WHEN I first saw this "unknown" script of the central inscription on the Newton Stone many years ago, in the plates of Dr. Stuart's classic "Sculptured Stones of Scotland," I formed the opinion that that learned archaeologist was right in his surmise that the writing was possibly in "an eastern alphabet." I further recognized that it was presumably a form of the early Phoenician script, cognate with what I had been accustomed to in the Aryan Pall script of India of the third and fourth century B.C.; and I thought it might be what I had come to call "Aryan Phoenician," which it now proves to be.
At that time, however, I did riot feel sufficiently equipped to tackle the decipherment of this inscription in detail. But having latterly devoted an entire time for many years past to the comparative study at first hand of the ancient scripts and historical documents of the Hitt-ites, Sumerians, Akkads, AEgeans and Phoenicians, and the Aramaic, Gothic Runes and Ogams, I took up again the Newton Stone inscriptions for detailed examination. some time ago. And I found that the "unknown" script therein was clearly what I term "Aryan Phoenician," that is true Phoenician, and its language Aryan Phoenician of the Early Briton of Early Gothic type.
By this time, I had observed that the early inscriptions of the Phoenicians were written in Aryan language, Aryan script, and in the Aryan direction, that is towards the right
26
hand. The so-called "Semitic Phoenician" writing, on the other hand, with reversed letters, and in the reversed or left-hand direction, and dating mostly to a relatively late period, was, I observed, written presumably by the ruling Aryan Phoenicians for the information of their Semitic subjects at their various settlements; and by some of these Phoenicianized Semitic subjects or allies helping themselves to and reversing the Phoenician letters. It was obviously parallel to what we find in India in the third century B.C., where the great Aryan emperor of India, Asoka, writes his Buddhist edicts in reversed letters and in reversed or "Semitic" direction, when carving them on the rocks on his northwestern frontier in districts inhabited by Semitic tribes; yet no one on this account has suggested or could suggest that Asoka was a Semite.
By this time also, I had recognized that the various ancient scripts found at or near the old settlements of the Phoenicians, and arbitrarily differentiated by classifying philologists variously as Cyprian, Karian, Aramaic or Syrian, Lykian, Lydian, Korinthian, Ionian, Cretan or "Minoan," Pelasgian, Phrygian, Cappadocian, Cilician, Theban, Libyan, Celto-Iberian, Gothic Runes, etc., were all really local variations of the standard Aryan Hitto-Sumerian writing of the Aryan Phoenician mariners, those ancient pioneer spreaders of the Hitt-ite Civilization along the shores of the Mediterranean and out beyond the Pillars of Hercules to the British Isles.
In tackling afresh the decipherment of the Newton Stone inscriptions, in view of the hopelessly conflicting tangle that had resulted from the mutually conflicting attempts of previous writers, which proved a hindrance rather than a help to decipherment, I wiped all the previous attempts off the board and started anew with a clean slate and open mind.
The material and other sources for my scrutiny of these Newton Stone inscriptions have been a minute personal examination of these inscriptions on the spot, the comparative study of a large series of photographs of the stone by myself and others, including the published
photographs and eye-copies by previous writers, and the careful lithographs by Stuart from squeeze-impressions and photographs.
In constructing the accompanying eye-copy of the uniquely important central inscription, here given (Fig. 6), I scrupulously compared all available photographs from different points of view, for no one photograph can cover and focus all the details of these letters owing to the great unevenness and sinuosities of the inscribed surface of this rough boulder-stone. It will be seen that my eye-copy of this script differs in some minute but important details from those of Stuart and Lord Southesk, the most accurate of the copies previously published.
In my decipherment of this central script I derived especial assistance from the Cilician, Cyprian and "Iberian" scripts and the Indian Pali of the third and fourth centuries B.C. and Gothic runes, which were closely allied in several respects; and Canon Taylor's and Prof. Petrie's classic works on the alphabet also proved helpful.
So obviously Aryan Phoenician was the type of the letters in this central script, when I now took it up for detailed examination, that, in dealing with the two scripts, I took up the central one in this "unknown" script first, that is in the reverse order to that adopted in all previous attempts. I found that it was Aryan Phoenician script of the kind ordinarily written with a pen and ink on skin and parchment, such, as we are told by Herodotus, was the chief medium of writing used by the early inhabitants of Asia Minor; and the perishable nature of such documents accounts for the loss of so much of the original literature of the Early Aryans both in Asia Minor and in Britain.
On deciphering in a few minutes most of the letters in this Phoenician script with more or less certainty, I then proceeded to decipher the Ogam version in the light of the Phoenician. I thereupon found that the strings of personal, ethnic and Place-names were substantially identical in both inscriptions, thus disclosing them to be really bi-lingual versions of the same.
