[Note: All Basque words are in Italics and Bold-faced Green]
WHAT IS OGAM? *
(Contact)
INTRODUCTION
Ogam may have originated in Libya, from where also the
first Gnostic Christian missionaries are thought to have come. 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. |
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For further detail, please
refer to:
Nyland, Edo. 2001. Linguistic Archaeology: AnIntroduction. Trafford Publ., Victoria, B.C., Canada.
ISBN 1-55212-668-4. 541 p. [
see abstract & summary]
Nyland, Edo. 2002.
Odysseus and the Sea Peoples: A
Bronze Age History of Scotland Trafford Publ., Victoria,
B.C., Canada.
307 p. [see
abstract & summary].
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