Newton Stone

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Newton Stone
Newton Stone Aberdeenshire Newton House.jpg
Country: Scotland
Region: Aberdeen
City/Village:Originally Old Rayne, currently Culsalmond,
Produced:6-7th Century [1]
Dimensions:203cm High, 50cm Wide, 26cm Thick
Ogham letters:
᚛ᚔᚇᚇᚐᚏᚏᚅᚅᚅᚃᚑᚏᚏᚓᚅᚅᚔᚔᚑᚄᚔᚑᚄᚏᚏ᚜, many readings suggested
Text - Native:
IDDARRNNNVORRENNI(I/R)OS(I/R)OSRR, many readings suggested
Other resources:

Newton Stone is an early medieval stone with two inscriptions on it: one ogham and one in "unknown script". The stone was discovered in 1803 by the 4th Earl of Aberdeen George Hamilton-Gordon in Pitmachie Farm around Old Rayne. Later, local Scottish antiquarian Alexander Gordon relocated the stone into the garden of Newton House in Culsalmond.

Contents

The Newton Stone is one of two stones; the symbols etched into the second are distinctly Pictish. They show a serpent and a Z-rod alongside a double disc, which can be seen on other Pictish stones around Scotland. [2] The Newton Stone has four carvings: the six-line inscription on the face of the stone, the ogham inscription with a recently observed incised mirror symbol on a flat facet near the side base, and a spiral near the base of the back. Canmore ID of the stone is 18086. [3]

Ogham inscription

The ogham inscription has 25 letters and fol-lows a natural ridge on the left side of the stone, curving upwards at the bottom along an added stemline. Skene (1865) [4] was one of the first scholars to suggest transcription of the ogham, he read it as UDDDAROTNUNNGORRMAONNEAGEJOSAEI. He stated that ogham consists of "mixed Gaelic and Welsh forms", though did not claim it was Pictish. Skene also thought that the place date of the stone was around 891 AD.

Browne (1921) interpreted inscription as AIDDAIFORTRENNIQNNNUAIOSII, and translated it as "The memorial stone of ? Aed, King or Ruler of Fortren, of the race of ?IOS". [5]

Kelly Kilpatrick (2021) [6] propounds reading IDDARRNNNVORRENNI(I/R)OS(I/R)OSRR, as well as mentioning 16 other interpretations of inscription proposed. She suggests that the first part of inscription, "IDDARRNN", can be a Pictish name, similar to what we find on Brodie and Scoonie stones - "EDDARRNONN" (possibly from Latin "aeternus" or Proto-Celtic "īsarnom"). [7] [8] The term "VORRENN", she derives from Proto-Celtic *ufor- ("on", "over"). Kilpatrick also says that "The Newton Stone may have been a memorial stone", considering its location and translations of scholars, and claims that the stone most likely is of Pictish origin. Forsyth (1996) [9] compares this term to the Irish name Forann, and the last "IOSRR" she compares with the Irish name Ross.

Unknown script

Two stones in the garden of the Newton House Newton-House Stones.jpg
Two stones in the garden of the Newton House

The stone has an inscription written in an unknown alphabetic script consisting of 43 symbols across the top front, and has attracted scholars for the last two centuries, also due to the swastika symbol in the 4th row, which can be possibly compared to the letter x in Latin alphabet. The letters on the Newton alphabetic inscription are most similar to Late Antique informal writing found on media such as wax tablets, lead curse tablets and ceramics. The existence of the stone also implies that some people in early Pictish Aberdeenshire had knowledge of writing using an informal, stylus-based Latin-letter script. Numerous theories about the script's meaning and language have been suggested. Mill (1863) suggested a Phoenician origin of the inscription, [10] Graves (1885) proposed Greek and Latin, [11] Moore (1865) considered script written in Hebrew and Sanskrit, [12] though many scholars agree that this is a "debased Roman cursive" [13] [14] [9] [15] The unknown script is also often compared to the glosses from Codex Usserianus Primus and Springmount Bog Tablets. Kilptatrick [6] suggested reading of the script as:

In 1907 William Bannerman read the text as: [16]

He stated that the text of the script is unambiguously written in Old Gaelic, but had similar vocabulary and syntax to Latin. He also said that "MAOLOUOEG" is referred to Saint Moluag, Scottish missionary from 6th century. The "LOAOARUIN" here, according to Bannerman, is connected to the modern Firth of Lorn in Western Scotland.

