Editing Lugus (section)

==Reconstruction==
[[File:Portrait of Henri d'Arbois de Jubainville.jpg|thumb|[[Henri d'Arbois de Jubainville]]]]
The god Lugus was first reconstructed by Arbois de Jubainville in his monumental {{lang|fr|Le cycle mythologique irlandais et la mythologie celtique}} (1884). Arbois de Jubainville linked together Irish Lugh, Caesar's Gaulish Mercury, the toponym Lugdunum, and the epigraphic evidence of the Lugoves. By 1888, Sir [[John Rhys]] had linked Lugus with Welsh Lleu.<ref name=Hutton/>{{rp|70–71}} Initial criticism of this theory (for example, from [[Henri Gaidoz]]) gave way to what Ovist has described as "uncritical affirmation" of the existence of a pan-Celtic god Lugus.<ref name=Ovist/>{{rp|66}} Over the 20th century, the theory was further elaborated.<ref name=Hutton/>{{rp|71}} The long inscription from Peñalba de Villastar was first published in 1942 and, by the 1950s, it had been identified as a unique dedication to Lugus in the singular.<ref name=Tovar/>{{rp|595}}<ref name=JordanColera/>{{rp|914}} In a 1982 article, [[Antonio Tovar]] cited Lugus as an exemplar of the unity of ancient Celtic culture. Few other Celtic gods could be said to be attested in Gaulish, Insular, and Iberian sources.<ref name=Tovar>{{cite journal |last=Tovar |first=Antonio |date=1982  |title=The God Lugus in Spain |journal=Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies |volume=29 |pages=591–599 }}</ref>{{rp|592–593}}

Early doubts about Lugus were raised by Pierre Flobert (in the 1960s) and Stephanie Boucher (in the 1980s).<ref name=Hofeneder1/>{{rp|206}} However, scepticism about the god only entered the mainstream in the 1990s, coinciding with a wave of scepticism about the unity of the ancient Celts.<ref name=Hutton/>{{rp|72}} The most important of these critiques was mounted by Bernhard Maier, in his 1996 article "Is Lug to be Identified with Mercury?".<ref name=Hutton/>{{rp|72}} As well as criticising the identification of Caesar's Gaulish Mercury with Irish Lugh, Maier cast doubt on the value of the previously adduced epigraphic and toponymic data from Continental Europe. As Ovist put it, Maier "in effect, question[ed] the very existence of Continental Lugus".<ref name=Ovist>{{cite thesis |type=PhD |publisher=University of Chicago Divinity School |last=Ovist |first=Krista L. |date=2004 |title=The Integration of Mercury and Lugus: Myth and History in Late Iron Age and Early Roman Gaul |id={{ProQuest|305095727}} }}</ref>{{rp|353}}

Scepticism about the existence of Lugus has not become consensus.<ref name=Hutton/>{{rp|73}} Recent monographs on the god by Krista Ovist (2004) and Gaël Hily (2012) have reaffirmed and elaborated on Arbois de Jubainville's reconstruction.<ref name=MaierHily>{{cite journal |last=Maier |first=Bernhard |title=Review: Hily, Gaël: ''Le dieu celtique Lugus'' |journal=Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie |volume=61 |issue=1 |date=2014 |pages=253–255 |doi=10.1515/zcph.2014.018 }}</ref>{{rp|253–255}} The strength of the epigraphic and toponymic evidence has been marshalled in defense of the hypothesis by scholars such as Ovist and Zeidler.<ref name=Zeidler/>{{rp|221}}<ref name=Ovist/>{{rp|355}}