Sitomagus

[nellie]

Another plea for aid

In 'An essay towards a topography of the county of Norfolk' Francis Blomefield gives Thetford as the site of Sitomagus mention in the 2nd century Antonine Itinery, and believes it means the Senones (river) crossing or the Sitones crossing.

roman-britain.org suggest Ixworth as the site of Sitomagus and further gives its meaning as Place of the Chieftan.

Can anybody confirm the meaning? If Sitomagus is Latin what would the celtic name have been?

And (I don't want much ;D) has anyone any thoughts on whether Thetford or Ixworth are likely candidates for the site of Sitomagus?
(I hold my hands up and say I know nothing about Ixworth but I have been doing lots of research on Thetford. There is definite Iron-Age and Roman presence, though to my knowlege to date there is no Roman Fort... though as Pryor often says, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence There is though a fairly substancial iron-age enclosure that seems very likely to be religious in purpose, and small suggestions that it may also have been the home of an iron age mint which I'm guessing would be of some import?!)

[deiniol]

I think romanbritain.org is wrong here. Sitomagus looks decidedly Celtic to me: the -magus element (in Proto-Brythonic *magos) was not uncommon in place-names, meaning something like "field" or "market". The first part of the name, however, is somewhat more obscure: perhaps it's a form of *siti- "long"?

However, the placename is also attested in two differing forms, the other being recorded as "Sinomagi", which looks a lot like it could be recording an original *senomagos which is basically "old field/old market".

[nellie]

Thanks Deiniol. 'Old market' - so much less evocative than 'site of the chieftan' LOL! So would this take the form of some sort of enclosure maybe? I'm maybe being a bit thick here, but can anyone point me to any known remains of an ironage 'market' type site?

Can Blomefiel's suggestion of 'Sit' refering to a gaulish tribe be completely discounted then? He says '-magus' place names appear on rivers. Is this correct?

[deiniol]

Oct 26, 2011 19:27:25 GMT -1 nellie said:

Thanks Deiniol. 'Old market' - so much less evocative than 'site of the chieftan' LOL! So would this take the form of some sort of enclosure maybe? I'm maybe being a bit thick here, but can anyone point me to any known remains of an ironage 'market' type site?

Not really my manor, I'm afraid, but I assume that we're really just talking about a big field, like a fairground or something.

Can Blomefiel's suggestion of 'Sit' refering to a gaulish tribe be completely discounted then?

*shrugs* Dunno. Maybe, maybe not. I'm not aware of any Celtic tribe with "sito-" as part of their name, but that doesn't neccessarily mean anything.

He says '-magus' place names appear on rivers. Is this correct?

They can do. I'm not aware of any particular correlation between proximity to a river and "-magus" as a place-name element beyond the fact that most settlements were fairly near rivers? Obviously, open spaces like plains, fields and market-places would be more likely to be found in river valleys than forest clearings.

[dumnorix]

I would agree that Sitomagus is Brythonic. If the Latin etymology were correct, it would be a very unusual formulation indeed. I think we can safely discard the idea of river-crossing of the Sitones/Senones, I cannot actually think of a single place-name which was tied so specifically to a tribe like that; tribes were probably not permanent polities.

As I see it, the first element sito- is probably "length" (W. hyd), or maybe "flight" (W. hed[eg]), which if correct begs a good story to explain it...

If the correct form is sino-, I would speculatively compare it to Latin sinus, which means a curve, for example a bend in a river: *sino-magos could then be "The Field at the River-Bend", which would make quite a lot of sense.

Oh and since you mentioned it, a mint is a *battotegos.