Ogam Script
Basque, West Virginia 8th Century, Ireland, Scotland, Mayan, Cuban
Indians
(This is where the examiners abilities to figure this mystery out take on an almost
comical note - to me at least.) Dr. Barry Fell, of the Epigraphic Society felt that the
bricks were part of some type of language school at Comalcalco, where students used the
bricks to write on. (Because using bricks to write on is so practical? WHAT?) The
inscriptions weren't visible until after they had dismantled the structure. Steele made
the observation that the problem with the dating is that the languages on the bricks go
back to 0 A.D. to 400 A.D., while Colmalcalco is believed to have been built and/or
inhabited between A.D. 700 to 900. Steele believes that the bricks may have been part of a
more ancient structure that was dismantled and the bricks used in the newer building.
(Okay, this is a little more reasonable - LOL - although it still doesn't explain the
other languages.) He also notes that since they have only looked at 1/2 of 1% of the total
amount of bricks, there could be a million inscribed bricks to discover. He also goes on
to say that the linguists are all in agreement with the languages on the bricks, but
mainstream archeology refuses to accept it, simply stating that it "just can't be
correct." (This is where they usually lose it - by trying to fit the new information
into the old framework instead of including the new information into a NEW framework -
wouldn't it just be better to say that they just don't KNOW? Or are they afraid of
admitting that some of their past assumptions might be incorrect? Hell - they're ALL
incorrect at one point or another - just depends on your perspective at the time - oh
well. It was an interesting article anyway.)
WEST VIRGINIA
http://cwva.org/wwvrunes/wwvrunes_3.html
The Council for West Virginia Archaeology reproduces these original
ogham (ogam) petroglyph articles for the record only. We give absolutely no credence to
their conclusions.
For articles discussing these claims, see the listing at the end of this page.
Part 3
CHRISTIAN MESSAGES IN OLD IRISH SCRIPT DECIPHERED FROM ROCK CARVINGS IN W. VA.
By Barry Fell
� 1983 WV Division of Natural Resources, used with permission
Editor's Note [Wonderful West Virginia's editor]:
In the following article, America's leading expert on ancient languages details his
decipherments of two southern West Virginia petroglyphs, one in Wyoming County, the other
in Boone County. Because of the innovative and controversial nature of this material, we
have chosen to publish Barry Fell's step-by-step description of his decipherment process,
in full, for credibility and so that readers may understand how these translations were
made.
The decipherment process is complex and technical in nature, therefore, it is impossible
to present it in on easy-to-read style. Readers willing to expend the time and mental
energy required to study the material will be astounded and intrigued, as the author takes
them through the systematic process which led to his startling translations of mysterious
writings etched centuries ago by an unknown person on West Virginia s ancient rock cliffs.
Additional archaeological evidence in the same vein as that presented here has been
discovered recently in West Virginia, which seems to further substantiate Fell's
decipherments. It is currently being analyzed. When studies are complete, details of these
additional findings will appear in future issues of this magazine.
The rock-cut inscriptions which are the subject of this article are located at
archaeological sites in Wyoming and Boone Counties, West Virginia. They appear to date
from the 6th—8th centuries A.D., and they are written in Old Irish language,
employing an alphabet called Ogam, found also on ancient rock-cut inscriptions in Ireland.
The inscriptions are accompanied by short annotations in ancient Libyan alphabetic script.
The Libyan script is used to render two languages in the annotations (1) the ancient
Libyan tongue itself, and (2) an Algonquian dialect of the northeastern group, perhaps
allied to Shawnee. In this first report I deal only with the Old Irish texts, as these are
the most detailed.
The Ogam alphabet is illustrated in Figure A.
Most of our knowledge of Ogam comes from a Dublin manuscript, known as the Ogam Tract,
composed by an unidentified monk in the 14th century. It describes some 94 varieties of
Ogam and other alphabets known to the scribe, but the writer indicates that he knew of
some 150 varieties of ancient Irish alphabets. A portion of one of the folio charts in the
Ogam Tract is shown in Figure B.
Archaeological research shows that Ogam was widely used in many parts of the ancient
world. It also occurs on Celtic coins issued in Gaul in the second century before Christ,
some hundreds of years before the earliest known Irish Ogam inscriptions.
 |
The scribe relates the mythical account of the origin of Ogam. He tells us that the
first Ogam message ever written was the work of a magician named Ogmios, and that it was a
warning sent to Lug informing him of a plot to abduct his wife. On line 11 of folio page
309 of the Ogam Tract, the scribe reproduces the supposed warning message sent to
Lug. It consists of the Ogam letters "S—N." This is the earliest literary
reference to the Ogam Consaine (Consonantal Ogam), for the letters "S-N" are the
consonants of the Old Irish word "siona" meaning "warning." The
passage in the Tract (Figure C) is marked by the arrow and the word is shown
enlarged below the Tract.
 |
Although the scribe evidently was familiar with Ogam Consaine, he did not give it that
name, or any name at all. It was left for the 18th century Irish poet Eoghan Ruadh Ua
Suilleabhain (1748—84) to coin the name, "Consonantal Ogam," and he did so
in drawing attention to old, undeciphered, rock-cut inscriptions in Ireland, whose meaning
remained a mystery (Figure D); for scholars of the day, unable to deal with a written
script from which the vowels were omitted, could make no sense of the markings.
The ancient Ogam Consaine inscriptions of Ireland are found mainly in that country's
northern section, and there are others of similar type in parts of Scotland. An example is
the line of Ogam slashes visible on the capstone of the Bronze Age cromlech (grave
monument) at Castlederg, in County Tyrone. In southern Ireland, especially Counties Cork
and Kerry, the Ogam inscriptions are fully provided with the vowel points, and these have
therefore been deciphered long since. The West Virginian Ogam inscriptions seem to have an
affinity with those of northern Ireland.
Irish monastic records state that during the reign of Pope Pelagius (555—561), an
Irish ecclesiastic named St. Brendan (Brennain) made two voyages across the Atlantic
Ocean, discovering a land far to the west, identified by some historians as North America.
It is known that Brendan founded the famous monastery of Clonfert in County Galway in the
year 561, by which date his last voyage had been completed. It seems possible that the
scribes who cut the West Virginia inscriptions may have been Irish missionaries in the
wake of Brendan's voyage, for these inscriptions are Christian. This is evident even
before they are deciphered, because the early Christian symbols of piety, such as the
various Chi-Rho monograms (of the name of Christ) and the Dextera Dei
("Right hand of God"), appear at the sites together with the Ogam texts.
 |
Examples are shown in Figure E, together with corresponding examples from Europe. The
Chi-Rho comprises a symbol formed from the two Greek letters that stand first in the name
"Christ," Ch (resembling an X) and R (resembling a P). These letters are written
separately at the site in Boone County, which is called the Horse Creek Petroglyph. At the
Wyoming County Petroglyph, one of the Chi-Rho signs is that shown in Figure E-5. This is a
combination of the two letters and closely matches a version used on the Byzantine coins
of the Emperor Justinian 1(527—565), shown in Figure E-4. A different version of the
Chi-Rho is the labarum (scepter) type, so-called because it formed the upper part
of the labarum scepter of the Byzantine emperors. Figure E-1 shows the labarum Chi-Rho
that appears on coins of Gratian (367—375), and Figure E-3 is the matching version at
the Wyoming County site, while Figure E-2 is a late version found on coins issued by the
Anglo-Saxon Wulfred, Archbishop of Canterbury (805—833).
Peculiarly Irish is the symbol called by scholars "The Incarnation Initial," of
which a simplified version is shown in Figure E-7, taken from the Lindisfarne Gospels
(A.D. 700). It consists of a large Chi, always introduced by the scribes at the beginning
of the 18th verse of the first chapter of Matthew where the evangelist writes, "Now
the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise."
