[Note: All Basque words are in Italics and Bold-faced Green]
WHAT
IS OGAM? *
[Contacts]
Introduction
Ogam made its way to Libya, from where also the
first Gnostic Christian missionaries are thought to have come Nyland (2001). It was adopted and further
developed by the first Gnostic monks in Ireland around 350 A.D. Our earliest
information indicates an uncertainty as to where Ogam came from. According to
the "Auraicept" the origin of Irish and Ogam must be sought in the
Near East: "In Dacia
it was invented, though others say it was in the Plain of Shinar" (line 1105-06). A
"Made in Ireland" version is recorded in "In Lebor Ogaim.” The inventor here is "Ogma Mac Elathan who
is said to have been skilled in speech and poetry and to have created the
system as proof of his intellectual ability and with the intention that it
should be the preserve of the learned, to the exclusion of rustics and
fools" ( McManus8.4). The
script was used by the Gnostic monks as a monument script between 450 and 800
A.D. and the succeeding Roman Catholic Benedictines used it for literary
purposes between ca 700 and 900 A.D. Every time the script was inscribed in
stone it must have been used thousands of times on sticks, for which medium
the script was obviously designed. Over 600 Ogam inscriptions are known from
Ireland (collected by R.A.S. Macalister), some 40 from Scotland
(A. Jackson) and a growing number from the east coast of North
America. The fact that not a single one of these scripts in Ireland and
Scotland had been successfully translated is not so much the fault of the
monks who wrote the texts, as of our linguists, all of whom assumed that the
language of the script was Gaelic. However, this assumption appears to be
without foundation, because the syntax of the Gaelic language in no way lends
itself to be written in traditional Ogam. Prof. Damien
McManus, at Trinity College, Dublin, suggested that the Ogam script had its
origin in the scoring of the tally stick, a knife cut for each count, a V for
five scores, an X for ten etc. From this simple beginning, the system was
only an inventor's step away from writing. However, Carney guessed that
it was likely developed "in an area where Romans, Celts and Germans were
in contact and was brought into being by political or military necessity. Its
purpose could be to send messages, probably on sticks, which, if intercepted
could not be read or interpreted". That begs the question: Why did the
evangelists in Ireland and Scotland go to all that trouble to inscribe so
many stones with religious texts and other information, if only a few
literate monks could read them? But were the inhabitants as illiterate as we
have been told repeatedly? On the other hand, could it be that it was the
magic, built into the inscription, which was the most important feature? The origin of
Ogam must be sought much earlier. In her monumental book, "The
Language of the Goddess", Marija Gambutas describes
the much alike "Old European Script" the earliest evidence of which
she dates at 5,300 bce.. (p 308). Therefore, it appears that the Ogam script
has gone through a very long period of evolution. It may well be that all the
authors who suggested origins for Ogam were right, that all the places
mentioned and all the different uses over the ages played a role in the
development of the script. Whatever its early history, the form of the Ogam
script we know today was certainly developed in Ireland. The Ogam
inscriptions that have been studied include a number of late Bronze Age writings in Canada
and the United States and a large inscription found in West Virginia U.S.A. There is also a growing number from
Ireland and Scotland. The variety of topics inscribed on the Irish stones is
quite astonishing. Most of the Scottish inscriptions are made by Christian
missionaries using the ancient script to convert the worshippers of the
ancient Goddess religion to Christianity. There are indeed Ogam grave stone
inscriptions in Ireland but they appear to be in the minority. Most relate to
the evangelical efforts of the Christian monks. |