[The forms of the letters, whilst approximating in several respects the semi-Phoenician "Cadmean" or Early Greek, present several cursive archaisms not found in the later straight-lined lithic Semitic Phoenician; but this is not the place to enter into the technical details of these differences, which will be apparent to experts from the photographs and transcription. Here, however, must be mentioned an outstanding feature of this Aryan Phoenician script in its use of short vowels, and the frequent attachment of the vowels i, e and o, and the semivowel r, to the stems of the consonantsthe so-called ligature. This feature is found in the ancient Syrian and Palmyrene forms of Phoenician. In the interpretation of these ligatured vowels I derived much assistance from comparing them with those of the affiliated Indian Pali script of the third and fourth centuries B.C. The value of o for the horizontal bottom stroke was thus found along with that of the other ligatured letters.]

On palæographic grounds, therefore, the date of this Aryan Phoenician inscription can be placed no later than about 400 B.C. This estimate is thus in agreement with what we shall find later, that the author of the inscription, Prat-Gioln, was the sea-king" Part-olon, king of the Scots" of the Early British Chronicle, who, in voyaging off the Orkney Islands about 400 B.C., met his kinsman Gurgiunt, the then king of Britain, whose uncle Brennius was, as we shall see, the traditional Briton original of the historical Brennius I. who led the Gauls in the sack of Rome in 390 B.C. The archaisms in script of that date were doubtless owing to the author having come from the central part of the old Hitto-Sumerian cradle-land; as it is found that the cuneiform and alphabetic script of Cappadocia and Cilicia preserve many of the older primitive shapes of the word-signs and letters, which persisted there long after they had become modernized into simpler forms elsewhere.

The fact that few examples of exactly similar cursive Aryan Phoenician writing have yet been recorded is to be adequately explained by the circumstance that, as Herodotus tells us, the usual medium for writing in Ancient Asia Minor was by pen and ink on parchments; and such perishable documents have naturally disappeared in the course of

DATE OF NEWTON INSCRIPTIONS

35

the subsequent ages. Moreover, there was wholesale exterminating destruction of the pre-Christian monuments and documents by the early Christian Church, as we shall see later.

The Language of this Aryan Phoenician inscription is essentially Aryan in its roots, structure and syntax, with Sumerian and Gothic affinities.1

The Ogam version is clearly contemporary with, and by the same author as, the central Phoenician inscription, as it is now disclosed to be a contracted version of the latter. This discovery thus puts back the date of Ogam script far beyond the period hitherto supposed by modern writers.

Ogam, or "Tree-twig" script, which is found on ancient monuments throughout the British Isles, though most frequently in Ireland, has hitherto been conjectured by Celto-Irish philologists to date no earlier than about the fourth or fifth century A.D., and to have been coined by Gaelic scribes in Ireland or Britain, and to be non-Aryan. This late date is assumed merely because some of the Ogam inscriptions occur on Early Christian tombstones, which sometimes contain bi-lingual versions in Roman letters in Latin or Celtic, which presumably date to about that period. But I observed that several of the letter-forms of this cumbrous Ogam script are more or less substantially identical with several of the primitive linear Sumerian letter-signs, which

The Ka affix to "Kazzi" seems to be the Sumerian genitive suffix Ka" of," and the Sumerian source of the modern Ka" of" in the IndoPersian and Hindi, and thus defines him as being "of the Kassi clan." This Sumerian Ka is also softened into ge (L.S.G. 131 etc.) which may possibly represent the S in Gothic. The final in Sssilokoyr or Cilician" seems to be the Gothic inflexive, indicating the nominative case. R, the concluding letter, is clearly cognate or identical with the final R in Gothic Runic votive and dedicatory inscriptions, and is sometimes written in full as Risthi raised," or Risti "carved (cp. P.S.A.S., 1879, 152 and V.D. 500). It is now seen, along with our English word Raise" to be derived from the Sumerian RA " to set up, stand, stick up."

"

"

"

Rhys surmised that Ogam script was "invented during the Roman occupation of Britain by a Goidelic grammarian who had seen the Brythons of the Roman province making use of Latin letters (Chambers' Encycl. 7, 583). This, too, is the opinion of a later writer, J. MacNeill (Notes on Irish Ogham, 1909, 335); whilst the latest writer, G. Calder, cites a text saying that Ogam was invented in " Hibernia of the Scots" (C.A.N., p. 273). Rhys, in P.S.A.S., 1891-2, 282.

possess more or less the same phonetic values as in the Ogam.' Such Ogamoid groups of strokes also occur, I observed, in ancient Hittite hieroglyph inscriptions devoted to the Sun-cult and containing Sun-crosses, as in the group here figured (Fig. 8).a

Now, however, as this Ogam script is here found in the earliest of all its recorded occurrences at about 400 B.C., at Newton and in the adjoining and presumably more or less contemporary pillar at Logie (see later), inscribed upon Sun-cult votive monuments in association with the SunCross, just as quasi-Ogam letters are also found in Hitt-ite hieroglyph votive monuments of the Sun-cult, and also accompanied by Sun-Crosses, it seems to me, in view of these facts, that this bulky stroke-script, which possesses only

m

FIG. 8.-Ogamoid Inscription from Hittite Hieroglyphs
on the Lion of Marash.