The Wyoming County inscription relates the birth of Christ, and then, after stating that
the child was born to Mary, the scribe inserts an Ogam version of the Incarnation initial,
shown in Figure E-8. He has inserted some Ogam strokes into the Chi, to make the word
"G-ia-N (game), meaning "Incarnation." When I first attempted to find the
meaning of this sign, I read the Ogam letters in the sequence Ia-n-g (ionga) meaning
"notch." As a word for notch, 'cab," occurs earlier in the inscription,
referring to a notch that the sun will shine through on Christmas morning, this seemed a
likely decipherment. But I believe the correct interpretation is that the whole symbol is
an Ogam version of the Incarnation Initial.
 |
On a rock face adjacent to the Dextera Dei ("Right hand of God") site occur
two lines of script not yet deciphered. In the upper line occurs the well-known symbol, I
H C + (Figure F), used by the Western Church as a monogram of the name of Jesus. The
letters are the first three Greek letters, IES, in the name "Iesos" (Jesus).
 |
Another pious symbol used by the early Christians is the Dextera Dei, or Right
Hand of God. An example carved on the 10th century Irish cross of Muiredach, at
Monasterboice, is shown in Figure G-4. On page 347 of my book, Saga America,
attention is drawn to the occurrence of this symbol at American archaeological sites. I
have suggested that it implies contacts with Europe around the 10th century, when the
symbol was a popular feature in coinage designs. Whether the West Virginian examples
should be dated to the 10th century is at present uncertain, but my belief is that its
presence supports the idea of continuing Irish contacts over a period of several centuries
in the latter part of the first millennium.
Figures G-1 and G-2 show tracings from photographs of West Virginian engravings. The one
on the left is made up of Ogam strokes, some of which are arranged to form a hand-like
figure. Figure G-3, on the right, shows a hand within a circular nimbus, and the hand is
composed of all the Ogam strokes. Figure G2 is a Libyan inscription placed just beneath
the engraving of Figure G-1. Although I do not deal with Libyan texts in this article, it
may be noted that the Libyan letters translate as Yamin Ilahi, meaning "The
right hand of God." This is a fine example of what epigraphers best like to find,
bilingual texts that say the same thing in two languages, the one confirming the other.
HOW INSCRIPTIONS ARE DECIPHERED
 |
Figure H. Photograph of a rebus on the Horse Creek Petroglyph.
Credit: Arnout Hyde, Jr.
|
This is an appropriate point at which to say a little about how the texts are
deciphered. When the Ogam strokes are arranged to suggest a picture, the result is what is
called a rebus, obviously a device by the scribe to help the reader understand his
inscription. The following are the steps by which we can interpret the rebus shown in
Figure H.
 |
We note the hand in the lower part of the inscription. In Celtic languages, the verb
stands first in the sentence and is followed by the subject. Accordingly, we disregard the
first few strokes to the left and look for the word "hand" (lam in Old Irish).
As expected, the letters L and M are there. They are preceded by three upper-case strokes
(T), evidently the verb "is" (see Vocabulary at the end of this article). Thus,
in line I-2 we can undertake to separate out the consonants, as shown. Line I-3 shows the
succession of consonants we obtain. Line I-4 shows the text rewritten with appropriate
vowel points inserted, so as to make a meaningful statement, using all the consonants. The
Old Irish, in Latin script, is given in line I-5. A literal English rendering of each word
is given in line I-6. In line I-7 the words are rearranged to conform to English grammar,
the subject now preceding the verb.
 |
Figure J. Rebus with Ogam strokes that are incorporated in a hand.
Credit: Arnout Hyde, Jr.
|
|
A different type of rebus is shown in Figure J. Here all the Ogam
strokes are incorporated into the hand, and there are three transverse stem lines crossing
the strokes. This warns us that the Ogam strokes are to be read separately for each of the
stem lines, assuming therefore different alphabet values according to whether they stand
above, or below, or across, any given stem line. In short, the whole device is a monogram
in which various letters have been superimposed. The resulting decipherment (Figure K)
yields a sequence of Old Irish words: Atar, Mac, Sbiorad Noib, Oin Dia—"Father,
Son and Holy Spirit, One God." And reference to early Christian literatures, such as
the writings of Julian of Norwich, or Pier's Plowman, discloses that the mystical meaning
of the Dextera Dei is that the hand symbolizes the unified Trinity, the closed
fist God the Father, the fingers God the Son and the Palm the Holy Spirit.
THE WYOMING COUNTY PETROGLYPH TRANSLATION
Figure L. Chalked Wyoming County Petroglyph.
Credit: Gerald Ratliff
The photograph shown here (Figure L) was sent to me in mid-November 1982, by Arnout Hyde
Jr. at the request of Ida Jane Gallagher, with a request that the inscription depicted be
deciphered if possible. On November 22 I telephoned Mrs. Gallagher, giving her my
decipherment and asking if it would be possible to have observers at the site on December
22, in order to check whether the events given in the translation do in fact occur.
The December 22nd visit is described in detail in Mrs. Gallagher's article, "Light
Dawns on West Virginia History."
The various sections of the Wyoming County Petroglyph text, as separately deciphered, are
numbered on Figure M. Section M-9 is the added Algonquian text, to be discussed in a later
article. There is also a Libyan text, some letters of which (appearing as dots in twos and
threes, between the Ogam letters) partly overlap the Ogam, but mainly are contained on an
adjacent panel not shown here. The Libyan text will be discussed in a later article. Both
the Algonquian and Libyan texts appear to be later additions, each making appropriate
comment on the Old Irish text.
My translations of lines 1 through 6 of the Wyoming County Petroglyph are given in Figures
M-1 through M-6.
THE HORSE CREEK PETROGLYPH TRANSLATION
 |
Figure N. Photograph of Horse Creek Petroglyph.
Credit: Arnout Hyde, Jr.
|
A three-line Ogam text occurs on a rock face in Boone County, West Virginia, called the
Horse Creek Petroglyph (Figure N).
 |
The diagram of the Horse Creek Petroglyph (Figure O) gives an exploded
layout of the various texts. The two on the left, numbered 4 and 5, have already been
referred to under the name "Dextera Dei" or "Right Hand of God." The
horizontal lines 1, 2 and 3 comprise the Old Irish text, a short biblical abstract of the
second chapter of the Gospel of Luke. The Old Norse three-line rock inscriptions are read
in the sequence, first the middle line, next the bottom line, and last the top line. It
would seem that this rule applies also here, as the most logical sequence. It would seem
that the oldest part of the inscription is the upper right section, with the Chi-Rho,
Alpha and Omega. At some later date a scribe decided to cut a Nativity text on the rock in
such manner that the culminating event, the actual naming of the Christ Child, would be
cited at the point when his text reached the pre-existing sacred signs for the name of
Christ. He succeeded, but at a cost of overcrowding his text in the final section, which
is consequently difficult to disentangle.
My translation of the Horse Creek Petroglyph is given in Figures O-1, O-2, and O-3.
The West Virginia Ogam texts are the longest Ogam inscriptions recorded from anywhere in
the world. They exhibit the grammar and vocabulary of Old Irish in a manner previously
unknown in such early rock-cut inscriptions in any Celtic language. The protection of
these sites is of paramount importance. It has been an inspiring privilege to work with
such historic material.
Dr. Barry Fell is an emeritus professor at Harvard University. He came to America from
New Zealand in 1964. In addition to being a world-recognized authority on marine biology,
he is president of the Epigraphic Society, and is editor and co-author of eight volumes of
decipherments of ancient inscriptions. He wrote America B.C., which the American
Booksellers Association presented to the White House in 1977 as one of the best 250 books
published between 1973 and 1977 in the United States.
In his writings, Fell documents extensive and profound evidence, along with numerous
photographs and illustrations, which supports his belief that America had ancient
European, African and Nordic visitors centuries before Columbus landed on its shores. Wonderful
West Virginia readers who wish to learn more about this subject may order the
following books by Fell from a bookstore: America B.C. (published by
Quadrangle/The New York Times Book Company), Saga America (published by
Quadrangle/The New York Times Book Company) and Bronze Age America (published by
Little, Brown and Company Boston and Toronto).
