Africa
Berber · deity · antiquity · Recorded classification
Berber goddess Ifri/Ifru, the 'African goddess' (Dea Africa) named in the task. English plain word for the Latinized name 'Africa' leads; native Tamazight Ifri/Ifru in term-fields. Pliny attests a Libyan war-goddess; later iconography fuses her with the personified province Africa. Classified deity.
Domains
- war
- caves and earth
- fertility and abundance
- land and homeland
Powers
- protect her worshippers and the home
Epithets
- Ifri The cave-goddess, protective local deity of the grottoes (the Dii Ifru of inscriptions)Romano-Berber votive inscriptions of North Africa (primary)
- Dea Africa 'the African Goddess'Maritz, J. A. (2001). Dea Africa: Examining the Evidence. (secondary)
- Dea Patria 'Goddess of the Homeland' (at Timgad)Maritz, J. A. (2001). Dea Africa: Examining the Evidence. (secondary)
Sources
- Ifri/Ifru (Latin Dea Africa) was a Berber goddess of fertility, the home and the cave, also honoured as a war-goddess and protector; her name (Berber ifri, 'cave', pl. ifran) underlies the name of the tribe Afri and of 'Africa'.: Camps, G. (1990). 'Africa (deesse)', Encyclopedie berbere 2. (reference); Bates, O. (1914). The Eastern Libyans. London: Macmillan. (reference)
- She was depicted on Numidian and Roman provincial coinage and likened to the Roman Vesta; her cave-cult drew merchants seeking protection.: Wikipedia, 'Africa (goddess)'. (reference); Camps, G. (1990). 'Africa (deesse)', Encyclopedie berbere 2. (reference)