Lunnasting stone
The Lunnasting Stone is an Ogham stone found in 1876 by Reverend JC Roger near a hut at Lunnasting, west of Vidlin on the Shetland Island of Mainland . He explained that the excavated stone was discovered in a "moss" (peat bog) about 1.5 m below the surface.
The approximately 1.1 m long, 33 cm wide and only 2.5 cm thick slate has an inscription on the flat side in the upper part of the stone. The Oghamin script of Scottish stones is usually found on a vertical line on the surface, the front or one of the narrow sides. In a few cases, as is customary in Ireland, the inscription runs along the edges of the stone. In addition to the Oghamin script, there is a small cross-shaped mark near the top that can be a rune or a Christian cross. It cannot be determined whether the marking and the Oghamin script were created at the same time.
The inscription, written in Pictish , is read as follows:
- ttocuhetts: ahehhttmnnn: hccvvevv: by JR Allen and J. Anderson (1903)
- ettecuhetts: ahehhttannn: hccvvevv: by K. Forsyth (1996)
The word hyphenation points to Nordic influence. This could indicate the Viking occupation of the Shetland Islands and may have its origins in the 8th or 9th century AD.
The script probably contains the name "Nechton" (also Nechtan ) and F. Diack was of the opinion that the last words mean "the vassal of Nehtonn". Forsyth notes that Ahehhttannn could also be a name. The difficulty in providing a clear interpretation has led to a number of other proposals.
WT Vincent suggested in 1896 that the stone could not have been made by Irish monks before 580 AD and cites the reading of an unnamed expert as:
- eattuicheatts maheadttannn hccffstff ncdtons.
WB Lockwood (1917–2012) wrote in 1975 that “the last word is clearly the frequently occurring name Nechton”, but the rest, with the perhaps even arbitrarily formed consonant doublings, is so exotic that there is even a discussion among philologists about the Origin of the Pictish language developed, which perhaps cannot be assigned to the Indo-European language family. A language of Basque origin was also proposed as a solution.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Christer Lindqvist: Norn in the Celtic context. John Benjamin Publishing Company, Amsterdam 2015, p. 55, ISBN 978-90-272-4072-9 .
literature
- WB Lockwood: Languages of The British Isles, Past And Present. André Deutsch, 1975 ISBN 0-233-96666-8 .
- Katherine Forsyth : The ogham-inscribed spindle-whorl from Buckquoy: evidence for the Irish language in pre-Viking Orkney? In: The Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 125, 1995 pp. 677-696 ( PDF ).
- L. Trask: The History of Basque. Routledge, 1997 ISBN 0-415-13116-2 .
Web links
Coordinates: 60 ° 21 '58.9 " N , 1 ° 10' 4.4" W.