- Chapter Thirty-Seven -
Christian settlers from south-west and south-central Wales, where the formula is
commonly found, across the Bristol Channel to Cornwall. In a recent survey of early
stones from south-west Britain, Okasha has argued that her Category 1 shares
characteristics of script, layout, language and formulae with Nash-Williams's Groups
I and II to form a south-west tradition 'akin to but not identical to that of Wales',
subject to similar influences (Okasha 1993: 40).
Irish learning was traditionally by oral transmission and recitation, but a form of
writing eventually developed, called ogam, based phonetically on consonant and
vowel clusters which were established by Roman grammarians Oackson 1953: 159),
rather than our present ABC alphabet (Figure 37.7). This alphabet is generally
considered to have developed by the third century in Ireland, where about 330 ogam-
inscribed memorial stones are known.^19 They are linguistically of great importance,
providing the earliest form of Old Irish (Goidelic) names such as Moinena, Ronan,
Comgan, Oil aeon. This development of a cipher, giving monuments special powers,
has been associated with the use of wooden notched talley sticks, or a manual sign
language using fingers and thumbs;20 most recently it has been described as a system
of incremental tallies devised c.AD 300 ± 50 by someone familar with Latin and
Roman script (McManus 1991).
Ogam was used up to about the end of the eighth century, the period of Christian
growth in Ireland. The stress on kinship and family links recorded on many
Christian stones should be seen as a Celtic practice rather than a particularly pagan
characteristic. Over 100 examples in Macalister's 1945 Corpus occur on sites with
ecclesiastical associations (c.34 per cent), and approximately 14 per cent bear crosses,
most of which appear to be contemporary with the ogam and not added at a later
date. The names of ecclesiastics have been identified amongst the inscribed names.
Inscriptions are usually short, and record a name and family group, following a
formula 'so & so, son of so & SO',21 which parallels the Latin on bilingual stones
found outside Ireland. As previously mentioned, some refer to Christian offices, such
as the seventh-century stone from Arraglen, Co. Kerry. It has been suggested
that the apparent seventh-century demise of orthodox ogam may have been the result
of Christian disapproval, rather than replacement by a more effective system.
A modified form of ogam is found on a few Pictish symbol stones and cross-slabs in
the eighth-ninth century. They are so far untranslated, but some words, mainly
personal names, have been identified.^22
Later Inscriptions
Later Latin inscriptions ascribed to the sixth-seventh centuries are inscribed
vertically (top to bottom) in Celtic fashion similar to ogam script. The style of
lettering, having initially followed standard Roman capital and cursive letter forms,
becomes gradually debased, so that by the end of the sixth century new letter forms
based on bookhand were being employed, called half-uncial and minuscule. These
were probably introduced and spread by manuscripts and adapted for use on stone.^23
The Tywyn stone, Gwynedd, may bear the earliest example of the Welsh language
inscribed on stone (Figure 37.5). The half-uncial lettering of the inscription is
comparable with eighth-century epigraphic forms, and the influence of manuscripts