Provenance
Discovery: According to Lhuyd (1910, 85), the stone was found in a garden at Pentry Goch garreg in Dyvynog, Brecknock parish and had previously belonged to an old chapel known as Cappel u fynwent. Nash-Williams (1950, 69) proposed that the Goch Garreg mentioned by Lhuyd might be ‘on the W. outskirts of Crai’. Macalister (1945, 318) was the first to provide a reading of the inscription in 1945, although his reading was based on Lhuyd’s published account of the stone in 1910.
Findspot: Llywel, Brecknockshire (Brycheiniog), Wales (National Grid Reference: ?SN 877 235 approximate)
Last recorded location(s): The stone is now lost. The only details we have of the stone are from the note, letter and drawing by Edward Lhuyd in 1698 and the published account in 1910.
Support
CPAT Regional Historic Environment Record (PRN): 19395
Object type: Pillar
Material: Stone type unknown
Dimensions: H 3.15 × W 0.45 × D lost m
Condition: According to Redknap and Lewis (2007, 233), the ogham inscription, as depicted by Lhuyd, is ‘indecipherable’. Unfortunately, there is insufficient evidence to support a more detailed discussion on the condition of the stone or the inscriptions.
Inscription
Text field: There is an ogham inscription (1) which starts at the stone’s bottom-left edge and reads vertically upwards. The stone is also inscribed with a roman-letter inscription (2) in four lines. The lines are understood to read vertically downwards but with the two top lines read together before the bottom two lines. The layout of the roman-letter inscription is irregular and there is no apparent writing line (Redknap and Lewis 2007, 233-235).
Letters: The letters in the ogham inscription are widely spaced. The roman-letter inscription is ‘transcribed as light roman capitals with ligaturing’ (Redknap and Lewis 2007, 235). The execution of the ogham and roman-letter inscriptions cannot be further discerned as the inscriptions survive only in a drawing (Redknap and Lewis 2007, 233-235).
Date: Fifth or early sixth century A.D. (linguistic)
Edition
Ogham text: ᚄ[---
Transcription: S[---]N[---]N[---]N
Critical apparatus:
- Redknap and Lewis (2007, 233-235) note that the rendering of the ogham script ‘appears to be schematic only, so that it may have corresponded to the roman script’. Consequently, it is uncertain how the wide spacing of the characters on the drawing should be interpreted. Additionally, Macalister (1945, 318) read two further initial letters, BM, before the S in the ogham inscription but these are not visible in the drawing. Macalister (1945, 318) also maintained that there seemed to be a FILIVS in the roman-letter inscription but it was ‘perverted in Lhuyd’s copy, where the F appears as R’. 2. Macalister (1945, 318) read: Ogham: BM(?)-S-N-N-N; Roman: CANNTIANI ET I PAE FILIVS MACCVTRENI HIC IACIT
Translation
Ogham: No translation
Roman: of Canntianus and of his father Maccu-Treni. They lie here.
Commentary
Sims-Williams (Redknap and Lewis 2007, 235) notes that ‘CANNTIANI is the genitive of the name Cantanius, which is attested on the Continent as a common name and as the name of a martyr of Aquileia praised by Venantius Fortunatus. It is presumably a Latin derivative of the name Cantius, ultimately from the Celtic name-element *kant-. The father’s name, MACVTRENI, is the Irish personal name Maccu-Treni and recurs at Llywel (Pentre Poeth) 1 (B42), MAQITRENI / [M]ACCVTRENI’. The inscriptions could be referring to the same person but this is uncertain since the name was apparently popular in Britain and Ireland.
Additionally, the second name-element of MACVTRENI is probably not from the OI tren, meaning ‘strong’, since it also appears with a diphthong as Trian- in Old Irish names, whereas tren never does or should. Consequently, this points to a preform *treino- which is unrelated to tren but may be related with Welsh trwyn in the name Cyndrwyn (Redknap and Lewis 2007, 235).
References
- Lhuyd 1910, 85
- Macalister 1945, 318, no. 329
- Redknap and Lewis 2007, 233-235