This fortunate fact, that the inscriptions on the Newton
Stone are found to be bi-lingual versions of the same historical record, is of great practical importance for establishing the certainty of the decipherment; for a bi-lingual version always affords the surest clue to an "unknown" script. It was a bi-lingual (or rather a tri-lingual) inscription which provided the key to the Egyptian hieroglyphs in the famous Rosetta Stone. And the fact that the Ogam version of the Newton Stone inscriptions-the alphabetic value of the Ogam script being well known-agrees for the most part
FIG. 6.-Aryan Phoenician Inscription on Newton Stone.
(For transliteration into Roman letters and translation see p. 32.)
Note Swastika Cross in 4th line. The 2nd letter (z) should have its middle limb slightly sloped to left, see photo in Frontispiece.
literally, so far as it goes, with my independent reading of the "unknown" script is conclusive proof-positive for the certainty of my decipherment of the "unknown" script as Aryan Phoenician.
Here I give my transcription of the main or Aryan Phoenician inscription (see Fig. 6.).
It will be seen by comparing this script with its modern letter-values given in my transliteration into Roman (on
p. 32) that most of the corresponding Greek and Roman alphabetic letters, and their modern cursive writing, are obviously derived from this semi-cursive Phoenician writing or from its parent.
My reading of the Ogam version, in Fig. 7, also will be seen to differ
from that of Mr. Brash,1
A. As engraved on the stone. B. Arrangement of the letter-strokes as
now read with
their values in Roman letters. The 9th letter is read as A.
of similar strokes, the separate grouping of which formed a
different letter or letters in this cumbrous sacred alphabetic
script of the Irish Scots and Britons.2 It was the absence
of
any clue to this separation between many of the letter group-strokes, which led Mr. Brash to confess, after completing
1 Mr. Brash's final reading of this Ogam inscription was
(op. cit. 362):-
AIDDARCUNFEANFORRENNNEAI (or R) (S)IOSSAR
2 On the origin and solar meaning of this cumbrous "branched" form of
alphabet, see later.
his tentative transcription of the text into Roman characters, that the result was so unsatisfactory that he could make no sense of it, and so abstained from attempting any translation whatsoever. With the clue, however, now put into my hands by the Phoenician version, the doubtful letters in this Ogam version were soon resolved into substantially literal agreement with the Phoenician version.
The full reading of this Ogam inscription requires the introduction of the vowels; for the Ogam script, like the Aryan Phoenician, Semitic Phoenician and Hebrew, and the Aryan Pali and Sanskrit alphabets, does not express the short vowel a which is inherent as an affix in every consonant of the old Aryan alphabetic scripts.1
I now place here side by side my transcript-readings and translations
of the two versions of the inscription for comparison. And it will be
seen that both read substantially the same. The slight differences in
spelling of some of the names are due mainly to the poverty of the
Ogam alphabet, which lacks some of the letters of the Phoenician (e.g.
it has no K or Z, but uses Q or S instead); while the omission in
the Ogam version of three of the titles which occur in the Phoenician
was obviously owing to want of space; for the bulky Ogam script, even
when thus curtailed, overruns the face of the monument for a
considerable distance. The Phoenician script, it will be seen, like
the Aryan Pali and Sanskrit, does not express the short affixed a
inherent in the consonants, and, like them also, it writes the short i
and the medial r by attached strokes or "ligatures." In my
transliteration here, therefore, I have given the short inherent a in
small type, and the consonants and expressed vowels in capitals.
whilst the ligatured consonants (here only r) and ligatured vowels
(namely i and o) are also printed in small type, not capitals.
1 It will also be noted that the end portion of the Ogam inscription,
which is bent round over the face of the stone, is read from its right
border (i.e. in the reverse direction to the rest) with its lower
strokes towards the right border of the stone, so that when the curved
stem line is straightened out the lower strokes occupy the same lower
position as in the rest of the inscription.
Thus this bi-lingual inscription records that: "This Sun-Cross
(Swastika) was raised to Bil (or Bel, the God of Sun-Fire) by the
Kassi (or Cassi-bel[-an]) of Kast of the Siluyr (sub-clan) of the
"Khilani" (or Hittite-palace-dwellers), the Phoenician (named) Ikar of
Cilicia, the Prwt (or Prat, that is 'Barat' or 'Brihat' or
Brit-on)."
1 The second s in "Qass" is somewhat doubtful, as the 4th stroke in
the
series of 4 strokes under the stem-line which conventionally form the
letter s in Ogam script is doubtfully represented. If only 3 strokes
are present they spell "B(i)l," which would give "Qas-b(i)l" or "Qas-b(e)l"; but "Qass" is probably the proper reading, and in
series with the Kazzi of the Aryan Phoenician.
2 The third letter here
is read A, which latter sometimes has a form resembling this, though
different from the letter read A in second line, which is similar to
the A in the later Phoenician inscriptions.
3 The second detached
letter read W from its head strokes may possibly be A, and thus give
the form "Prat" instead of "Prwt."