VOCABULARY
Early Irish words found engraved on West Virginian rocks:
[Optical character recognition is reasonably accurate, but it is not a perfect way to
digitize text. There may be bad characters in this section. -- Webmaster]
Abbreviations: B, Bethlehem Rock site; DD, Dextera Dei inscriptions; SR,
Christmas Sunrise site; L, Latin rendered in Ogam letters; G, Greek symbols; adj,
adjective; adv, adverb; n, noun; v, verb.
aig (adj) happy, auspicious B
aite (adj) joyful, glad B
am (n) time, season B, SR
ainm (n) name B
atar, atair (n) father DD
Alpha Omega (n) 'He that is first and shall be last" G, B.
ba (v) was, were (from bi, to be) B
ben (n) woman; ossessive case mbna (Irish mna) SR
Bedil (n) Bethlehem B
Bedil Cos (n) The Cave of Bethlehem B
bendact (adj) blessed, L. benedictus SR
berir (v) he is born SR
bi (v) to be B, DD
bit (n) the world, all people B
bliatain (n) year SR
cab (n) notch, hollow SR
cos (n) cave B
Chi-Rha Criosd or Christus, G. symbols used by early Christians B, SR
D (1) abbreviation of L. die, on the day; D. Natal; L, Die Natale, on the day of
Christmas, lit. "Birthday" of Christ. SR (2) abbreviation of L. Dominus, Lord,
Domini, of the Lord SR
des (adj) right, right-hand DD
di (n) dav SR
Dia (n) God, of God B, DD
dion (n] shield, shelter DD
doisag (adj) first (O. Irish toisech) SR
eaglais (n) church SR
ele (n) prayer DD, BR
erig-gren (a) sunrise SR
fec, feg (v) behold! SR, B
fel, feil (n) feast, Feast Day (of the Church) B, SR
gab (v) conceive B
gad (n) ray, sunbeam (O. Irish gat, a dart) SR
gean (n) good will B
gian (for gain) (n) nativity, the Incarnation (of Christ) SR
gle (adj) left, left hand (O. Irish cle) SR
glet (adj) an the left side SR
grian (n) sun, gren, of the sun SR
hi, i (pronoun) she B
hog (n) virgin, maiden (O. Irish og, oige) B
iongad (n) miracle B
Iosa (n) Jesus B
lam (n) hand DD
Lam Des Dia right hand of God, L. Dextera Dei DD
leg, leig (v) cause, ordain B
mc, mac (n) son; Mac Dia, the Son of God B, DD
mbna (n) of a woman, possessive case of ben; Irish mna SR
moitac (adj) pregnant, (n) pregnant woman; apparently an American usage, in Ireland not
used for human beings B
Maire, Muire (a) Mary, of Mary SR
Natal. (adj) L. Natalis, pertaining to a birth; D. Natal., L, Die Natale, on Christmas
Day; see Notleg SR
noib (adj) holy, sacred DD
Notleg (n) Christmas, L. Natalica. In later Irish and Gaelic the word became Nollaig,
meaning Christmas and (in Ireland) December B
oidia (n) foster father; at B, used for Joseph B
oin, oen (n) one; Oin Dia, One God DD
rug (v) gave birth to B
Sal. (v) L. Salvator, Savior SR
Sbiorad (n) spirit, L. Spiritus DD
Spiorad Noib The Holy Spirit DD
sif (v) to graze, sweep past, Gaelic siabh SR
ta (v) is, are, (ata at the beginning of a sentence) DD
ticin (n) coming, Advent SR
torag (adj) pregnant, with child; Irish torach B
tuig (v) give, gave B
uihm (n) cave, stone chamber or stable (for uaim) B
West Virginia Archeologist: Hunter Lesser on
cult archaeology
West Virginia Archeologist: Oppenheimer and Wirtz look at Fell's methodology
Wonderful West Virginia: Robert L. Pyle on pre-Columbian contacts
West Virginia Archeologist: Hunter Lesser
looks for pseudoscience, and finds it
Wonderful West Virginia: Ida Jane Gallagher finds a
"solstice alignment"
West Virginia Archeologist: Roger Wise looks for
that "solstice alignment" again
Wonderful West Virginia: Barry Fell deciphers
Christian messages
A second opinion:
A very
different translation of Horse Creek
West Virginia Archeologist: Janet Brashler looks for all possible explanations,
and tests them
BASQUE
http://www.mondovista.com/ogam222.html
Ogam is a script found in Ireland and Scotland, inscribed mostly on stone but also
on bone, ivory, bronze and silver objects. It was used in Ireland from about 350 to 800 AD
by the early Irish evangelists who brought Gnostic Christianity to the island, written
from the bottom up. From about 750 AD to 900 AD the Benedictine monks also used it in
their inscriptions and their book the Auraicept, but they wrote it from left to right.
Academia is groping.
Many academics in different countries have tried to solve the Ogam script puzzle and all
have suggested dissimilar solutions. Here are four of them.
Ogam is numerical, not linguistic.
Dr. Anthony Jackson[1] of Edinburgh University studied the inscriptions in Scotland and
wrote: "It is clear that the Ogam inscriptions are numerically based and not
linguistic." (p.153). When he gave the letters numbers according to the Latin
alphabet he found fascinating arithmetic combinations embedded in them, based on prime
numbers, and wrote: �Thus we seem to have a battle between rival magics� (p.154).
Ogam is Basque writing.
A Basque scholar from France, Dr. Henri Guiter[2], thought he could detect Basque words in
the letters, however the results he obtained made very little sense. Dr. Douglas Gifford
of St. Andrew�s University agreed with Guiter that Basque could be involved and urged
further study.
Ogam is Old Norse writing.
Richard A.V. Cox[3], lecturer at Aberdeen University, saw the Old Norse language in the
letters and wrote: �The use of the Norse language in these inscriptions suggests that the
language of their composers was Old Norse� (p.166). Yet the results he obtained had been
far from convincing.
Ogam is Celtic writing. Dr. Damien McManus[4], professor of Celtic at Trinity
College in Dublin, wrote: "It can be shown without reasonable doubt that the Ogam
alphabet was designed for the Irish language" (p.1). According to him, most
inscriptions pointed to burials with epitaphs something like: Here lies Johnnie mourned by
Mary. The problem was that no, or only a few, burials were ever found underneath the
stones and his translations were hardly persuasive.
The Rh-negative clue.
I found Dr. Jackson's book while in Scotland researching the origin of
Scottish and Irish geographical names and had found that many of them could be translated
with the Basque dictionary. This finding was supported by the blood type of many of the
inhabitants who had Rh negative blood, in about the same proportion as the Basque people
in Spain. Dr. Cavalli-Sforza, in his article, "Genes Peoples and Languages"
(November 1991 issue of Scientific American) had shown the world distribution of peoples
with Rh negative blood and concluded that a sea migration was involved from NW Africa
north along the west coast of Europe as far north as arctic Norway, the only peoples in
the world to have 25% or higher frequency of this blood type. One of the tribes involved
in this migration was still speaking their Neolithic language, the Basques, so it was
logical to consider the possibility that the entire migration could have spoken that
language. Indeed, a great many geographical names from Morocco, Euskadi, Ireland, Scotland
and Norway could be translated into meaningful descriptions or comments with the Basque
dictionary.
The language of Ogam is Basque.
The knowledge that Basque had been used in Ireland and Scotland agreed with Dr. Guiter and
Dr. Gifford's findings, even though their results had been unconvincing. But Dr. Jackson
also wrote, "All research along linguistic lines has ground to a halt,
unsurprisingly..." (p.135) which remark I took as a challenge because these 1500+
year old inscriptions were so well executed and had been preserved for so long, that they
just had to tell us something important. While on the Isle of Barra I buried myself for
three days in my B&B room and discovered that the �meaningless� lists of letters of
the inscriptions contained Basque sentences using words starting with
vowel-consonant-vowel (VCV), which about half of the Basque vocabulary has. Ogam used the
first three letters of these Basque words, with the VCVs linked together by the vowels,
just like Basque words e.g: ohitura (custom), composed of three VCVs: ohi-itu-ura, note
the vowels on either side of the hyphens are the same; ohi (habit) itungaitz
(disagreeable) urratu (to break). Ohitura therefore had the built-in shorthand sentence
saying: "Break that disagreeable habit."
This knowledge I then applied to the Ogam inscriptions, filled in the missing vowels,
and translated my first Ogam inscription found in Scotland into a good sentence. I sent my
findings to Dr. Jackson who did not answer but instead sent me a second book of his, in
which he had written: "There is a popular theory that they are Basque but this does
not work either." (p.118) He hadn't looked very hard at what I wrote.
Two examples from Scotland.
