumbria, England, situated near the Solway Firth. The parish includes the village of Burgh by Sands along with Longburgh, Dykesfield, Boustead Hill, ...

(also in

) reads: The altar-stone to Deus Latis was found near an image of a horned god and another dedication to the god

Belatucadros Belatucadros or Belatucadrus, was a deity worshipped in Celtic northern Britain, particularly in Cumberland and Westmorland. In the Roman period he was identified with Mars and appears to have been worshipped by lower-ranked Roman soldiers as well ...

Etymology

The name 'Latis' may conceivably be related to the

Proto-Celtic Proto-Celtic, or Common Celtic, is the hypothetical ancestral proto-language of all known Celtic languages, and a descendant of Proto-Indo-European. It is not attested in writing but has been partly Linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed throu ...

words *''lati-'' meaning 'liquor', *''lat-'' 'day', or *''lāto-'' 'lust'.Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies,

University of Wales The University of Wales () is a confederal university based in Cardiff, Wales. Founded by royal charter in 1893 as a federal university with three constituent colleges – Aberystwyth, Bangor and Cardiff – the university was the first universit ...

.
Proto-Celtic—English lexicon
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Dea Latis

Deus Latis

Etymology

References

Further reading