| Corpus Refs: | Davies/etal/2000:F3 |
| Site: | PLOIN |
| Discovery: | first mentioned, 1640 Le Grand, A. |
| History: | Davies et al/2000, 121--122: `Three inscribed stones, all now lost, are recorded as having stood in the mid-17th century in the vicinity of the parish church of Plourin. They were described and illustrated in 1640 by Albert Le Grand in his work on the Life of the patron saint of the parish, St Budoc. Le Grand knew of four inscriptions in the vicinity of Plourin -- three within the parish and a fourth in the neighbouring parish of Landunvez [LDVEZ/1] -- all of which he thought had been erected soon after the arrival of St Budoc. He stated that the stones were still standing in his day and illustrated each one with an engraving after a sketch made by the local seigneur, the Baron de Kergroadès. (LeGrand/1640, 83--84). There is an independent check on the accuracy of the engravings reproduced by Le Grand: in the original manuscript version of Dom Le Pelletier's Dictionnaire de la langue bretonne there are autograph sketches of two early inscriptions, one of which had previously been drawn by Kergroadès. Le Pelletier was interested in these inscriptions for the light they threw on the supposed special alphabet of the ancient Bretons and, inspired by what he had read in Le Grand's work, had gone to Plourin in search of them some time before 1712. By then, however, only one [PLOIN/3] was still in place, the others having already disappeared. Miorcec de Kerdanet referred to the Plourin inscriptions in a note in his 1837 re-edition of Le Grand's Vies des saints de la Bretagne, without giving details. More than a century later Le Menn published first Le Pelletier's account and then Le Grand's. Le Menn reproduced and transcribed the relevant texts and illustrations and Gildas Bernier proposed readings based on the various sketches, along with his own linguistic commentary' (LeMenn/1981a, LeMenn/1981b). The site was visited by members of the CISP team in May 1997 and October 1998. |
| Geology: | Davies et al/2000, 122: `granite'. |
| Dimensions: | 2.72 x 0.8 x 0.5 (Davies/etal/2000) |
| Setting: | Lost (present 1640, missing 1712) |
| Location: | Davies et al/2000, 121--122, state that the stone was lost between 1640, when Albert Le Grand saw it, and 1712 when Le Pelletier could not find it. |
| Form: | megalith Davies et al/2000, 122: `Le Grand...recorded it as an eight-sided pillar of granite, standing 8½ [Breton] feet tall (about 272cm), with a width of 2½ feet at its base (80cm), tapering to 20 inches at the top (53.3cm). The eight sides comprised four broad faces interspersed with four narrow faces, which were only half as wide. From the sketch by Kergroadès, the top of the pillar appears to have been convex. He depicts four short parallel lines running from front to back; these may represent some kind of socket, or the other faces, but might simply be intended to suggest perspective. The stone appears to have been a re-used Iron-Age stele of the rectangular type, with chamfered angles'. |
| Condition: | n/a , n/a |
| Folklore: | none |
| Crosses: | none |
| Decorations: | no other decoration |
| Davies, W. et al. (1999): | HIC | IACENT | [--] | [--] | ADIV | NIFT{I} | HI VNA~ | FIL{I} | IV{S}TI Expansion: HIC IACENT [N ET] ADIUNI FRATRI HIC UNA FILI IUSTI Translation: Here lie the brothers [N and] Adiunus (PN). Here together (lie) the sons of Iustus (PN). Davies/etal/2000 124 reading only |
| Orientation: | horizontal |
| Position: | n/a ; broad ; n/a ; undecorated |
| Incision: | inc |
| Date: | 800 - 1099 (Davies/etal/2000) Davies et al/2000, 126: `In spite of the slightly contradictory indications of the letter forms a date within the 9th to 11th centuries appears the most likely period for carving the inscription'. |
| Language: | Latin (rcaps) |
| Ling. Notes: | Davies et al/2000, 125: `The Latin of this inscription is poor, reading f(ra)t(r)i for fratres (`brothers') and inserting an unnecessary contraction mark after una (the adverb, `together'); fratri for fratres is paralleled at least once ... Hi(c) is also attested elsewhere'. |
| Palaeography: | Davies et al/2000, 124--125: `The lettering is largely capitals with two minuscule Hs and one possible minuscule D, although this could also have been a backwards D such as found at Louannec [LOUAN/1]. The Is have bifid terminals, while the Hs have ascenders that curve to the right. This H is unknown in France and the Rhineland, but is known in Cornwall and Ireland...None of these parallels can be closely dated, in spite of some attempt to do so...but they are likely to date within the 8th to 11th centuries. Final I in lines 6 and 8, if this be a correct interpretation, is horizontal; however, since the symbol used is very similar to the horizontal stroke used in lines 2 and 3, it could denote unreadable letters rather than the letter I. The horizontal I is elsewhere confined to 5th- to 7th-century south-west Britain, Wales, and the Isle of Man, and its possible use here in lines 6 and 8 would be the only example from the Breton corpus. Other letters of note are the angle-bar A, retrograde S, N with an oblique stroke which joins the uprights medially, and the rare J-shaped I. The best dating criterion for this stone is the contraction mark. This mark began to be used in the 9th century and continued in use until at least the late 13th century. The use of the horizontal I, if such it be, along with the retrograde S, cannot outweigh the parallels for the Hs and the contraction mark, while both hic iacent and angle-bar A were in continuous use in France from the 5th until the 13th century, and thus cannot rule out a later date'. |
| Legibility: | n/a |
| Lines: | 9 |
| Carving errors: | 0 |
| Doubtful: | no |