Corpus Refs: | Macalister/1949:955 Petrie/1878:79 |
Site: | SFORD |
Discovery: | first mentioned, 1802 Dubourdieu, J. |
History: | Hamlin/2001, 57: `This stone is also lost, or rather destroyed, and all later accounts are based on a description and rubbing published by Dubourdieu in 1802. By then the stone was used for pounding whins (furze) and the inscription was already `much defaced'. The stone had come from a destroyed souterrain ('cave') in a rath near Seaforde'. Macalister/1949, 121: `This was a slab built into the end of a souterrain...of which the only record is Dubordieu's...which, however, he gives from heresay, as the souterrain was destroyed before he saw it....when Dubordieu saw it, [the stone] had been taken to a farm and used as a trough for pounding furze -- greatly to the detriment of the inscription'. |
Geology: | |
Dimensions: | 0.76 x 0.46 x 0.0 (converted from Macalister/1949) |
Setting: | Lost (present 1772, missing 1949) |
Location: | Macalister/1949, 121, states that the stone had not been seen since it was recorded. Hamlin/2001, 57: 'lost'. |
Form: | Indeterminate Macalister/1949, 121: `The slab was about 2 1/2' by or nearly 1 1/2' broad'. |
Condition: | n/a , n/a Macalister/1949, 121, makes clear that the stone had suffered significant damage due to its use `as a trough for pounding furze'. |
Folklore: | none |
Crosses: | none |
Decorations: | no other decoration |
Petrie, G. (1878): | OROIT AR A[-- Expansion: OROIT AR A[-- Translation: Pray for A[--]. Petrie/1878 72 & Plate XXXVIII, 79 reading only |
Macalister, R.A.S. (1949): | OROIT AR E[--]AC Expansion: OROIT AR E[--]AC Macalister/1949 121--122 reading only |
Hamlin, A. (2001): | OROIT AR E[..]AC[-- Expansion: OROIT AR E[..]AC[-- Hamlin/2001 57 reading only |
Orientation: | Indeterminate |
Position: | ind ; ind ; n/a ; undecorated |
Incision: | ind Macalister/1949, 121: `This, he remarks, appeared as though it had been scraped with a sharp point, not cut with a chisel'. |
Date: | None published |
Language: | Goidelic (rbook) |
Ling. Notes: | none |
Palaeography: | Petrie/1878, 72: `It is impossible to decipher the name in the inscription, which is copied from an illustration in Dubourdieu's Statistical Survey of Down, p. 278, published in the year 1772.[a] [a] See Survey of Down, J. Dobourdieu, Appendix, p. 277.' Macalister/1949, 121: `[Dubordieu's] copy is here reproduced from a tracing. It obviously begins OROIT AR E.. and ends AC (not, I think, AT); but the intervening monogram cannot be resolved with certainty. The first letter may be d or e; the next h or n; whether there is or is not an intermediate letter, or whether all the component strokes are to be adopted or rejected (as we must reject the horizontal stroke between R and O in OROIT, and some of the appendages of the R of AR) -- these are now questions that could be answered only by reference to the now unavailable original'. CISP: Although confused the inscription is clearly in Insular half-uncial with the 'OC' form of A, uncial E and the typical half-uncial T. |
Legibility: | n/a CISP: Only known from a drawing which is not entirely legible. Macalister/1949, 121: `already [when Dubordieu was writing] part of the surface had peeled off, and after the final letter of his copy he has a note, `here the letters are destroyed''. |
Lines: | 1 |
Carving errors: | 0 |
Doubtful: | no |