Provenance
Discovery: The stone was found by J R Allen in 1875 and reused as a gatepost beside the road on the east side of Treffgarne Gorge.
Findspot: St Dogwells, Pembrokeshire, Wales (National Grid Reference: SM 964 242)
Last recorded location(s): At St Dogwell’s Church, standing in the churchyard against the west boundary wall.
Support
Monument Dyfed Archaeological Trust Historic Environment Record: 2404 Little Trefgarn (Treffgarne) Farm
Object type: Pillar
Material: Dacite lava
Dimensions: H 1.93 × W 0.51 × D 0.23 m
Inscription
Text field: The ogham inscription is located along a ridge on the face of the stone and reads vertically upwards. Part-way down the pillar on the left side is an incised roman-letter, Latin inscription in two lines, reading vertically downwards. The ogham inscription is to the right of the roman inscription (Edwards 2007, 473).
Letters: The ogham inscription is chiselled. Macalister (1945, 428) described the ogham inscription as cut and the roman-letters as ‘pocked and rubbed’ and consists of small capitals (Edwards 2007, 473).
Date: End of the fifth or first half of the sixth century A.D. (linguistic)
Edition
Ogham text: ᚑᚌᚈᚓᚅᚐ̣ᚄ̣
Transcription: OGTENẠṢ
Critical apparatus:
- Linguistically, the most likely reading of the ogham inscription is OGTENAS: ‘a notch for the A is just visible and the final four strokes of the inscription could be interpreted as an S. If this is correct, the inscription is simply the name of the deceased in the genitive case’ (Rhys 1918, 189) suggested that ‘GT is an unusual variant spelling of Irish cht, as in QAGTE or QEGTE… In that case OGT- may be the stem seen in OI Ochtach, Ochtbran, etc.’ (Edwards 2007, 473). 2. ‘The Latin inscription consists of the “X son of Y” formula in the genitive case. In the past the first name has been consistently read as HOGTIVIS, which visually appears the most likely. However, it has recently been suggested that, in order to match the ogham inscription, it should be read HOGTINIS (McManus 1991, 65), the N being reversed and ligatured with the following I… It is also possible that HOGTIVIS was written by mistake for HOGTINIS. The patronym DEMETI may refer in some way to the kingdom of Dyfed (Thomas 1994, 76)’ (Edwards 2007, 473).
Translation
Ogham: of Ogtenas
References
- Edwards 2007, 471-474
- Macalister 1945, 427-428
- McManus 1991, 65
- Thomas 1994, 76
- Rhys 1918, 189