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Mogons orMoguns was a Celtic god worshiped inRoman Britain andGaul. The main evidence is from altars dedicated to the god by Roman soldiers.
According toJ.T. Koch at theUniversity of Wales, the various alternations of the nameMoguns derive from the Romano-Celticdialectal reflexes ofProto-Celtic *mogont-s (a derivative of theProto-Indo-European root*megH2- "to be great, mighty"), anIndo-European *-nt- -stemcognate withSanskritmahānt andAvestanmazant ‘great’.[1]
Altar-stones raised to Mogon, with varied spellings, have been recovered inGreat Britain, such as the stones found at the following locations.[2] The number is the catalog number of the artifact and the name in parentheses is the word as it appears on the stone, not necessarily (and probably not) in thenominative case. Most aredatives, to be translated as "to the god":
ModernMainz takes its name fromCastrum Moguntiacum, a Roman base placed there. It is hypothesized that Moguns gave his name to it. The inscription at Habitancum identifies the troops stationed at that location as being from theVangiones, theGaesati andRhaeti fromGermania Superior. Mainz was in the territory of theAresaces, a Celtic tribe probably part of theTreveri.
The Habitancum inscription contains also the expressionDeo Mogonito Cad... with the letters followingCad missing. As the region is in the territory of the historic Scottish tribe called theGadeni, centered aroundJedburgh (Jed possibly from Cad), the Cad.. is interpreted as some case of Cadeni. One speculation is that the Cadeni were a section of the Vangiones. Some derive Cadeni from Gaedhal, orGael. A third theory derives Cad from catu-, "battle", with a sense "to the battle god, Mogon...".[citation needed]