(After Wright.)

sixteen consonants, and thus presumably not intended for

1 Amongst the similarities between the Ogam and Sumerian letter-signs which I have observed are the following:

I in Sumerian is written by 5 perpendicular strokes, just as in Ogam script 5 perpendicular strokes form the letter I.

E in Early Sumerian is written by 4 parallel strokes on a double baseline, which compares with the Ogam 4 parallel strokes across the ridge-line for E; and the Sumerian sign for the god EA is absolutely identical with the Ogam E with its strokes extending on both sides of the ridge-line.

AO diphthong of Ogam has precisely the same form of inter-crossing strokes as one of the three Sumerian signs all rendered tentatively as U, but one of which was suspected to be 0 or diphthong Ů (compare Langdon, Sumerian Grammar, 35-37). It thus may, in view of the identical Ogam sign, have the value of 0.

B in Ogam, written by a single perpendicular stroke, compares with the bolt sign in Sumerian for Ba or Bi.

S in Ogam, formed by 4 perpendicular strokes on the ridge-line, compares with the Sumerian S formed by 4 perpendicular strokes on a basal line, with stem below.

X or Kh in Sumerian generally resembles the letter X in Ogam, which is disclosed by the Phoenician version to have the sound of Kh or X.

2 W.E.H., pl. 27, in lowest line between the paws of the Lion of Marash. This inscription significantly contains in its text a Sun-Cross.

OGAM AS SOLAR PHOENICIAN SCRIPT

37

ordinary secular writing, was a sacred script composed by later Aryan Sun-priests for solar worship and coined upon a few old Sumerian signs of the twig pattern. And we shall see later that the Sumerians and Hitto-Phoenicians symbolized their Sun-cult by the Crossed sticks or twigs by which, with friction, they produced their sacred Fire-offerings to the Sun, just as the ancient and medieval Britons produced their Sacred or "Need" Fire offering.

2

Moreover, this solar cult origin for the Ogam script seems further confirmed by its title of " Ogam." It was so named, according to the Irish-Scot tradition, after its inventor “Ogma," who is significantly called “The Sunworshipper, and is identified with Hercules of the Phoenicians. Such a pre-Christian and solar cult origin for the Ogam also now explains its use on the Newton Stone, as well as the Irish-Scot tradition that Ogam writing, which was freely current in Ireland in the pre-Christian period, especially for sacred monuments and tombstones, as attested by numerous surviving ancient monuments, was denounced by St. Patrick as "pagan" and soon became extinct.

We are now in a position to examine the rich crop of important historical, personal, ethnic and geographical names and titles preserved in this Brito-Phoenician inscription of about 400 B.C.

VI

PERSONAL, ETHNIC AND GEOGRAPHIC PHOENICIAN NAMES AND TITLES IN NEWTON STONE INSCRIPTIONS

AND THEIR HISTORIC SIGNIFICANCE

Disclosing also Phænician source of the "Cassi" title of Ancient Briton kings and their coins.

"One of the few, the Immortal Names

That are not born to die."-F. HALLECK.

THE rich crop of personal, ethnic and geographical names recorded in these Newton Stone inscriptions of about 400 B.C. by their "Sun-worshipping" Phoenician-Briton author-whose personal appearance is illustrated in Fig. 10, p. 46—are of especial Phoenician significance. These names disclose, amongst other things, not only the Phoenician origin of the British Race, properly so-called, and their Civilization, but also the Phoenician origin of the names Brit-on, Brit-ain, Brit-ish, and of the tutelary name "Brit-annia." The patronymic origin of that title is seen in the Aryan tradition preserved by the eastern branch of the Barats in their epic cited in the heading on p. 52 as well as the old custom of the Aryan clans referred to in the Vedas1 to call themselves after their father's name. And King Barat, after whom this ruling clan called themselves, was the most famous forefather of the founder of the First Phoenician Dynasty, which event, I find by the new evidence, occurred about 3100 B.C., according to the still extant contemporary inscriptions.'

Whilst calling himself a "Phoenician" and giving his personal name, the author of this Newton Stone inscription

See heading on pp. 1 and 52.

'Details in Aryan Origin of the Phænicians.