Oghamica : in a letter to J.G.A. Prim, Esq. / by Samuel Ferguson.

Samuel Ferguson

Date:: 1873

Credit: Oghamica : in a letter to J.G.A. Prim, Esq. / by Samuel Ferguson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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$mark the line of the original arris, come up at both sides to the commence- ment of the chipping. If the arris, so marked, were prolonged, especially on the more deeply fractured side of the stone, it would fall within the outline of the cross. Hence, it might be inferred that, as the Ogham follows a line, the prolongation of which would trench on the outline of the cross, as originally sculptured, the cross existed on the stone before the Ogham. It seems, however, possible, though less likely, that the chipping may have obliterated both the ends of the cross and the con- terminous digits at the same time. I do not know of any authority for the statement generally received with respect to crosses sculptured on Ogham-inscribed stones,—that the early Christians were in the habit of marking inscribed Pagan monuments with the sign of the cross. The cross-signed Ogham monuments are very numerous. Mr. Hitchcock, in his list in the Library of the Academy, enumerates twenty-two instances. I have, myself, seen most of them, besides many others in which the cross appears to be part of the sculptured design ; and I have never observed anything in these to indicate a difference of age (except, perhaps, in the particular instance before us, in favour of the antiquity of the cross), be- tween the inscribed symbol and the accompanying characters. It is true, on the ‘ Trengus’ stone, at Cilgerran, a later-cut cross appears on the side of the column, but it forms no part of the general design, as it appears to do in the large class of instances to which I have referred. I may observe, that two Ogham-inscribed stones, which seem to commemorate 4 Ailiters,’ or pilgrims, bear the Maltese cross, and that one of the most interesting- drawings left by Mr. DuNoyer is of an inscribed monument at St. Gobbi- net’s, in Cork, which represents a pilgrim, staff in hand, pacing over the convexity of the world represented by a circle filled with a cross of this design. Its shape, its inscribed cross, and its site, make it difficult for any one looking at this Gowran monument to imagine it otherwise than sepulchral and Christian. Its Ogham legend has been greatly mutilated, but contains one recognizable formula which serves as a guide to the reading of the south or right hand side, from the top towards the bottom. Whether it terminates there or proceeds in one course up the opposite side is hardly possible to determine. If it proceed in a uniform sequence the remains of the text would be represented thus :— ~ M AQOMUCO iN d^aC&'SAHEIgq«. again, using minuscules for obscure and alternative characters, and Ita- licised minuscules for the more doubtful. The form assumed by the terminal group renders it improbable that this reading, as regards the right-hand arris, can be the true one. Vary- ing the direction for this side, and reading, as on the south side, in a down- ward sequence, we obtain what still seems an unlikely combination ♦ nglEEACiSaH Neither will the case be helped by reading up; unless we do so, as in the case of the Camp inscription, in an inverse order; and here it may be possible that we have the elements of some such name as Lazareni in the amplified form characteristic of the paper as well as lapidary writings of the early centuries of our era—$

Oghamica : in a letter to J.G.A. Prim, Esq. / by Samuel Ferguson.

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