The Phœnician origin of Britons, Scots & Anglo-Saxons : discovered by Phœnician & Sumerian inscriptions in Britain, by preroman Briton coins & a mass of new history : with over one hundred illustrations and maps

30 PHCNICIAN ORIGIN OF BRITONS & SCOTS

p. 32) that most of the corresponding Greek and Roman alphabetic letters, and their modern cursive writing, are obviously derived from this semi-cursive Phoenician writing or from its parent.

My reading of the Ogam version, in Fig. 7, also will be seen to differ from that of Mr. Brash,1 the most careful attempt of all previous ones, chiefly in regard to those letters, the signs for which, formed by a conventional number of straight strokes, were, on account of the limited space available on the stone, crowded together and not clearly separated from the other groups of conventional numbers

A . ; HHH Hy

| OLLG@GA R Fic. 7—Ogam Version of Newton Stone Inscription as now deciphered and read.

A, As engraved on the stone. B. Arrangement of the letter-strokes as now read with S their values in Roman letters. The gth letter is read as A.

of similar strokes, the separate grouping of which formed a different letter or letters in this cumbrous sacred alphabetic script of the Irish Scots and Britons.? It was the absence of any clue to this separation between many of the letter groupstrokes, which led Mr. Brash to confess, after completing

1 Mr. Brash’s final reading of this Ogam inscription was (op. cif. 362) AIDDARCUNFEANFORRENNNEAI(o/R) (S)IOSSAR

2 On the origin and solar meaning of this cumbrous “branched ’’ form of alphabet, see later.