[If the text below uses any of the terms ‘hill-letter’, ‘river-letter’, ‘old-style name’, ‘transitional name’ and ‘inversion-type name’ a reader who is not familiar with those terms may wish to refer briefly to ‘The Celtic names of hillforts’, where an explanation of those terms is given].
The Celtic names of hillforts
Dundon Hill
Location: immediately east of the village of Dundon in Somerset
OS map reference: ST 485 322
Celtic name: Lindinis
Source: Ravenna Cosmography (26) - Lindinis
This hillfort stands on the summit of a steep-sided hill.
The writer’s reasons for associating the name Lindinis with Dundon Hill (rather than with Ilchester as is conventional) are given in Chapter 10 (Roman place-names in southwest England) of the Home menu.
The name is a compound in the hill-letters l and n where the nd element means ‘hill summit’. The n appears to be n2, but it is not clear whether the l is l1 or l2, though l1 is more likely since Lindinis was in the hands of the Durotriges and they used the hill-letter l1 (see 'Ptolemy's Celtic tribes in Britain').The name simply refers to the location of the hillfort on the summit of a hill.
It is not clear whether the name as it appears in Ravenna refers to the hillfort itself, to a possible Roman post set up inside the hillfort after the occupants had been evicted, or to a Roman fort built nearby and simply taking its name from the hillfort.