Moore interpreted the script through modern Hebrew as:

Tomezzoli and Serafimov (2015) [17] saw the incriptions as "FITF FUNTNT-G- CIGOLOUOTE U- - - IEZIKI F–SSI LOMOG-UT", mostly interpreting it through phoenician and sarmatian alphabets, suggesting that the writer was influence by Iazyge culture. They translated the inscription as "Know you, who are outsider (from outside), the great power and the Iazyges belong to the Speaking one (God)". They suggested that swastika sign could mean solar concept or be the sign of the royal power.

Some scholars [18] [19] also showed skepticism, saying that the unknown script is a modern forgery. Gordon, on other hand, claimed that the carving technique of the stone is typical to Pictish Class I symbol stones, and "There is therefore no reason to regard the Newton alphabetic inscription as a forgery on technical grounds". [20]

References

  1. ↑ Kilpatrick, Kelly (30 November 2021). "The Newton Stones and writing in Pictland, part 1: location, landscape, and historical background" . journals.socantscot.org. 150. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland: 7–22. doi:10.9750/PSAS.150.1285.
  2. ↑ Abreu, Kristine De (2024-03-23). "Exploration Mysteries: Newton Stone » Explorersweb". Explorersweb. Retrieved 2025-04-06.
  3. ↑ "Newton House, The Newton Stone | Canmore". canmore.org.uk. Retrieved 2025-04-06.
  4. ↑ Skene, William F. (1865-11-30). "Notes on the Ogham Inscription on the Newton Stone". Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. 5: 289–298. doi:10.9750/PSAS.005.289.298. ISSN   2056-743X.
  5. ↑ Browne, G. F. (George Forrest) (1921). On some antiquities in the neighbourhood of Dunecht house, Aberdeenshire. University of California Libraries. Cambridge : The University press.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
  6. 1 2 Kilpatrick, Kelly (2021). "The Newton Stones and writing in Pictland, part 2: the Newton Stone ogham, Pictish Latin-letter alphabetic inscription and the Pictish symbol system" . journals.socantscot.org. 150: 407–434. doi:10.9750/PSAS.150.1322.
  7. ↑ von Sabelfeld, Leon Alexander (January 2024). "Pictish Language The Mysterious Ogham Inscriptions of Scotland". academia.edu.
  8. ↑ Rhys, Guto. "Approaching the Pictish language: historiography, early evidence and the question of Pritenic" (PDF).
  9. 1 2 Forsyth, Katherine. "Language in Pictland: spoken and written" (PDF).
  10. ↑ Mill, W H 1863 'Decipherment of the Phoenician inscription on the Newton Stone, Aberdeenshire'
  11. ↑ Graves, Charles (1886). "An Attempt to Decipher and Explain the Inscriptions on the Newton Stone". Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. 20: 298–313. doi:10.9750/PSAS.020.298.313.
  12. ↑ Moore, George (1865). "Ancient pillar stones of Scotland; their significance and bearing on ethnology".
  13. ↑ Stokes, W 1892 ‘On the Newton Stone’
  14. ↑ Brash, R R 1872–4 ‘Remarks on the Ogham Inscription of the Newton Pillar-Stone’
  15. ↑ Simpson, W D 1943 The Province of Mar, Being the Rhind Lectures in Archaeology
  16. ↑ Bannerman, William (December 9, 1907). "The Newton Stone. A Critical Examination and Translation of Its Main Inscription". Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. 42: 56–63. doi:10.9750/PSAS.042.56.63.
  17. ↑ Serafimov, Pavel; Tomezzoli, Giancarlo (2015). "The Stones of Newton (Scotland)" (PDF).
  18. ↑ Stewart Macalister, Robert Alexander (1935). "The Newton Stone" . Antiquity. 9 (36): 389–398. doi:10.1017/S0003598X00010863.
  19. ↑ The Problem of the Picts: 129-60, Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd., Edinburgh, 1955
  20. ↑ C. A., Gordon (1956). "Carving Technique on the Symbol Stones of North-east Scotland". Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. 88: 40–46. doi:10.9750/PSAS.088.40.46.
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