Provenance
Discovery: Identified by Macalister in 1906 on the edge of a tall needle-like pillar in the N half of a graveyard (CO122-075003-) in an early ecclesiastical enclosure (CO122-075001-) (Macalister 1906, 260; Power et al. 1992, no. 1041).
Findspot: Templebryan North (Teampall Brianaid Thuaidh), Co. Cork, Ireland (ITM Coordinates: 538701, 543959)
Last recorded location(s): In situ. Visited and recorded using photogrammetry by Simon Dowling in 2017.
Support
National Monuments Service SMR ID: CO122-075004-
Object type: Cross-carved pillar
Dimensions: H 3.35 × W 0.36 × D 0.30 m
Decoration: There is a faint outline of a small incised cross with expanded terminals on the W face (Archaeological Survey of Ireland, Field Report).
Condition: The pillar is very weathered and the inscription no longer traceable. Packing stones are exposed around the denuded base (Power et al. 1992, no. 1041). Macalister (1945, 79-80) noted that ‘both cross and inscription are so low down on the stone that they have almost certainly been added to a pre-existing bronze-age megalith’.
Inscription
Text field: The ogham inscription was recorded as reading up on the NW edge of the stone, to the left of the cross.
Letters: Macalister (1945, 79) described the strokes of the inscription as ‘very minute’, which suggests that they were scored in the ‘Cork style’ rather than pocked.
Edition
Ogham text: ᚐ̣ᚅ̣ᚋ̣ ᚈᚓᚅᚐᚄ ᚋᚐᚉᚔ ᚃ[---
Transcription: ANM TENAS MACI V[---]
Critical apparatus:
- Macalister (1945, 80) noted that the ‘ANM is badly worn’ and that after the V ‘the inscribed surface is so battered and weathered that no letters could be expected to survive. VIR … is possible, but could not be insisted upon’.
Text constituted from: Transcription from previous editor.
References
- Macalister 1906, 260
- Macalister 1945, 79-80, no. 76
- Power, Byrne, Egan, Lane, and Sleeman 1992, no. 1041