Gurness knife

The Gurness knife is an archaeological find that was discovered in 1931 during excavations of the Broch of Gurness , on the Orkney island of Mainland , Scotland . It is a knife with Ogham marks carved into the handle . The handle was made from the bone of a whale . The Gurness knife is kept in the Scottish National Museum in Edinburgh and is dated from 400 to 800 AD.

description

The total length of the Gurness knife obtained is 15 cm. The iron blade is badly corroded and was originally 8.8 cm long, 1.8 cm wide and 6 mm thick. The handle, inscribed on both sides, is very well preserved. It is 7.2 cm long, 1.5 cm wide and 1.2 cm thick.

The Gurness knife has a full inscription. There is no evidence that Ogham characters have broken off. Only a small part of a line near the handle is missing, but the recognizability is not impaired.

inscription

With regard to the transmission of the characters, the specialist science comes to different readings. The Scottish historian Katherine Stuart Forsyth suggests IN (e / c) IT (/ a) TEM (o / om / ob / u / e /?) N (/.) MATS (lower case letters are not unambiguous for additions made by Forsyth legible characters). The Scottish National Museum follows Forsyth in its find description and gives IN ... IT ... TEM ... MATS, omitting the various conceivable additions according to Forsyth. A clear translation of the Ogham inscription is not possible. In research, however, it is mainly assumed that the name of the knife owner contained in the inscription.

Specialty

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

literature

• Donal B. Buchanan: The Decipherment of Scholastic Ogham. Introduction - Abbreviations - Inscriptions. o. o. o. J.
• 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.
• Katherine Forsyth : An Ogham-inscribed plaque from Bornais, South Uist. In: Beverley Ballin Smith et al. (Ed.): 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.
• Oliver J. (James) Padel: Inscriptions of Pictland. Edinburgh 1972, pp. 98-100.

Web links

• Photo of the Gurness knife on p. 60 (with scale) and on p. 65 (Fig. 4.2)
• Photo and description on the website of the Scottish National Museum
• Drawing of the inscription according to Katherine Forsyth, p. 18.

References and comments

1. ↑ Buchanan, p. 18.
2. ↑ Forsyth, p. 471.
3. ^ Website of the Scottish National Museum
4. ↑ Connelly, p. 54 and p. 60 (illustration with scale)
5. ↑ Buchanan, p. 18.
6. ↑ Connelly, S. 56th
7. ↑ Buchanan, p. 18; see. also marking there
8. ↑ Buchanan lists various transmissions on p.
9. ↑ Buchanan, p. 18.
10. ^ Website of the Scottish National Museum
11. ↑ Connelly, p. 56 and Buchanan, p. 18.
12. ↑ Mentions and descriptions e.g. B. by Donal B. Buchanan , Katherine Stuart Forsyth , Robert Alexander Stewart Macalister , Barry Raftery
13. ↑ Connelly, pp. 65-67.