There appear to be no true Scottish Ogam inscriptions. All Ogams found in Scotland were
made by Irish evangelists who used pre-Christian standing stones to tell people to come to
Christ and other important statements. Here is one, located in the Shetlands and called:
Cunningsburgh 3a:
ETTEKA, which has only one
vowel missing: et.-.te-eka;
et. eti etikoa ethical
.te ite itegun work performed, hard
work
eka eka ekandu make it a habit
"Make ethical behaviour and hard work a habit". |
A second one, more difficult; is called Buckquoy, located on Mainland, Orkney:
| ETMIKMSSALLK which has six
vowels missing: et.-.mi-ik.-.m.-.s.-.sa-al.-.l.-.k.: et. eti etika ethics
.mi imi imitagarri exemplary
ik. ika ikasbide teachings
.m. amo amodio love
.s. oso oso sincere
.sa osa osatu to heal
al. ala alaitu to fill with
happiness
.l. ale alen total
.k. eku ekurutasun peace of mind
"Exemplary teachings of ethics and sincere love will heal you and fill you with
total happiness and peace of mind." |
Two examples from Ireland.
A large variety of topics are discussed in Irish inscriptions, from jokes to disaster
stories and funerals. The first one is one of the longest known and tells the tragic story
of a woman falling down a cliff into the ocean. It is inscribed on a silver bracelet which
may be seen in the treasury of the National Museum in Dublin.
The Ballispellan Broche (#27).
The silver Ballispellan broche is located in the Treasury of the National Museum of
Ireland, Dublin. The inscription became a challenge for me because the inscription is so
perfectly done and it is one of the longer known.
CNAEMSECHCELLACH
MINODORMUAD MAELMAIRE MAELUADAIG
Or, in Basque letters and in VCV format:
.K.NA.EM.SEK.H.KEL.LAK.H.
.MINODOR.MU.AD. .MA.EL.MA.IRE .MA.ELU.ADA.IG.
.k. ika ikaratu to be frightened
.na ana anai brother
a.e ahe aihezka grieving
em. ema emazte wife
.se ase aserregorri fury
ek. eka ekaizte storm
.h. ahi ahituezin endless
.ke ike ikertu to explore, to search
el. ele ele story
.la ela elaberriti talker, story
teller
ak. aka akabu dead
.h. aha ahaideko relative
.mi ami amilketa fell down cliff
ino ino inolaz somehow
odo odo odolgaizto violently
or. ora oratu to seize, to grab
.mu amu amuzki bait
u.a uha uharka water body
ad. ada ada roaring
.ma amai amaitu endlessly
a.e aihe aihenatu to disappear
el. ele elegile storyteller
.ma ama emakumezko woman
a.i ai aitortu to witness
ire ire irenste devoured, swallowed
ema emai emaitza ending
a.e aihe aihenegarri lamentable
elu elu elurtu to freeze
u.a uha uhalde coast
ada ada adarreztatu to cover with
branches
a.i ahi ahizpa sister (of a woman)
ig. iga igar dead
My frightened brother and his grieving wife searched endlessly in the fury of the
storm. The story teller's dead relative had somehow fallen violently down a cliff, was
seized like bait by the endlessly roaring water and then disappeared. The story teller had
witnessed the woman being devoured by the sea. The lamentable ending on that frozen coast
was the covering of her dead sister with branches. |
KINGULBIN EAST (#1086).
Two inscriptions are found on a bronze hanging bowl, probably an incense burner, dug up
from a peat bog in County Kerry. McManus (7.6) writes: "They are inscribed along the
upper surface of the rim and on one of the escutcheons." This bowl may be seen in the
National Museum in Dublin. Here is one of the two inscriptions:
| Bladnak kuilen: .b.-.la-ad.-.na-ak.
.ku-ile-en.
.b. abe abe cross
.la ela ela story
ad. ade adelatu to prepare
.na ena ena that
ak. aka akabu ultimate, superior
.ku eku ekurutasun peace of mind
ile ile ilezin everlasting
en. ene eneganatu to come over
me/us
"The story of the cross prepares us for that ultimate everlasting peace of mind
(which will) come over us. " |
A Traslation Program from ViewZone
In his excellent book, Linguistic Archaeology, An Introduction
by Edo Nyland, the author provides a comprehensive glossary of Basque root words. Gary Vey
has programmed this database using JavaScript and has made this program available here in
an attempt to demonstrate the methodology of Mr. Nyland's algarythm. We encourage those
interested to use the program and to give us feedback and photographic documantation of
ogam script found both in the Americas and abroad.
We also highly recommend this book for anyone seriously interested in
petroglyphs or ancient writing and culture. Click
Here for Ogam Translation Program
Comments? E-mail Viewzone |
 ORDER BOOK
from
EDO NYLAND
HERE |
You may also enjoy this previous
article on suspected Ogam script found in Colorado.
References
1 Jackson, Anthony. "The Symbol Stones of Scotland".
Orkney Press, 1984.
2 Guiter, Henri. "La Langue des Pictes". Boletin de la Real Sociedad
Vascongada de lost Amigos del Pais, XXIV, San Sebastian 1968, pages 281-322.
Guiter, Henri. "La Pens�e Pictes". Bulletin de l'Association Guillaume Bud�,
XXIX, Paris 1970, pages 259-271.
3 Cox, Richard A.V. "The Language of the Ogam inscriptions of Scotland".
Department of Celtic, University of Aberdeen, Scotland, 1999.
4 Damien McManus. "A Guide to Ogam". Maynooth Monograph #4. Maynooth,
Ireland: An Sagert 1991.
5 Jackson, Anthony. "Pictish Symbol Stones?". Monograph #3, Edinburgh.
The Association of Scottish Ethnography, 1993.
KENTUCKY
http://www.midwesternepigraphic.org/middle-fork.html
| Midwestern
Epigraphic Society |
A non-profit tax exempt organization [501.C(3)] under IRS
Regulations |
|
The Middle Fork Ogam Rock Shelter
Background
Having almost 600 ogam strokes, this site is probably one
of the largest in Kentucky and perhaps the United States. After discovery in the early
1990s by Mr Michael Griffith, Breathitt Co, Ky & Dr David Feldman of Lancaster, the
leading amateur epigrapher in Kentucky, Dr John Payne of Berea became involved.
Then Dr Payne contacted the Midwestern Epigraphic Society
in 2002 for the translator, Mr Michel-G�rald Boutet of Laval, Qu�bec to translate. In
Feb 2003 Mr Boutet reported his initial analysis of this ogam site indicates the basic
content concerns BOUNDARY MARKERS; and like the "Pig Pen" site the language
appears to be Proto-Algonquian. In 2004 he announced that the site appears to be much
older than he thought and considerably more work is needed before the message can be
completely clear.
The Site
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
Portion of the entrance boulder |
|
Rock Shelter Wall
Can you see the turtle head? |
|
|
The rock shelter is located on the middle fork of the
Kentucky River and is the kind favored by old world Celtic people - one with a large
boulder at the entrance just under the overhanging rock roof, and a nearby source of
water, in this case a river. Both the boulder and the back wall of the shelter are covered
with hundreds of ogam grooves.
Its relative isolation and accessibility from only the
river has protected the shelter from most modern graffiti. Periodic flooding has
camouflaged the shelter entrance with debris and covered the lower levels of ogam grooves
with protective layers of mud. All this made it hard to find once again in the Fall of
2002 for MES documentation and required washing the rock surface to reveal the ogam for
tracing and photography. Every precaution was taken to preserve the site.
Some Remarks
We'll have to wait for the translation, but some general remarks can be made.
Several "stars" appear in the ogam script,
suggesting reference to those in the Kentucky night sky. If the translation does indicate
astronomical references, site compass readings should be made to collaborate it. Natural
circular depressions in the rock face seem to have been worked into the script and several
possibly man-made "holes" may prove significance.
Curiously, a number of wide, deep and long grooves overlay
more shallow grooves, implying a later attempt to change or "correct" the
original inscriptions. The petina of these large grooves is noticeably darker too and
could be from a pigment source rather than natural aging. This is mostly evident on the
boulder. Perhaps a new religion was adopted by the culture/tribe or a different faction
came into power and wanted to remove what were now deemed "politically or religiously
incorrect". If true, this would add support to the rock shelters use being shaman
indoctrination of neophytes and perhaps execution of various tribal rites. Again we will
have to wait for a translation.
A missing piece from the boulder had been retrieved from
the river and its original location on the boulder identified by aligning to severed ogam
strokes. Other portions along the top edge of the boulder also seem to be missing - noted
by interrupted ogam marks and a brighter rock petina than the rest of the boulder. Their
loss probably does not affect the overall translation, but for the sake of completeness,
their recovery should be attempted.
A Geologist who recently completed a scientific study the
Kensington Rune Stone will now study this rock shelter to verify its antiquity.
