Mount Callan Stone

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The Mount Callan Stone is an Ogham stone located on Mount Slievecallan (formerly Mount Callan ) north of Lough Boolynagreana and north of the Ennis to Milltown Malbay Road , County Clare , Ireland . It was made in 1780 or something earlier. The discovery of the Mount Callan stone and the discussion about its authenticity were the immediate trigger and beginning of scientific research into the other Ogham stones.

description

The flat plate is 2.87 m long and 87 cm wide. The stone was first mentioned and described in a travel guide to County Clare in 1780. In 1785 the signing of the Ogham signs as well as their transmission and translation was published for the first time. In the years that followed, various scholars made further proposals for translation and translation.

authenticity

Ratass stone as an example of a classic Ogham stone: Ogham sign on the edge, height 1.45 m

With the beginning of the discovery of the Mount Callan stone, it was claimed that it was an Ogham stone with an age of around 1400 years. However, the classic Ogham stones from the 4th to 7th centuries are column stones with a height of mostly 90 to 180 cm. With these stones, the inscription almost always runs along the edges in a reading direction from bottom to top. In all known Ogham inscriptions (around 400 in total) there are no frames for the text and no dots as word separators. Only in the Inisfallen Ogham text , a late medieval manuscript , points are used to separate words.

The design of the Ogham inscription on the Mount Callan stone (including the extremely straight line together with the characters in a rectangular frame and dots as word separators), the shape of the stone (plate instead of column) and linguistic anachronism (modern Irish!) very quickly raised doubts about the supposedly old age and the originality.

Samuel Ferguson

The forgery was ultimately clearly confirmed as such. Nevertheless, there were still well-known proponents of the stone's authenticity such as For example, the Irish poet, lawyer and classical scholar Sir Samuel Ferguson (1810–1886), who in 1887, more than 100 years after the stone was found, represented its authenticity .

The reason for the forgery was to mark the alleged tomb of Conán Colgac, a warrior of the Celtic legendary figure Fionn mac Cumhaill , who was slain in 295 AD by the extreme pre-dating of the inscription on the stone . As a result, the (invented) historicity of the epic " Ossian " supposedly dating from the 4th century should be proven. In reality, the Scot James Macpherson (1736–1796) invented the cycle of these epic poems, which were published from 1760 onwards. Despite the forgery, this stone is an example of the knowledge and knowledge of the Ogham script even towards the end of the 18th century.

meaning

The Mount Callan Stone was the very first Ogham stone whose characters were transferred, translated and published. The controversy about the originality of the stone, which was strong from the beginning, prompted scientists to go across the country and look for more Ogham stones. Thus, it was only when the Mount Callan stone was found that the impetus to scientifically research Ogham stones from now on.

literature

Web links

References and comments

  1. ↑ de hÓir, p. 43 u. P. 50
  2. ↑ de hÓir, p. 45
  3. ↑ de hÓir shows on p. 44 various copies of the stone from 1785–1790, on p. 47 a large number of transfer variants from 1785–1916
  4. ↑ de hÓir, pp. 43–45
  5. ↑ Ferguson, Ogham Inscriptions in Ireland, pp. 53-54
  6. ↑ de hÓir, p. 45
  7. ↑ de hÓir, p. 43
  8. ↑ de hÓir, p. 50
  9. ↑ de hÓir, p. 1 and p. 57

Coordinates: 52 ° 49'59.4 "  N , 9 ° 16'31.3"  W.