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

OGAM INSCRIPTION DECIPHERED 31

his tentative transcription of the text into Roman characters, that the result was so unsatisfactory tbat he could make no sense of it, and so abstained from attempting any translation whatsoever. With the clue, however, now put into my hands by the Pheenician version, the doubtful letters in this Ogam version were soon resolved into substantially literal agreement with the Phoenician version.

The full reading of this Ogam inscription requires the introduction of the vowels; for the Ogam script, like the Aryan Pheenician, Semitic Phcenician and Hebrew, and the Aryan Paliand Sanskrit alphabets, does not express the short vowel @ which is inherent as an affix im every consonant of the old Aryan alphabetic scripts.*

I now place here side by side my transcript-readings and translations of the two versions of the inscription for comparison. And it will be seen that both read substantially the same. The slight differences in spelling of some of the names are due mainly to the poverty of the Ogam alphabet, which lacks some of the letters of the Phoenician (e.g. it has no K or Z, but uses Q or S instead) ; while the omission in the Ogam version of three of the titles which occur in the Phcenician was obviously owing to want of space ; for the bulky Ogam script, even when thus curtailed, overruns the face of the monument for a considerable distance. The Phcenician script, it will be seen, like the Aryan Pali and Sanskrit, does not express the short affixed a inherent in the consonants, and, like them also, it writes the short 7 and the medial 7 by attached strokes or “‘ ligatures.’’ In my transliteration here, therefore, ] have given the short inherent @ in small type, and the consonants and expressed vowels in capitals, whilst the ligatured consonants (here only 7) and ligatured vowels (namely 7 and 0) are also printed in small type, not capitals.

‘Tt will also be noted that the end portion of the Ogam inscription, which is bent round over the face of the stone, is read from its right border (1.e.in the reverse direction to the rest) with its lower strokes towards the right border of the stone, so that when the curved stem line is straightened out the lower strokes occupy the same lower position as in the rest of the inscription.

*