References:
"The Celtic Connection" by Michel-G�rald Boutet, 1996, Stonehenge Viewpoint,
P.O. Box 30887, Santa Barbara, Ca 93130-0887. More ogam translations and Amerindian
connections by Boutet, and related articles by other writers.
OGAM PRE-DATES 5300 BC
http://www.angelfire.com/home/thefaery3/ogam.html
Ogam
The Ogam alphabet consists of twenty letters. They are markings upon vertical lines,
read upward along those lines with breaks between words. The alphabet is believed to
originate with Ogma, prince of the Tuatha de Danaan, during the reign of Bres in the late
fourth millennium B.C. The name 'Ogam' is thought to be a corruption of 'Ogmaan', meaning
'of Ogma'.
In the twelfth century A.D. there was a movement against religious alternatives, perhaps
in reaction to the Cathars and the Templar Knights, magian Israelites who offered a
different version of Christianity. The Germanic Church banned the use of Ogam in an
attempt to stifle their alternative priesthood. The wizardly Faan and Danaan monks were
removed, but were allowed to transcribe the histories of the island kingdoms into the
Roman alphabet. Theirs are the oldest versions which survive today. Before that time there
had been whole libraries of Ogam books in Ireland. These books had been bound at the
spines in the manner which we use today, and the pages had been sheets of beaten bark.
At Horse Creek in West Virginia, a petroglyph inscription has been found using a northern
African alphabet closely related to island Ogam. The language of the inscription is
Euskaric, which linguist Edo Nyland claims was the pre-Christian language spoken across
Europe, stamped out during the 'witch hunts' (the holocaust which killed off the Faan).
The only surviving Euskaric language is spoken by the Basques of the Pyrenees. Nyland says
that Ogam really originated in north Africa, and that the name is derived from the words
'property of the Goddess' in Euskaric.
Ogam inscriptions found in Europe record a Euskaric language similar to Basque, and Nyland
claims that Euskaric was stifled in Ireland when the indigenous monks were replaced. These
monks were descendants of Faan and Athenians and had ties to the Coptic Church. Nyland
believes that the story about Ogma was made up (to hide the Coptic connection, perhaps)
and indeed there is proof that Ogam predates Ogma's time. This proof comes from Marija
Gimbutas, a specialist in very ancient Europe, and she has found a precursor to Ogam
script dating back to 5300 B.C.
COLORADO
http://www.2s2.com/chapmanresearch/user/documents/horses.html
Horses and The Book of Mormon
Compiled By Glen W. Chapman Nov. 1996
Published By Benjamin G. Chapman
In The Book of Mormon Nephi reports in the wilderness when moving inland
they found:
Book of Mormon 1 Nephi Chap18 v. 25
25 And it came to pass that we did find upon the land of promise, as we journeyed
in the wilderness, that there were beasts in the forests of every kind, both the cow and
the ox, and the ass and the horse, and the goat and the wild goat, and all manner of wild
animals, which were for the use of men… |
The Book of Mormon has received severe criticism because of these
statements. The Smithsonian in There "Statement Regarding the Book of
Mormon" prepared by the Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural
History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC SIL-76, Summer 1982 reports:
"American Indians had no…horses, donkeys, camels before 1492 ( Camels and
horses were in the Americas along with the bison, mammoth, and mastodon, but all these
animals became extinct around 10,000 BC). Since That statement a number of findings
have been made which are strange to say the least and require careful investigation. Some
of these findings are shown below:
"In the following reference from a book by T.L. Tanton.
Geological Survey of Canada Memoir 167-Fort Williams and Fort Arthur and Thunder Cape
Map-Areas ,pp. I -222. Ottawa.1931: "Relics were discovered July. 1918. in an
excavation made by the Canada Car and Foundry Company about 80 feet north from the turning
basin. Westforl. About twelve bones of a mammal and a finely made copper spearhead were
found together about 40 feet below the surface of the ground. The materials found were
submitted to the Geological Survey and Harlan l. Smith, archeologist, reported the results
of examination as follows .'.According to Mr. Lawrence I. Lambe, vertebrate paleontologist
of the Geological Survey and Mr. Sternherg, preparator of paleontological specimens. the
bone marked B 11 . . . is of a cloven-footed animals. possibly a buffalo, or a specimen of
domestic cattle.... Bones marked B 10 and B 12 to B 13 inclusive, Mr. Lambe and Mr.
Sternberg both pronounced to be those of a horse and not petrified. Mr. Sternberg is
convinced that most of them belong to the same individual. The point with the flanged tang
made of copper marked C 1 is characteristic and typical of prehistoric Indian handiwork.'
Griffin and Quimby. who investigated the site in 1957, noted that if the
bones and copper artifacts were found in situ, they predate the Nipissing stage of the
Lake Superior basin (pre-2000 BC) since they were on a bed of blue clay under layers of
sand deposited by flooding during that period. Quimby, 'The Old Copper Assemblage and
Extinct Animals,. American Antiquity, Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 169-70, Salt Lake City,
University of Utah.
Further evidence of renegade horses in the new world was found in a
burial mound in Wisconsin. A horse's skull was found buried with other indian. artifacts
which were subsequently dated to around 700 AD " Chuck Baily, Louisiana Mounds
Society Newsletter 31 March 15, 1990 Page 4
"Survival of Pre-Columbian Horse?" Holland Hague has
written to inquire if anybody has information about the possibility of the pre-Columbian
horse having survived in this hemisphere. He included documentation of horse bones
radiocarbon dated to A.D. years prior to Columbus that were then not followed up by the
scholars involved. The pre-Columbian horse was supposed to have become extinct about
10,000 years ago, when the satire-toothed tiger, mammoth, giant ground sloth and other
large mammals in this hemisphere died out."Lousiana Mounds Society Newsletter 29
January 1, 1990 page 5
The above picture is from The article Peru's Incredible Ica Stones By
John Dan Reib From The Ancient American November/December 1993. It is part of an
estimated 100, 000 ancient carved stones discovered by Dr. Javier Cabera .from under lava
layers in the Ocucaje Desert near Ica Peru. Dr Cabera set upon a search which led him to a
tunnel under the Nasca lines. At present has about fifteen tthousand carved in his own
museum in Ica. Swedish scientists have investigated his stones and find them sufficiently
to be worthy of further investigation.
The Above picture of a bearded man and a horse is carved on the Temple
of Palques, Chichen Itza, Yucatan Mexico . It was photographed by Otto Done and appeared
in The Improvement Era December 1955.
The picture above is an ancient pictograph carved on rocks near Monte
Vista Colorado and appeared in The Improvement Era October 1955. These carvings are
considered by experts to be ancient.
A Moundbuilder pictograph of the likeness of an unbridled horse in
Picture Canyon, Cirnarron County, Oklahoma, which shows that Indians in early times were
acquainted with horses. This picture appeared in October 1955 Improvement Era.
The picture above was taken from page100 of the book The Mystic Symbol
Mark of The Michigan Mound Builders by Henrietta Mertz ( Global Books 1986) and shows
stone tablets carved by Michigan Moundbuilders.
The figure above is a view of an ancient Moundbuilder carving of a white
limestone horses head discovered in North Salem New York. It is from the Book Saga America
by Dr. Berry Fell page 57 and published in 1980
The picture above is a pictograph discovered in Anubis Cave Number Two
in Colorado along with Ogam inscriptions and is taken from the book In Plain Sight Old
World Records in Ancient America. By Gloria Farley 1994
The above picture is a pictograph from Picture Canyon, Colorado. And is
considered by experts to be ancient. It was taken from the book In Plain Sight Old
World Records in Ancient America. Page 349 By Gloria Farley 1994
The above picture is of a pictograph with ogam script on sholder
discovered in western Oklahoma. It is considered ancient dating back to the Moundbuilder
period.. It was taken from the book In Plain Sight Old World Records in Ancient America.
Page 349 By Gloria Farley 1994
There are many other case that could be shown but they are similar to
what we have already shown
COUNTY CORK
http://titus.fkidg1.uni-frankfurt.de/didact/idg/kelt/ogamabb.htm
Thesaurus
Indogermanischer Text- und Sprachmaterialien |
| TITUS |
DIDACTICA |
Indogermanische V�lker und Sprachen / Indo-European Peoples and
Languages
Die Ogamschrift / The Ogham Script
Beispiele ihres Gebrauchs / Examples of its usage
1.
