Bornais bone platelets

The Bornai bone plate is a piece of bone from an animal with the Ogham marks carved into it. It was discovered in 1996 during excavations in a wheelhouse in the Scottish village of Bornais ( Scottish Gaelic form, English "Bornish"). Bornais is on South Uist , an island in the Outer Hebrides . The Bornais bone plate is dated to the 8th to 10th centuries.

description

The Bornais bone plate is 44 mm long and 2 mm thick. The width tapers from 11 mm to 8 mm. The piece of bone is possibly the part of a metatarsal bone from a cattle. It's broken at both ends. The bone originally continued at the two current ends. The bone graft was originally significantly longer and certainly had other Ogham signs, at least at the wider end.

inscription

The Ogham symbols are precisely and carefully carved and fill the entire broad side of the bone plate. The lines within the respective letters run extremely parallel. The deeply incised horizontal trunk line (corresponds to a baseline ) runs over the entire length of the piece of bone. There are five complete Ogham symbols on the stem line. All signs are clearly recognizable and clearly separated from each other. Only a very small part of a sixth character can be recognized because of the break line.

Due to the large width of the free space next to X (Ogham symbol for the sound sequence EA), in comparison with other Ogham inscriptions, it can be assumed on the one hand that before or after X (depending on the direction of reading) there are no more characters on the broken off and not more existing bone part were. On the other hand, however, there are also inscriptions in which the characters only begin after the stem line has run a little longer. In this respect, it remains uncertain whether the original text began or ended with an X.

Special forms of the Scottish Ogham characters

In numerous Scottish Ogham inscriptions, the Ogham characters have special forms.

• The vowels are shown at an angle. The letter A would then look like> and the letter I like >>>>>. The tips run through the trunk line and point in the direction of reading. Sometimes both straight and angled voices appear in the same inscription.
• The consonants HDTCQ and BLVSN are not perpendicular to the trunk line, but diagonally on it. The position of the apex of the angle on the trunk line indicates the reading direction. For example, the angled Ogham symbol / below the stem line would be a B and the point on the stem line indicates the reading direction from left to right. The character for H would stand above the stem line and look like \ when reading from left to right.

Reading direction of the inscription

In the case of moving objects, the start of the inscription and the reading direction depend on the orientation of the rotatable object.

Problem with the Bornais bone plate: its inscription is the only known inscription in which the reading directions of the angled consonance and vowel contradict each other. An alignment and reading direction cannot be deduced due to the opposing angles in the angled Ogham characters. Thus, with regard to the Bornais bone plate, the question remains unanswered as to whether the wider or the narrower side was originally aligned to the left.

Ogham sign with transmission

With the narrower side of the bone plate aligned to the left:

᚛ᚕᚔᚆᚅᚓ᚜

EA YOU

With the wider side aligned to the left:

᚛ᚓᚊᚁᚔᚕ᚜

EQBI EA

The mark, which is incompletely preserved due to the fracture of the bone, can be found at the bottom right when the narrower side is aligned to the left and the broader side is aligned to the left at the top left. Because of the incompleteness, 10 possibilities would come into question for each alignment, which makes secure transmission impossible.

translation

The few characters cannot be translated almost satisfactorily, regardless of the direction of reading and the orientation of the Bornais bone plate, without slipping into speculative terms. In addition, it cannot be determined whether these were originally the only characters on the bone chip or whether text was lost due to the breaking off of bone parts. In addition, these five completely preserved Ogham symbols are among the shortest extant Scottish Ogham inscriptions, which makes decoding even more difficult.

Usage

Katherine Forsyth anticipates a variety of uses. Because of the lack of wear and tear, the Bornais bone plate was probably not part of an everyday object such as B. a knife handle or comb. However, a decorative insert in a box or also part of a clamp for fastening an object is conceivable. It can also be used as a game piece or as a lot (e.g. for fortune telling , as a judgment of the gods to prove guilt, for the distribution of land by heirs).

Specialty

The Bornais bone plate is one of the only eleven small finds mentioned in the Ogham specialist literature to date, i.e. finds in which the Ogham characters are not carved into stone slabs and stone pillars (around 400), but into small objects (mainly everyday objects). Four of these were discovered in Scotland , namely the Bac Mhic Connain knife and the Bornais bone plate in the Outer Hebrides and the Gurness knife and the Buckquoy spindle whorl in the Orkney Islands .

literature

• Katherine Forsyth : An Ogham-inscribed plaque from Bornais, South Uist, in: Smith, Beverley Ballin et al. (Eds.): West over Sea. Studies in Scandinavian Sea-Borne Expansion and Settlement Before 1300. A Festschrift in Honor of Dr Barbara E. Crawford, The Northern World 31, Leiden 2007, pp. 461 - 478
• Clare Connelly: A Partial Reading of the Stones. A Comparative Analysis of Irish and Scottish Ogham Pillar Stones. A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Anthropology at The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee 2015, pp. 65 - 67

Web links

• Photo of the Bornais bone plate (with a length scale) as well as a report and photos of the excavations in Bornais

• Photo and description of the angled special forms of the Ogham characters

• Brief description of the Bornai bone plate

• Illustrations and descriptions of angled sympathetic sounds and vowels with reference to the Bornais bone plate

References and comments

1. ↑ In English-speaking experts, instead of the English place name “Bornish”, the Scottish Gaelic place name “Bornais” is used exclusively for the name of the Bornais bone plate: “Bornais Plaque” and “Bornais Bone Plaque”.
2. ↑ Forsyth, p. 471
3. ^ Forsyth, p. 462
4. ^ Forsyth, p. 463
5. ↑ http://babelstone.blogspot.com/2013/06/ogham-stones-of-scotland.html Detailed description: The Ogham Stones of Scotland. Epigraphy
6. ^ Forsyth, p. 464
7. ^ Forsyth, pp. 464 - 465
8. ^ Forsyth, pp. 467 - 468
9. ↑ Forsyth, p. 471 - p. 472, each with usage examples from the literature
10. ↑ Mentions and descriptions e.g. B. by Donal B. Buchanan , Katherine Stuart Forsyth , Robert Alexander Stewart Macalister , Barry Raftery
11. ↑ Connelly, pp. 65-67