Lefs: a Greek god in Lydian disguise. Ζευσις: a Lydian god in Greek disguise, and some Luwian gods too

Gods cross borders easily, taking their names with them, and the Lydians became fond of Greek gods, one of whom was Zeus. The way he was adopted into the Lydian language (and inscriptions, of course), as Lews and then Lefs, reveals something of Lydian phonology. Scholars writing in late antiquity preserved some knowledge of the Lydian language, and one scrap of this, recorded by Hesychios, is another Lydian name of Zeus: Zeusis, probably from δiw-, the Lydian word for ‘god’. John Lydus reports that Zeus was born on Mt. Tmolos near Sardis, at a place called Deusion. This was probably derived from the same Lydian designation for Zeus, but from its Proto-Lydian form instead, before *diw- was altered to δiw-. Because Lydian inscriptions are attested from ca. 700 B.C., this must have occurred earlier. The late mention of Deusion thus gives a brief glimpse into early relations between Lydians and Greeks and into the development of the Lydian language. The sense of *diwsis > *δiwšiš was probably ‘deity’, designating a rain-bringing god on Mt. Tmolos and otherwise unattested. The settlement of Troketta, located, like Deusion, west of Sardis, could perhaps preserve his name, being that of the Anatolian weathergod, as a loan from the late ‘Hittite’ or Luwian kingdom of Tabal, along with a group of other theonyms and together with his consort: She reappears as Hipta – or, rather, Ipta – in Greek inscriptions east of Sardis and in the Orphic hymns, which connect her with Mt. Tmolos.