The Ogham Script
| Vowel Notches |
Downward Strokes |
Upward Strokes |
Perpendicular Strokes |
"Forfeda" |
| A |
? |
B |
? |
(H) |
? |
M |
? |
X/AE |
? |
| O |
? |
L |
? |
D |
? |
G |
? |
CH/EA |
? |
| U |
? |
V |
? |
T |
? |
(G�) |
? |
P/IA |
? |
| E |
? |
S |
? |
C |
? |
(S�) |
? |
TH/OI |
? |
| I |
? |
N |
? |
Q |
? |
R |
? |
PH/UI |
? |
2.
Inscription from Rockfield, Co. Kerry, now in Adare
(CIIC, no. 244):
COILLABOTAS MAQI CORBI | MAQI MOCOI QERAI
*Co�lbad maic Coirbb | maic moccu Ciarraige
"(Stone of) Co�lub, son of Corb, son (-descendant of the tribe) of
the Ciarraige"
3.
4.
5.
Inscription of Rockfield, now in Adare
(CIIC no. 243.):
 |
MAQIRITTE MAQI COLABOT |
MAQI MOCO QERAI
"(Stone of) Mac-Rithe, son of Co�lub,
son-descendant (of the tribe) of the Ciarraige" |
 |
6.
Inscription of Colbinstown, Co. Kildare
(CIIC no. 21.):
MAQQI COLLABOTA
"(Stone of X,) son of Co�lub" |
7.
8.
Chronological order:
COILLABOTAS - CO(I)LLABOTA - CO(I)LLABOT
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
Latin text written in Ogham in the Annals of Inisfallen (AD 1193)
(ms. Rawlinson B. 503, 40c):
(from: Annals of Inisfallen, ed. S. Mac Airt, 1977, 318) |
| NUMUS HONORATUR SINE / NUMO NULLUS AMATUR / |
| "Money is honoured, without / money nobody is
loved." |
14.
15.
19th century Ogham inscription from Ahenny, Co. Tipperary
(cf. Barry Raftery, A Late Ogham Inscription from Co. Tipperary. Journal of the Royal
Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 99, 1969, 163 f.):
| Ogham Inscription: |
?????????????????????????????
????????????????? |
Fa an lig so na lu ata Mari ni Dhimusa
o mballi na gCranibh |
"Beneath this stone lieth M�ri N� Dh�omasaigh
from Ballycranna" |
(Grave stone of Mary Dempsey, dated Jan. 4th, 1802) |
English inscription:
"Beneath this sepulchral tomb lie the remains
of Mary Dempsey who departed this life
January the 4th 1802 aged 17 years" |
"The Ahenny stone .. is eloquent testimony to the
continuing existence and knowledge of the Ogham alphabet among the country people of early
nineteenth century Ireland, a continuity which can be traced in sporadic instances from
the middle of the frist millennium A.D. at least." |
16.
17.
"Shield Ogham" (ogam airenach) according to the Book of Ballymote:
(Beginning of the Auraicept na n-�ces in the Book of Ballymote) |
(The "Shield Ogham" ib.) |
Use of the word a(i)nm "name" in Ogham inscriptions:
18.
Inscription of Coolineagh / Aghabullogue, Co. Cork
(CIIC no. 104):
 |
Reading Macalister:
??????????????????????????
ANM CORREA MAQVI UDDGLOMETT
New reading:
[ANM] CORREA_ MAQ V[VE]D(D)[EL]MEA_TT
Translation:
"(Inscription in the) name of Cuirre, son of Fedelmid (?)" |
 |
19.
Inscription of Kilmalkedar, Co. Kerry
(CIIC no. 187):
 |
[AN](M) MAILEINBIR | MACI BROCANN
(Inscription in the) name of Ma�l-Inbir, son of Br�ch�n. |
 |
20.
Usage of Ogham inscriptions according to a Middle Irish saga text
contained in the Book of Leinster (LL 66 AB):
Complete page:
 |
 |
Transliteration:
(One-to-one rendering of the manuscript reading)
amlaid b�i faichthi ind�n 7corthi
furri. 7id iarnaidi nathimchiull 7id niacchais
�side7ainm noguinnamenoc. 7is�ainmb�iand
Gipetised infaidche dianbagascedach geis fair
ARthecht dindfaidchi cenchonrac
noenfhir dofhuacra.
AIRlegais in m_c.b.innainm 7tucadarigid
mun coirthi. |
Transcription:
(Rendering after interpretation) |
Phonetic interpretation:
(Transcription with the International Phonetic Alphabet) |
Amlaid b�i faichthi in dunaid ogus corthi
furri ogus id iarnaidi na thimchiull ogus id niachais
�side ogus ainm n-oguim na menoc, ogus is � ainm b�i and:
Gip e tised in faidche, dia m-ba gascedach, geis fair
ar thecht dind faidchi cen chomrac n-oenfhir do fhuacra.
Airlegais in mac bec in n-ainm ogus tuc a d� rigid
mun coirthi. |
'?ml?�' 'b?e_ f'a?'�'i in'�u:?n?�'
'?g?s 'k?r?'? 'fur:?
'?g?s ?�''i:?rn?�'? n? '?'i?'�'ul
'?g?s ?�'n'i:????' 'e:?'?�'?
'?g?s '?n'?m 'no??m' n? 'menog
'?g?s i?''e: ?n'?m 'b?e_ '?n:
gi'b:e: 'ti:?'e� ?n'??'�'?
'di:?m? 'g??'k'e�??
'g'e?' f?r' ?r'?'e?t d?n:'??'�'?
'k'en '??mr?g 'n?e_n'?r d?'u:?kr?
?r''l'e???' ?n'm?c 'b'ec ?n:'?n?m
'?g?s 'tug ?�?:'ri?'?�' mun 'k?r?'? |
Free German translation:
Die Burgwiese war so beschaffen: sowohl ein Pfeiler
darauf als auch um diesen ein eiserner Ring, und (zwar war) ein Ring der Heldenhaftigkeit
dieser, und eine Inschrift in Ogam auf dessen Verschlu�st�ck, und dies ist die
Inschrift, die sich darauf befand:
Wer auch (immer) auf die Wiese kommen sollte, wenn er bewaffnet ist, ein Verbot f�r ihn,
von der Wiese wegzugehen, ohne zum Einzelkampf herauszufordern.
Der kleine Junge las die Inschrift vor und legte seine zwei Arme
um den Pfeiler. |
Interlinear Version:
(Transcriptional text with German word-by-word translation): |
| Amlaid |
b�i |
faichthi |
in |
dunaid |
| So |
war |
Wiese |
der |
Burg |
| |
| |
ogus |
corthi |
furri |
| |
und |
Pfeiler |
auf_ihr |
| |
| |
ogus |
id |
iarnaidi |
na |
thimchiull |
| |
und |
dies |
Eisen |
der |
Umgebung |
| |
| |
ogus |
id |
niachais |
|
�side |
| |
und |
dies |
Heldenhaftigkeit |
dieses_da |
| |
| |
ogus |
ainm |
n-oguim |
na |
menoc |
| |
und |
Inschrift |
Ogam |
des |
Verschlu�st�cks, |
| |
| |
ogus |
is |
� |
ainm |
b�i |
and: |
| |
und |
ist |
sie |
Inschrift |
war |
so: |
| |
| Gipe |
tised |
in |
faidche, |
|
| Wer_auch_immer_es_sei |
der_kommen_wird |
in |
Wiese, |
| |
| |
dia |
m-ba |
gascedach, |
| |
wenn |
er_sei |
bewaffnet, |
| |
| geis |
fair |
ar |
thecht |
dind |
faidchi |
| Verbot |
�ber_ihn |
zu |
Gehen |
von_der |
Wiese, |
| |
| |
cen |
chomrac |
n-oenfhir |
|
do |
fhuacra. |
| |
ohne |
Kampf |
des_Einzelmanns |
zu |
Fordern. |
| |
| Airlegais |
in |
mac |
bec |
in |
n-ainm |
|
| Las_vor |
der |
Junge |
kleine |
die |
Inschrift |
| |
| |
ogus |
tuc |
a |
d� |
rigid |
mun |
coirthi. |
| |
und |
legte |
seine |
zwei |
Arme |
um |
Pfeiler. |
21.
