Something About MOYPIOI

Succeeds in unknown fate.

I found something in the archives about the statue of Astaroth in The Lamp from the Warlock's Tomb (1988), which I’ve mentioned before. As noted in the text, one hand of the statue held a scepter, “while the other was pointing at golden letters that said MOYPIOI on her forehead”. The word seems meaningless outside the realm of the book and I recall it being asked about over the years.

Bellairsia admins posed the question to Charles Bowen, Bellairs’s Notre Dame classmate and friend, who provided his analysis but noted he couldn’t help much:

“All Greek dictionaries are Modern Greek; I never learned ancient Greek and don't have a dictionary. I did try a couple I found online but had no luck. The Greek capital letters correspond to mouroi -- the Y is an upsilon sometimes pronounced with an ee sound but when it comes after an omicron I think the combination (ou) was always pronounced oo as it is nowadays.

"There is a tempting similarity between the inscription and the word for 'fate,' which is moira. The classical Three Fates were called the Moirai, sometimes written Moerai, in Greek. But if John wanted to suggest this, he made two mistakes: using upsilon (Y) in place of iota (I) and putting a masculine plural on what was definitely a feminine noun. Besides, it's hard to see what this might have had to do with Ashteroth, a fertility goddess, so I guess he must have had something different in mind.” 

Or could have someone on the editorial board unintentionally changed the letters and meaning or the word?