SFORD/1

Corpus Refs:Macalister/1949:955
Petrie/1878:79
Site:SFORD
Discovery:first mentioned, 1802 Dubourdieu, J.
History:Hamlin/2001, 57: `This stone is also lost, or rather destroyed, and all later accounts are based on a description and rubbing published by Dubourdieu in 1802. By then the stone was used for pounding whins (furze) and the inscription was already `much defaced'. The stone had come from a destroyed souterrain ('cave') in a rath near Seaforde'.

Macalister/1949, 121: `This was a slab built into the end of a souterrain...of which the only record is Dubordieu's...which, however, he gives from heresay, as the souterrain was destroyed before he saw it....when Dubordieu saw it, [the stone] had been taken to a farm and used as a trough for pounding furze -- greatly to the detriment of the inscription'.

Geology:
Dimensions:0.76 x 0.46 x 0.0 (converted from Macalister/1949)
Setting:Lost (present 1772, missing 1949)
Location:Macalister/1949, 121, states that the stone had not been seen since it was recorded.
Hamlin/2001, 57: 'lost'.
Form:Indeterminate
Macalister/1949, 121: `The slab was about 2 1/2' by or nearly 1 1/2' broad'.
Condition:n/a , n/a
Macalister/1949, 121, makes clear that the stone had suffered significant damage due to its use `as a trough for pounding furze'.
Folklore:none
Crosses:none
Decorations:no other decoration

References


Inscriptions


SFORD/1/1

Readings

Petrie, G. (1878):OROIT AR A[--
Expansion:
OROIT AR A[--
Translation:
Pray for A[--].
Petrie/1878 72 & Plate XXXVIII, 79 reading only
Macalister, R.A.S. (1949):OROIT AR E[--]AC
Expansion:
OROIT AR E[--]AC
Macalister/1949 121--122 reading only
Hamlin, A. (2001):OROIT AR E[..]AC[--
Expansion:
OROIT AR E[..]AC[--
Hamlin/2001 57 reading only

Notes

Orientation:Indeterminate
Position:ind ; ind ; n/a ; undecorated
Incision:ind
Macalister/1949, 121: `This, he remarks, appeared as though it had been scraped with a sharp point, not cut with a chisel'.
Date:None published
Language:Goidelic (rbook)
Ling. Notes:none
Palaeography:Petrie/1878, 72: `It is impossible to decipher the name in the inscription, which is copied from an illustration in Dubourdieu's Statistical Survey of Down, p. 278, published in the year 1772.[a]

[a] See Survey of Down, J. Dobourdieu, Appendix, p. 277.'

Macalister/1949, 121: `[Dubordieu's] copy is here reproduced from a tracing. It obviously begins OROIT AR E.. and ends AC (not, I think, AT); but the intervening monogram cannot be resolved with certainty. The first letter may be d or e; the next h or n; whether there is or is not an intermediate letter, or whether all the component strokes are to be adopted or rejected (as we must reject the horizontal stroke between R and O in OROIT, and some of the appendages of the R of AR) -- these are now questions that could be answered only by reference to the now unavailable original'.

CISP: Although confused the inscription is clearly in Insular half-uncial with the 'OC' form of A, uncial E and the typical half-uncial T.

Legibility:n/a
CISP: Only known from a drawing which is not entirely legible.

Macalister/1949, 121: `already [when Dubordieu was writing] part of the surface had peeled off, and after the final letter of his copy he has a note, `here the letters are destroyed''.

Lines:1
Carving errors:0
Doubtful:no

Names

References