Development of Irish family names
| Ogham Irish |
Old / Middle Irish |
Anglo-Irish |
| MAQ AMMLLOGADO |
mac amalgado |
Mac Awley |
| MACI BROCANN |
mac br�ccan |
Mac Brohan |
| MAQI CORRBRI |
mac cairpre |
Mac Carbery |
| *MAQI DUMNOVALI |
mac domnaill |
Mac Donal(d) |
| *MAQI VERAGOSO |
mac fergoso |
Mac Fergus |
| *MAQI OINAGOSO |
mac �engoso |
Mac Guinness |
| *AVI CELACI |
ua cellaig |
(�) Kelly |
| *AVI CORRE |
ua cuirre |
� Corry |
| *AVI CUNACOBRO |
ua conchobor |
� Connor |
| *AVI QENAVIDO |
ua cina�da |
(�) Kennedy |
| *AVI MURACADO |
ua murchada |
(�) Murphy |
| Literature: |
 |
R.A.S. Macalister, Corpus Inscriptionum
Insularum Celticarum, Vol. 1, Dublin 1945 |
|
M.A. O'Brien, Corpus Genealogiarum
Hiberniae, vol. 1, Dublin 21976 |
|
Damian McManus, Ogam: Archaizing, Orthography and the
Authenticity of the Manuscript Key to the Alphabet. �riu 37, 1986, 1-31 |
 |
Damian McManus, A Guide to Ogam, Maynooth 1991 |
|
Jost Gippert, Ogam. Eine fr�he keltische Schrifterfindung.
Praha 1993 |
| Achtung: Dieser Text ist mit Unicode / UTF8 kodiert. Um die
in ihm erscheinenden Sonderzeichen auf Bildschirm und Drucker sichtbar zu machen, mu� ein
Font installiert sein, der Unicode abdeckt wie z.B. der TITUS-Font Titus
Cyberbit Unicode. |
Attention: This text is encoded using Unicode / UTF8. The
special characters as contained in it can only be displayed and printed by installing a
font that covers Unicode such as the TITUS font Titus
Cyberbit Unicode. |
http://users.on.net/~mkfenn/page9.htm
Ancient America
The Pacific Ocean is bounded by America on its eastern side,
stretching from 70degrees North to 55 degrees south. As trade winds and equatorial ocean
currents travel in a westerly direction, it would be foolish to assume that America did
not play a part in the populating of the Pacific. Therefore, to ascertain the complexities
of human migration in the Pacific region, we need to understand fully how America was
populated.
It appears that there have been some gross inaccuracies and
misunderstandings that have led scientists to accept an oversimplified model of human
entry into America via the Bering land bridge during the height of the last ice age. No
consideration to the possibility that ocean crossings played a significant part in the
populating of the Americas, has been given. Recent studies of the tool kits of the first
Americans suggest an entry from Spain and not from Siberia. Not only this, but paleolithic
Caucasian genes appear to form the basal layer of the genetic makeup of many native
Americans, helping to confirm a trans-Atlantic entry into Central America between 18,000
and 12,000 years ago. Recent discoveries of three 13,000 year old Cro magnon man skeletons
in an underwater cave in the Bahamas suggests that the above is true and correct.
Almost all archaeology to date has been based on the discovery of
sites that are above sea level. Sea levels rose to present day levels about 6,000
years ago, therefore there has to be a great deal hidden underwater prior to this event,
distorting the picture of early habitation of our planet. Factors that determined human
settlement 20,000 years ago were much the same as they are today, as a result the
preferred sites for towns and cities would have been on the coast. The sea provided
unhindered passage to other towns for trade (no mountains, canyons, powerful river
currents, jungles, deserts or hostile tribes to interfere with ones passage). Not only
that, but boats were the trucks of the olden days, transporting large cargoes for trade.
The availability and choice of food is also more diverse along a
coastline, as both land and marine produce can be obtained. Temperatures are less extreme
and the likelihood of life giving rain is also much greater. Therefore almost all ancient
towns of any consequence would have been by the sea and so, the great majority of towns
and cities prior to 6,000 years ago are all underwater from sea level rises since the last
ice age.
Many megalithic monuments around the world are made from rocks
that have been transported hundreds of kilometres away from their source, suggesting that
large sailing boats were in use 6,000 years ago and possibly as early as 18,000
years ago. Boats were one of the earliest forms of communal transport invented by man,
seaworthy boats would have expanded mans horizons immeasurably. As a result of him using
the 'highways of the sea', his desire to determine where he was going, fueled a revolution
in astronomy, mathematics, trigonometry and ultimately world trade. The Polar meltdown
between 7,000 and 5,500 years ago talked about later in this chapter would not only have
produced a rapid rise in sea level, but also, the iso static rebound would have caused
subsidence of weak crustal areas such as the mid Atlantic Ridge, causing earthquakes,
volcanic eruptions and tsunamis, resulting in the devastation of coastal towns and the
decimation of all seafaring nations around the world. Not only did it destroy the people
of this time, but also much of the knowledge which they possessed.
This was not the only catastrophic rise in sea level that early man has had to
deal with, there were others - 14,000, 11,600, 8,200 and 6,000 years ago. It was after
these events that we find the survivors taking an interest in swamp agriculture around
lakes and on highland plateaus without fear of inundation. Such areas that were chosen
were , Lake Chad, Lake Titicaca, New Guinea Highlands, Highlands of Luzon, the Nile, the
Tigris, the Indus, the Upper Amazon, the Mississippi, the Mekong, the Yangtze and so on.
With these few survivors, they would have retained only the bare essentials and much of
the old technology was lost or forgotten. It appears that archaeologists may have mistaken
this regrouping of man after the final floods as the beginning of agriculture and
civilization. Discoveries of cities around India, Yonaguni and an underwater city in 700m
of water off Cuba indicate that archaeologists have grossly misunderstood their findings
and have merely scratched the surface of human prehistory.
Dr Muck, an archaeologist, describes archeological
sites in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Southern Carolina, dating back 15,000-18,000 years
which demonstrate that the ocean-going Solutreans may have first entered America by
sailing across the Atlantic.
The notion that Clovis originated in or spread throughout North America from a
point of origin in the Northern Plains (within an ice-free corridor between the
continental glaciers) is not supported by the distribution of finds. Clovis may actually
have dispersed into North and South America from the Caribbean and Central America, much
of which is now submerged, making it difficult to ascertain the exact time of entry into
America.
Underwater caves off Yucatan yield three old skeletons—remains date to 13,000 years ago.
by Dr. Greg Little
September 10, 2004
"At the international "Early Man in America Seminar" in Mexico City on
September 9, 2004, an archaeological team from Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology
and History reported one of the most significant finds ever made in American
archaeological history. Three well-preserved skeletons were discovered in underwater caves
off the Caribbean coast of Yucatan during dives during 2001 and 2002. The skeletons were
found in 65-foot-deep water. The University of California in Riverside carbon-dated
charcoal samples found with one of the skeletons to over 13,000 calendar years
ago—11,000 B.C. The find represents the oldest carbon date associated with any human
bone remains found in the Americas. Mexican archaeologist Arturo Gonzalez led the dive
team.
Gonzalez noted that during the last Ice Age, sea levels were much lower, but as we
reported in our book and video documentary, "The ARE's Search for Atlantis,"
archaeologists from Florida State University's Underwater Archaeology Department (FSU)
found that in the area "of the Bahamas in 10,500 B.C., the water levels were about
100 feet lower than today. But areas of human occupation on these ancient shores tend to
cluster at depths around the 45-foot level."
The new discovery of Yucatan remains dated to 11,000 B.C. comes as we are completing the
video documentary, "The Yucatan Hall of Records," scheduled for release at the
ARE's Annual Ancient Mysteries Conference. The discovery has been incorporated into the
video and confirms several statements made by Andrew Collins, which were made during a
videotaped interview for the documentary. Collins, author of the best selling,
"Gateway to Atlantis," tells the story of Votan, the Guatemalan highlands
version of Itzamna. In both the stories of Itzamna and Votan, related in Maya codices, the
founder of the Maya culture was said to have come from an island in the east. Collins
stated that substantial research has shown that Votan's origin was definitely Cuba. Both
Itzamna and Votan carried written records with them. According to Collins, Votan landed on
the shores of the Yucatan coast and gradually moved north. We believe that Cerritos
Island, which we visited in August 2004, may have been the initial landing site of
Iltar/Itzamna/Votan."
