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Concept
Mamucium
Summary
Mamucium, also known as Mancunium, is a former Roman fort in the Castlefield area of Manchester in North West England. The castrum, which was founded c. AD 79 within the Roman province of Roman Britain, was garrisoned by a cohort of Roman auxiliaries near two major Roman roads running through the area. Several sizeable civilian settlements (or vicus) containing soldiers' families, merchants and industry developed outside the fort. The area is a protected Scheduled Ancient Monument.
The ruins were left undisturbed until Manchester expanded rapidly during the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century. Most of the fort was levelled to make way for new developments such as the construction of the Rochdale Canal and the Great Northern Railway. The site is now part of the Castlefield Urban Heritage Park that includes renovated warehouses. A section of the fort's wall along with its gatehouse, granaries, and other ancillary buildings from the vicus have been reconstructed and are open to the public.
Mamucium is generally thought to represent a Latinisation of an original Brittonic name, either from mamm- ("breast", in reference to a "breast-like hill") or from mamma ("mother", in reference to a local river goddess). Both meanings are preserved in modern Celtic languages, mam meaning "mother" in Welsh. The neuter suffix -ium is used in Latin placenames, particularly those representing Common Brittonic -ion (a genitive suffix denoting "place or city of ~"). The Welsh name for Manchester is Manceinion. It appears that William Baxter invented this name in his ‘Glossarium Antiquitatum Britannicarum’ (1719) as a back-formation based on ‘Mancunium’. ‘Historia Brittonum’ (828-29) lists ‘Cair Maunguid’ (fort of the peat trees) and it has been suggested that this might be the authentic Welsh name for ‘Manchester’. In Modern Welsh, it would have been ‘*Caerfawnwydd’. It should be stressed that the ancient name is unknown. However, if one is correct to equate the 9th-century name with ‘Manchester’, the Proto-Celtic name would have been ‘*Māniwidion’.
Official source
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