Provenance
Discovery: The ogham was first published in 1904 in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (Anderson 1904, 534). The stone was found by John Nicholson in 1903 in the interior face of the wall of an old byre and was taken to the National Antiquities Museum in 1905 (Forsyth 1996, 360).
Findspot: Latheron, Sutherland, Scotland (National Grid Reference: ND 1981 3315)
Current repository: Scotland National Museums of Scotland (inv. no. IB183)
Last recorded location(s): Observed in the National Antiquities Scotland on June 17th 2022.
Support
Trove 8144
Object type: Cross-slab
Material: Sandstone
Dimensions: H 0.90 × W 0.43 × D 0.10 m
Decoration: The cross-slab is carved on one face with, one above the other, the lower part of a cross in relief, an incised bird and fish, and two incised horsemen. The upper section of the cross is decorated with a spiral ornament arranged in C-shaped scrolls placed back to back, the lower and narrower section is decorated with interlace.
Condition: The carving is worn but generally clear. Only the left edge of the stone is intact, all the others are fractured and portions of unknown length have therefore been lost from both the top and the bottom. The right edge is seriously damaged. The inscription is rather worn towards the top and the upper fracture occurs part way through a letter and, from the extant text, it seems likely that the inscription continued a little longer.
Inscription
Text field: The ogham inscription is incised vertically up the left-hand side on an incised stem-line. The stem runs the entire length of the extant portion of the slab, wavering a little to accommodate protruding elements of the design. Rather than running up the raised border, the inscription runs parallel with it on the sunken background to the cross. About 300mm of stem is visible before the break in the stone. It is not clear whether any letters have been lost from the beginning of the inscription. There is ample space before the first stroke in the inscripition which confirms that the break in the stone did not occur mid-letter. The angle of the consonants and the orientation of the hammerhead A confirm that the inscription is to be read from the bottom up.
Letters: The ogham inscription appears to have been chiselled. The letters are well-spaced and component strokes are mostly of equal length and are generally evenly spaced; however, between letters there is considerable difference between the more generously spaced and the more cramped. Vowels consist of long strokes occupying the whole width of the ogham band. The extant inscription contains two supplementary letters, a hammerhead A and S-shaped A.
Date: Ninth century
Edition
Transcription: [---]Ḅ DUṆNODNNAT MAQQ NA[.]TỤ[---]
Critical apparatus:
- The Latheron ogham text is unique in using a forfid, the S-shaped A, within MAQQ. 2. Macalister (1940, 206-207) read: DUNNODNATMAQQNETU(or)-
Translation
Dunodnat son of Na…?
Commentary
While the names of the inscription remain debatable, it seems the text follows the formula of ‘X MAQQ Y’ (Forsyth 1996, 372). At the beginning of the inscription, the first element of DUNNODNNAT, the Irish dún meaning ‘high place, fort’ was a common element in compound male personal names. Latheron’s Dunod- may be compared with Dúnadach (Dúnad + the adjectival ending -ach), which means ‘one who leads on campaigns’. Another possibility is that DUNNOD- could be a form of Irish DUNAIDONAS which is a compound of *Duna and aidonas, meaning ‘fiery’. The last element, -NNAT, could be the Irish diminutive suffix -nat/-nait, commonly used to form a female version of a male personal name.
The ogham appears contemporary to the rest of the carving and, as Forsyth (1996, 373) suggests, therefore likely refers to the patron or honorand of the cross, or less likely the craftsman.
References
- Anderson 1904-11-30, 534-538
- Forsyth 1996, 360-373
- Macalister and Ryan 1940, 206-207