The Clovis -
Solutrean connection
Dr. Stanford an archaeologist of the highest caliber, turned away from the
Bering route and looked elsewhere for the first migration. His thinking evolved over three
decades. In the '60s Stanford, like most of his colleagues, believed that Clovis came from
Asia. It wasn't until the '70s that he began to believe that Clovis was a New World
development and that evidence of pre-Clovis would be found in the Arctic. "But I
wasn't seeing evidence," he recalls, "and after a while it started not to make
sense. Everything I found in Alaska that was fluted was post-Clovis in age." There
was no technology he considered pre-Clovis. He hoped at the time that once Siberia was
opened up to Western scientists we would find the missing evidence. But the end of the
Cold War didn't provide the solution for Stanford and his co-theorist, lithics expert Bruce Bradley. Stanford and Dr. Bradley independently looked at the
evidence and arrived at the same conclusion. They inspected late-Pleistocene sites and
scoured museum collections in Siberia, Russia, and northern China, seeking pre-Clovis
technology. Instead, what they found was a totally different method of making tools and
weapons.
The Clovis fluted point is knapped from stone, flaked on both sides (bifacial)
and shaped into a beautiful thin, flat killing instrument; the base is thinned and
relieved into a concave recess so that the point can be securely hafted onto a foreshaft
or shaft. The Asian upper-Paleolithic weapons that Stanford and Bradley found, however,
were made using a microblade technology, where tiny blades struck from wedge-shaped cores
of stone were inset into long, narrow rods of bone, antler, or ivory. When Far East
craftsmen tried to make bifacial tools, the result was relatively crude implements (quite
thick in cross section, compared with exquisitely thin Clovis points) and frequently
bi-pointed.
Nowhere in Asia did Stanford and Bradley find the ancestor of the Clovis point.
They reasoned that if the first immigrants were Asian, they must have brought with them
their inset-microblade manufacturing process, in which case there must exist evidence of a
transition to Clovis technology. So far, however, nothing resembling an intermediate form
between inset microblades and a knapped biface has been found in North America.
Stuck at a dead end, Stanford and Bradley took up a fresh trail.
The roots of Clovis, they reasoned, must lie in the Paleolithic Old World outside of Asia.
They took up the search for a parent technology that specialized in making thin, flat
bifacial projectile points, knives and other biface implements, and other artifacts of
stone and bone similar to those of the Clovis culture. They found only one Paleolithic
culture whose technology met their criteria, the Solutrean people. Named for the French
town of Solutr�, the culture spread across much of France and the Spanish Peninsula. They
were highly efficient hunters. Full bellies gave them leisure time, which they used to
decorate the walls of their caves with fabulous surrealistic paintings of bison and horses
and ibex that continue to awe us today. They were carvers, too, for art's sake.
"They had the only upper-Paleolithic biface technology going
in Western Europe," Stanford points out. They were the first to heat-treat flint, and
the first to use pressure flaking--removing flakes by pressing with a hardwood or antler
tool, rather than by striking with another stone. "In northern Spain, their
technology produced biface projectile points with concave bases that are basally
thinned," he notes, not bothering to say he could just as well be describing Clovis
points. The pressure flakes Solutrean knappers removed are so long it's almost a
fluting technique--"almost," he's careful to say, but not quite.
The parallels between Solutrean and Clovis flintknapping
techniques seem endless. The core technology, "the way they were knocking off big
blades and setting up their core platforms," he explains, "is very similar to
the Clovis technique, if not identical." They perfected the outre pass� --overshot--flaking
technique later seen in Clovis, which removes a flake across the entire face of the tool
from margin to margin. It's a complicated procedure, he emphasizes, that has to be set up
and steps followed precisely in order to detach regular flakes predictably. The Solutreans
set up platforms and followed the technique through to the end, exactly as we see in
Clovis. "No one else in the world does that," Stanford insists. "There is
very little in Clovis--in fact, nothing--that is not found in Solutrean technology,"
he declares.
Archaeologist Kenneth Tankersley of Kent State University seconds
Stanford and Bradley's opinion: "There are only two places in the world and two times
that this technology appears--Solutrean and Clovis."
On and on the similarities pile up. We find carved tablets in
Clovis sites remarkably similar to Solutrean specimens. Both cultures cached toolstone and
finished implements. Stanford and Bradley know of about 20 instances of caches at
Solutrean sites; in North America, by comparison, according to Stanford, "we're up to
about nine or ten." Just like Clovis knappers, Solutreans used flakes detached by outre
pass� to make scrapers and knives. Clovis bone projectile points bear an uncanny
resemblance to ones made by Solutreans. When French archaeologists saw the cast of a
wrench used by Clovis craftsmen at the Murray Springs site in Arizona to straighten spear
shafts, they declared it remarkably similar to one found at a Solutrean site.
Proof that Solutreans were also mariners was in the discovery in 1992 of Le
Cosquer cave near Marseilles by diver Henri Cosquer. Among the rock art figures are
depictions of seals impaled by harpoons as well as flounder and halibut - deep-sea fish!
Clearly Solutreans learned how to exploit marine resources, possibly in hide boats made
from mammoth ribs. At some stage either by accident or on purpose, they caught the
northern Equatorial current and favourable trade winds, to find themselves in the heart of
a magnificent Archipelago of uninhabited islands. Here they flourished, discovering new
plants, animals in abundance and minerals. These people have been called the Clovis
hunters in America.
Dr Stanford and Dr
Bradley point out the discoveries in genetics by researchers at Emory University and the
Universities of Rome and Hamburg. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which is inherited
exclusively from the mother, normally contains four markers called haplogroups, labeled A,
B, C, and D. These four are shared by 95 percent of Native Americans. Recently, however,
the genetics team identified a fifth haplogroup, called X, which is present in about
20,000 Native Americans and has also been found in several pre-Columbian populations. A
most interesting fact is that haplogroup X is also present in European populations but
absent from Asians. The geneticists' research suggests the marker appears to have arrived
in the Americas 12,000 to 34,000 years ago, not from Asia, but from Europe.
As well as the Caucasian Marker X in North America, the Araucanians of Chile also
have significant Paleolithic Caucasian genes in them, most likely arriving from Spain
between 18,000 and 12,000 years ago. It is common for them to have curly reddish brown
hair and green eyes.
The red haired Caucasian Paracas mummies of Peru is also proof that Caucasians
were part of the indigenous culture of America. I also found that in 1892 the Easter
Island scripts were deciphered by A.Carroll, M.A., M.D., but have been
ignored. They are a detailed history of tribal conflict in South America, leading up to
the exodus to Easter Island! They mention tribes from the ancient land of Tulapin (Turtle
Island), the Eagle Clan and the Children of the sun or Ra. They were all Caucasians.
Genetic
similarities between Europeans and American Indians
Archaeologists are
just beginning to realize that to understand European prehistory, American prehistory must
also be considered. The Solutreans of Spain are now believed to have crossed the Atlantic
using the southern Equatorial current and entered the Caribbean and Central America
between 18,000 and 12,000 years ago to become known as the Clovis hunters of America.
Recent genetic findings suggest that the people now known as Gaelic speaking Celts
(including Irish, Welsh, Scots, Basques and Berbers) are a remnant of a group of people
who also left Spain between 1,8000 and 12,000 years ago and spent 6,000 years isolated
from Europe before returning, bringing the Megalithic culture to coastal Europe.
Geneticist
Prof Steve Jones, who
recently published a book called Y - The Descent of Man, said;
"Genetics provided more reliable clues to the distant past
than language did". He and colleagues at University College, London, have spent
years creating a genetic map of the Y chromosome, which is passed by males from generation
to generation. The results show that the Welsh are related to the Basques of northern
Spain and southern France and to native Americans. He said: "There has been much less
interbreeding in Wales than you might expect. Wales and Ireland have the most homogenous
group of males of anywhere in the world, from the research that's been done so far".
He said; "The Y chromosome common among Welsh males was an
ancient one. Most native Americans have the same one. Surprisingly perhaps, the genetics
show that the Welsh are not related to the Cornish, despite the similarity of their
languages. The Cornish are in effect Anglo-Saxons who for a time used a language that was
hanging around. The genes of Scottish males betrayed considerable inter-mixing with
outsiders".
James Wilson and Prof David Goldstein of University College
London, with colleagues at Oxford University and the University of California, found that
Welsh and Irishmen are genetic blood-brothers of the Basque people.
"The findings provide the first direct e
(draft from: PRIA 15, 1874, 196) 
